Origins of the Cultural Revolution & Mao’s Cult of Personality

A revolution to renew communism and restore Mao’s authority

The Cultural Revolution lasted from 1966 to 1976. Mao Zedong launched it to renew China’s commitment to his version of communism and remove people he believed were undermining it. It was also a struggle over who should control the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). These ideological and personal motives were closely connected: Mao regarded challenges to his leadership as challenges to the revolution itself.

After the disastrous Great Leap Forward, Party leaders concentrated on economic recovery. More moderate leaders favoured practical solutions rather than further radical campaigns. Mao feared that this approach was weakening revolutionary commitment and reducing his own influence. He wanted to regain his dominant position and remove those he regarded as opponents, particularly Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping.

Mao believed that leading communists were conspiring against him. This belief helps explain his actions, but it should not be treated as proof that such a conspiracy existed.

Why Mao thought the revolution was in danger

Mao feared that capitalism could return even while the Communist Party remained in government. He condemned people who allowed practices such as private trade as revisionists: in his view, they were changing communist principles rather than defending them. Economic recovery measures could therefore look sensible to moderate leaders but dangerous to Mao.

He also worried that officials were becoming concerned with money, status and their own positions rather than serving the people. A privileged bureaucracy threatened his vision of a classless society. Removing these officials would, he believed, prevent the re-emergence of an unequal social hierarchy.

A further concern was the survival of traditional beliefs and behaviour. In 1962, Mao had promoted the Socialist Education Movement to combat what he saw as the return of feudal and capitalist influences in the countryside. The Cultural Revolution extended this effort. Its attack on the Four Olds — old ideas, old culture, old customs and old habits — aimed to make revolutionary change permanent by removing the influences that might reverse it.

Young people were central to this ambition. They had not experienced the earlier revolutionary struggle that had shaped Mao’s generation. Mao believed that taking part in a new struggle would turn them into committed revolutionaries. Mobilising youth also gave him a force with which to challenge established Party officials rather than relying on the Party organisation alone.

Building loyalty through propaganda

Propaganda seeks to influence what people believe and how they behave. Communist propaganda presented Mao’s leadership and ideas as the route to a strong, successful socialist China. It did not merely explain policies: it encouraged people to identify loyalty to communism with loyalty to Mao personally.

Mao had appeared prominently in propaganda before 1966, but his portrayal became much more intense during the Cultural Revolution. Lin Biao, a leading figure in the People’s Liberation Army, helped develop this personality cult with Mao’s consent. The army promoted itself as a school of Mao Zedong Thought and encouraged the study of his writings.

The Little Red Book, formally Quotations from Chairman Mao, was published in May 1964 for the armed forces. Its short quotations made Mao’s teachings portable and easy to repeat. It subsequently guided the behaviour of young activists, including the Red Guards. Studying and quoting Mao became ways of demonstrating political loyalty.

How art made Mao appear extraordinary

Propaganda portrayed Mao as a great teacher, military commander, wise leader and caring father. These different roles combined authority with reassurance: he appeared both superior to ordinary people and concerned for their welfare.

The artistic conventions reinforced this message. Mao was represented as red, bright and shining, with a smooth face painted in warm tones. His image could appear to radiate light or be surrounded by a halo. Red symbolised revolution and goodness, whereas black carried negative associations. Such imagery encouraged the idea that Mao was the source of guidance and hope, rather than an ordinary politician whose decisions could be questioned.

Workers, peasants and soldiers were also shown as strong, healthy and heroic. These idealised figures represented the society the government wanted to create and offered models of revolutionary behaviour. The model operas supported by Jiang Qing, Mao’s wife, similarly emphasised positive heroes and central revolutionary characters. Propaganda therefore operated through entertainment and culture as well as political slogans.

From political messages to everyday devotion

The personality cult entered people’s homes. Portraits, busts and statues made Mao a regular presence in domestic life. A portrait could occupy the place formerly used for a family altar, giving political loyalty an almost religious character.

Daily rituals included asking Mao for instructions in the morning, thanking him at noon and reporting back at night. Participants bowed, read quotations and wished him a long life. The ‘loyalty dance’, involving movements from the heart towards Mao’s portrait, turned devotion into a public performance.

These practices helped make loyalty visible and encouraged conformity. Not displaying Mao’s portrait could be interpreted as opposition to the revolution. People therefore faced pressure to demonstrate devotion, whether or not they privately believed every claim made about him.

How effective was the propaganda?

Propaganda helped Mao present attacks on his opponents as necessary acts of revolutionary loyalty. His authority was strengthened during the Cultural Revolution; Liu Shaoqi was removed, imprisoned and died in 1969. The cult made it harder to separate criticism of Mao from hostility towards communism.

Its impact was nevertheless more complicated than universal enthusiasm. Some people responded to the image of Mao as a caring leader, while others had strong reasons to conform publicly. Widespread portraits and rituals demonstrate the reach of the cult, but not identical private beliefs across the population.

The cult also changed over time. In the early 1970s, its most extreme, religious-like practices were reduced, and model figures sometimes replaced Mao himself in posters. Much of the blame for earlier excesses was directed at Lin Biao after his fall in 1971. Mao remained the central leader, however. The reduction of the cult’s most extravagant features did not mean the end of his authority.