What if the Cultural Revolution never happened?

(Piracy of intellectual property (music, software, etc.) and China's rise to become the next super power are 2 things that never would have happened in my opinion)


The effects of the Cultural Revolution are still impacting China
today. This is a collaborative effort that welcomes different viewpoints.
This alternative history focuses on the people, the economy, the
education and less on the political-military aspects.


I wrote this on storybubble because I wanted to use inline editing and build one article together. After our collaboration is complete, We should post the resulting work back on this thread.


http://www.storybubble.com/mobile/Article.aspx?SID=11&FromUID=106&Ext=true

- Steve
 
The higher education system would be in much better shape without the constant harassment of intellectuals accused of dallying with Western ideas and thinking.
 

OS fan

Banned
The tomb of Confucius never would have been destroyed. A shame what happened to this great man.
 
For one you would preserve alot of the local culture and less of the rampant ruthless materialism you see today.

I remember this story from history class about when Nixon visited China and that the communists did not have a proper etiquette for greeting important foreign figures, so they had to resort to the old imperial habit of a massive buffet & all the fluff for the visit.

Mao was wrong when he tried replacing culture with ideology. Actually he was a f***ing wrecking ball, invaluable Chinese culture and history was lost due to his intolerance. I don't care that he had his own ideas but I hate it that he decided to make the decision for everyone else by force. This is probably the second worse thing he has done over killing people, economic growth can wait but the culture and history cannot be replaced.

Would the rampant materialism still be around? Yeah absolutely after decades of rationing, but it would probably be lessened since there would be more cultural alternatives for a person to devote their time on.
 
Actually... a good or bad point, depending on one's ideology, may be a less bad image of communism-maoism. There would be the previous follies like the Great Leap, but thus nailed the coffin much..
 
Yeah, they say that if you want to learn about chinese culture, you have to go to Taiwan.

I agree, Mao messed up a great culture.
But in the article I posted, I mentioned that there were some good things (language, growth, education, etc.) that would have taken much longer without him.

Feel free to jump in.
fyi, it will ask you for your name and email before going to the article.
 
Yeah, they say that if you want to learn about chinese culture, you have to go to Taiwan.

I agree, Mao messed up a great culture.
But in the article I posted, I mentioned that there were some good things (language, growth, education, etc.) that would have taken much longer without him.

Feel free to jump in.
fyi, it will ask you for your name and email before going to the article.

The link is broken for me. I just get service unavailable.

However, I can't see how language, growth, or education were in any way helped by Mao, when the Cultural Revolution, in particular, was devoted to harassing and killing intellectuals including teachers, engineers, doctors, and scientists, as well as flushing a generation of young adults' potential down the toilet, all of which had an extremely negative impact on growth and education.
 
Mao had to launch the Cultural Revolution in order to stay in power, because his political position was based on ideological intimidation for the sake of power, or basically just scaring the shit out of anybody with thoughts other than "Chairman Mao is great". People tend to think that the Cultural Revolution was Mao gone wrong, but the truth is that he had been doing this kind of stuff ever since the Yan'an Rectification Movement, which was pretty much the prototype of the CR. Given the way Mao had to (or felt he had to) maintain power, something like it was bound to happen sooner or later.

To avoid the CR, you have to remove Mao, which can be done through a nice coup (a lot of Party officials were pissed with him after the famine) in the early 60s. China would stay nominally Communist, but not be so hell-bent on keeping the central economy like the Soviets, with whom they would have uneventful but neither good nor bad relations. Economically speaking, they'd probably all-in-all be about where they are now.
The real changes would be diplomatic and cultural. There would probably be less of a borderline nihilistic dog-eat-dog mentality, though other East Asians would probably still criticize them for their uncouth habits, which frankly arise in any poor but actively developing country. Culturally speaking we'd probably see the more overt retention of a lot of traditional creed, like the teachings of Laozi, Confucius, and various literary works. People would also be freer to philosophize or be interested in thinking, and we'd probably see a lot more original contemporary Chinese art. Less cliches of Chinese people being massive pirates.

