Using your printed timeline, complete the following:
- Read the timeline and annotate
- Mark what you think are the three most important events with an asterisk (*)
- Answer the following on the back of the timeline in complete sentences:
- What were Mao’s goals for the Cultural Revolution?
- What were some of the outcomes of the Cultural Revolution?
- Based on the timeline, why might teenagers have supported the Cultural Revolution?
Next, create a visual timeline on a google slide or drawing. Choose 7 of the 9 events from the timeline. Put them in order. Add an image that represents each event.
October 1949: Mao declared victory in the Communist revolution and
established the People’s Republic of China.
May 1966: Articles in the state controlled papers introduced the
idea of a “Cultural Revolution.”
Red Guard groups, made up of Chinese youth, emerged
throughout China.
Aug. 1966: Mao officially launched the “Cultural Revolution” with a
speech at the Chinese Communist Party.
Oct. 1966: Mao called for the Red Guards to destroy the “Four
Olds”: old customs, old culture, old habits, and old ideas.
Jan. 1967: Red Guards achieved the overthrow of provincial party committee officials and replaced
them with radicals.
Feb. 1967: Top-level Communist Party officials called for an end of
the Cultural Revolution, but Mao continued to support it.
Summer 1967: Mao replaced pre-Cultural Revolution party officials with radicals who supported the revolution.
1968: On
Mao’s orders, the Red Guards were broken up in the “rustification movement,”
where individual teenagers were “sent down” to villages throughout China to
“learn from the peasants.”
April 1969: Mao declared “victory” of the Cultural Revolution and
supported Lin Biao as his new successor.
