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National Intelligence Estimate: The Chinese Cultural Revolution (1967) [pdf]

54 points by ca98am79 12y ago

fndrplayer13 12y ago
This was a pretty good read.
gnu8 12y ago
Remember when the intelligence community produced useful work, instead of playing with armed drones and spying on kids' cell phone nudes?
- krschultz 12y ago
  I don't doubt they continue to write these kind of documents, we've just added the other 'responsibilities' to their budget.
  - trhway 12y ago
    looking at the events that took all by surprise - 9/11, Sunny insurgence and sectarian violence in Iraq in ~2004, Arabian Spring, ISIS - i'd say that the "responsibilities" replaced instead of having been added.
- slurry 12y ago
  The Bureau of Intelligence and Research at the State Department still puts out some fine work.
snake_plissken 12y ago
It's interesting to look back at the Cultural Revolution with an intelligence document like this that was written in the beginning of it. Its analysis and predictions are very accurate in many ways (especially the parts about Zhou Enlai, Maoist Dogmas eventually disappearing) but in it fails to express the significance and and potency of what was going on, which is understandable as I don't think anyone really thought it would last the better part of ten years. It's amazing one man was able to cause such drastic changes in the different structures of a country the way Mao did. I've always found that the most enlightening aspect of the Cultural Revolution is that many of the principles it was against eventually became defining aspects of post-Mao China. As a social revolution, it seems to be alone in this regard. I am unsure if this outcome is surprising or not, as the Four Modernizations were originally proposed in 1963.
- pavlov 12y ago
  ... many of the principles it was against eventually became defining aspects of post-Mao China. As a social revolution, it seems to be alone in this regard. Maybe I misunderstand what you're saying, but isn't that the typical outcome of revolutions? Something along the lines of "thesis - antithesis - synthesis", I guess. If you look at the French Revolution, the post-Revolution society in France oscillated between the Royalist and Republican extremes for the better part of two centuries before settling on a balance where both the left and right segments of French politics can today claim to be inheritors of the Revolution.
notastartup 12y ago
What really happened during this time? I often hear about it but not sure what was experienced by the Chinese people and what the long term effects were.
- a3n 12y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution I have had this described to me by people who lived through it. They were relocated to the countryside as slave labor, as described in the wikipedia page. It was a bad time. "The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, commonly known as the Cultural Revolution, was a social-political movement that took place in the People's Republic of China from 1966 until 1976. ... The movement paralyzed China politically and significantly affected the country economically and socially. ... Millions of people were persecuted in the violent factional struggles that ensued across the country, and suffered a wide range of abuses including public humiliation, arbitrary imprisonment, torture, sustained harassment, and seizure of property. A large segment of the population was forcibly displaced, most notably the transfer of urban youth to rural regions during the Down to the Countryside Movement. Historical relics and artifacts were destroyed. Cultural and religious sites were ransacked."

54 points by ca98am79 12y ago

This was a pretty good read.

gnu8 12y ago

Remember when the intelligence community produced useful work, instead of playing with armed drones and spying on kids' cell phone nudes?

krschultz 12y ago
I don't doubt they continue to write these kind of documents, we've just added the other 'responsibilities' to their budget.
- trhway 12y ago
  looking at the events that took all by surprise - 9/11, Sunny insurgence and sectarian violence in Iraq in ~2004, Arabian Spring, ISIS - i'd say that the "responsibilities" replaced instead of having been added.
slurry 12y ago
The Bureau of Intelligence and Research at the State Department still puts out some fine work.

snake_plissken 12y ago

It's interesting to look back at the Cultural Revolution with an intelligence document like this that was written in the beginning of it. Its analysis and predictions are very accurate in many ways (especially the parts about Zhou Enlai, Maoist Dogmas eventually disappearing) but in it fails to express the significance and and potency of what was going on, which is understandable as I don't think anyone really thought it would last the better part of ten years. It's amazing one man was able to cause such drastic changes in the different structures of a country the way Mao did. I've always found that the most enlightening aspect of the Cultural Revolution is that many of the principles it was against eventually became defining aspects of post-Mao China. As a social revolution, it seems to be alone in this regard. I am unsure if this outcome is surprising or not, as the Four Modernizations were originally proposed in 1963.

pavlov 12y ago
... many of the principles it was against eventually became defining aspects of post-Mao China. As a social revolution, it seems to be alone in this regard. Maybe I misunderstand what you're saying, but isn't that the typical outcome of revolutions? Something along the lines of "thesis - antithesis - synthesis", I guess. If you look at the French Revolution, the post-Revolution society in France oscillated between the Royalist and Republican extremes for the better part of two centuries before settling on a balance where both the left and right segments of French politics can today claim to be inheritors of the Revolution.

notastartup 12y ago

What really happened during this time? I often hear about it but not sure what was experienced by the Chinese people and what the long term effects were.

a3n 12y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution I have had this described to me by people who lived through it. They were relocated to the countryside as slave labor, as described in the wikipedia page. It was a bad time. "The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, commonly known as the Cultural Revolution, was a social-political movement that took place in the People's Republic of China from 1966 until 1976. ... The movement paralyzed China politically and significantly affected the country economically and socially. ... Millions of people were persecuted in the violent factional struggles that ensued across the country, and suffered a wide range of abuses including public humiliation, arbitrary imprisonment, torture, sustained harassment, and seizure of property. A large segment of the population was forcibly displaced, most notably the transfer of urban youth to rural regions during the Down to the Countryside Movement. Historical relics and artifacts were destroyed. Cultural and religious sites were ransacked."