However, I can't see how language, growth, or education were in any way helped by Mao, when the Cultural Revolution, in particular, was devoted to harassing and killing intellectuals including teachers, engineers, doctors, and scientists, as well as flushing a generation of young adults' potential down the toilet, all of which had an extremely negative impact on growth and education.
What are you talking about? The Quotations of Chairman Mao contains all the wisdom we could ever need to build a socialist world and defeat the reactionary paper tigers!
:D :p
 
How would no Cultural Revolution affect Chinese foreign affairs? How about an earlier rapprochement with America in the late Sixties? Could John F. Kennedy go to Beijing in 1967 following withdrawal of all US military personnel from Vietnam in 1965? Who knows?
 
LeoXiao,
Yes, I agree that Mao was the CR and vice versa.
It was in his best interest to keep everyone too scared to think about rebelling/thinking.


Zmflavious, LeoXiao, Arrowiv
I see the link is up now (see top of thread).
It would be great to get your input (via comments or modifications to the article) on what I have so far. For example, I'm interested to see if you follow my logic as to why piracy would not be a factor had there not been a CR. Although spectulative, I think its could be very true.
 

RousseauX

Donor
Ironically China might be less "Capitalist" today and more "Socialist" or at least have a far larger state sector. The speed of reforms towards free market economy were largely buoyed by the desire to move as far away from the cultural revolution as possible.
 

RousseauX

Donor
How would no Cultural Revolution affect Chinese foreign affairs? How about an earlier rapprochement with America in the late Sixties? Could John F. Kennedy go to Beijing in 1967 following withdrawal of all US military personnel from Vietnam in 1965? Who knows?
Probably not, in all likelihood China still tries for a few years to strike out on their own against both the US and the USSR before realizing the need to align with the US.
 
Yeah, they say that if you want to learn about chinese culture, you have to go to Taiwan.

I agree, Mao messed up a great culture.
But in the article I posted, I mentioned that there were some good things (language, growth, education, etc.) that would have taken much longer without him.

Feel free to jump in.
fyi, it will ask you for your name and email before going to the article.

Things have changed now, and the Chinese are far prouder (at least, to foreigners) of their ancient history. I briefly popped into an exhibition some Chinese students were holding about Chinese culture, and it had a variety of "typically Chinese" things to show off to gawping Westerners (statuettes of opera figures, calligraphy, tea ceremonies in plastic cups, books of ancient sayings, the works. Well, it was a university student ran thing, and I only stayed for a few minutes.)

One consequence could be that China has its own Khruschevite Revision. Mao would hate it, but power seems to have been shifting away from him and towards figures such as Liu Shaoqi. A consequence of this could be a China that more closely resembles the USSR. A more stable socialism-less bloodshed, but more corruption. There would also be less experience of popular protest- for a time the Red Guards had relative freedom of expression and to attack state institutions-so, perhaps, a weaker dissident movement could exist today without any experience to draw upon.
 
One consequence could be that China has its own Khruschevite Revision. Mao would hate it, but power seems to have been shifting away from him and towards figures such as Liu Shaoqi. A consequence of this could be a China that more closely resembles the USSR. A more stable socialism-less bloodshed, but more corruption. There would also be less experience of popular protest- for a time the Red Guards had relative freedom of expression and to attack state institutions-so, perhaps, a weaker dissident movement could exist today without any experience to draw upon.
Well, there would still be the memories of the Revolution itself, which could be seen as a massive popular protest against the Nationalist regime, especially as most people experienced it or had family / parents who did. In addition you have cultural memories of the ~1919 May Fourth Movement, the ~1925 May Thirtieth Movement, and other democratic-tinged dissenting. Not to mention that most Chinese probably had heard stories of citizens mobilizing against the "bad guys" (some external threat) going as far back to the Taiping Rebellion. I remember reading an anecdote in one of Jonathan Spence's works about some Chinese poet hearing stories from his grandfather about the Boxer rebellion, framing it as resistance against foreign encroachment.

Anyway, if there's a point in all this, I guess it's that there's plenty of cultural and historical experience to draw on, even if it might start off on shakier footing without practical experience from the Cultural Revolution and related upheavals...
 
Update: Here is what we have so far on storybubble for this article.

Feel free to help out
http://www.storybubble.com/mobile/Article/ReadStory.aspx?SID=11&FromUID=106


RousseauX, the answer to your question about how China would not have become a super power is discussed in this article. Your idea about how China's markets were slowed down was shared by someone else and I ended up voting for that version instead of my own because the logic made good sense.


