The Methods of the Chinese Revolution

From reading the excerpts on pages 766 and 769 of the textbook, I get the impression that both situations are reflections of a greater theme of the Cultural Revolution- that of the tearing down of the old order (social hierarchy and history) in order to give the new order a place to grow and room to flourish. Although the situations (one about peasants overthrowing their leaders; the other about students destroying artifacts) appear on the surface to be distinctly unrelated, they share the same undercurrent mentioned above.

Indeed, it makes sense that the old order must go in order for the new to live. The old order of China was highly hierarchical in nature- a stark contrast from the one-for-all-and-all-for-one ideal of the Communism that was to take its place. In order for everyone to be equal, the leaders, the gentry, and the rest of the priveledged members of the old society would have to relinquish their advantages and step down to the level of everyone else.

Not only were the two situations about physically destroying the old order (peasants slapping the leaders, and the Red Guard smashing artifacts), but they were about changing the mental state of the people as well. As the textbook said in the first excerpt, "The blow jarred the ragged crowd. It was as if an electric spark had tensed every muscle. Not in living memory had any peasant ever struck an official.". The day after, the peasants were ready to go "press charges" and beat the official to a pulp. As they say, to win people, you have to win mind, body, and soul- all three of them.