What if the Cultural Revolution Never Happened?


Cover
cover.jpg

Summary

The effects of the Cultural Revolution are still impacting China today. This is a collaborative effort that invites all perspectives in order to create a more accurate result. This Alternative History focuses on the people, the economy, the education and less on the political-military aspects. After our collaboration is complete we will post the finished work back to the thread.​

Participants

Lefty, Lola, Jane and Steve Trevorson (published article on February 07, 2012)


Chapter 1 - The Economy

Part 1
Without the CR, the Chinese economy would be much worse off today. The problem with western policy making is that it takes so long. In China, this was not the case. They didn’t consider the best interests of the people, but of the nation. And its people supported that notion. This is also due to the one-party political system. There are no popular votes that need to be obtained, no safety standards that needs to adhered to. Everything is done in the name of national progress.

Part 1 Comments
Jane
Lol, the chinese goverment acknowledged the damage CR caused. The political system is much open and tranparent than before although it still has a long way to go
12 hours ago

Lefty
I do, however, agree with her conclusion.
18 hours ago

Lefty
If they read Jane's version in China---they may not let her back in!!!



Part 2
(Voted into story by Steve) [Jane:] Without CR, people would have pursued normal socialvalues, which is to improve their own economic status, rather than honoringpoverty. Because of the CR, China missed the opportunity to build a robusteconomy. (many countries developed their economies quickly after wars)Therefore, without CR, the chinese economy would have developed better and theeconomic gap between China and western world would be smaller.

Part 2 Comments
Steve Trevorson
Jane, I voted for your version because it considers the cost of what 'didn't happen' during the course of the CR. I was looking at it a little differently, but I also agree with this approach.
7 hours ago

Chapter 2 - Education and Arts


Part 1
Education (Voted into story by Steve) [Jane:] and arts were abig mess during CR. Schools was closed due to political fighting. All of the teachers, professors, experts were required to cleanse their "capitalism ideology". Young red guards could denounce and beat them in public. Many of them were tormented physically and mentally to disability or even death. The impact of CR on education had caused a sharp decline in the quality of education. The criteria of school admission depended on your family background (working/peasant classes) rather than academic achievement/motivation. It is estimated that during the decade of CR, the country had missed the opportunities to cultivate 100,000 graduate level students and 100 million undergraduates, which had caused a negative impact on the economy, society in a long-run.

Part 2
Art also had to tow the party line. Paintings, poems, music during the CR all had to reflect the sentiment of the communist rhetoric. This resulted in mainstream, non-provocative art. Not much to speak of. I feel this could be why in China, copying other’s work is not considered a bad thing, but a compliment. Firstly, the value of an individual’s work is not placed very high, so it doesn’t seem like a crime. Secondly, the communist party has told its people to do what their leaders do and they will be rewarded. So copying is a result of that attitude.

Part 3
Without the CR, independent thinking would have been valued much higher. Innovation that challenged the status quo would have been rewarded. There would have been the music and art, according to this alternate history, would have influenced other parts of the world. Also there would be laws protecting the works of individual’s creativity and innovation. Without the CR, I think that piracy issues in China would be non-existent today.

Chapter 3 - Nationalism and the treatment of fellow man

Part 1

The CR used all media platforms to propagate the love for the country. People united around a common goal, communism, and the fight against the west. Natural or brainwashed, it was a real feeling. Without the CR, China would be more like India today. It would be less unified in many ways. National highways would not have been built for decades later. Language would not have been standardized (maybe ever?). These 2 factors would have kept China more factionalized like small islands rather than one nation with a common set of values.
(A different version of the part above has been proposed by Jane, but has not been voted into the story)

Part 2
Cultural Revolution taught people to only trust their country, not their neighbors. It also killed off thousands of religious leaders, seen as threats to the communist belief system. People were rewarded for telling on a neighbor who had a little too much rice, even though it meant that neighbor may disappear forever. Today, there are many instances in China where people are dying in the street from an accident, and no one helps. As a remnant of the CR, little social moray remains which relates to the westerner’s “golden rule”. Without the CR, China would have had religions or other belief systems to instill values such as these.
 
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