Which movement, beginning in 1966, aimed to reassert Maoist orthodoxy and purify Chinese society?

Which movement, beginning in 1966, aimed to reassert Maoist orthodoxy and purify Chinese society?

• A. The Cultural Revolution
• B. The Great Leap Forward
• C. The May Fourth Movement
• D. The Long March

Answer: (B)

Beginning in 1966, the movement aimed to reassert Maoist orthodoxy and purify Chinese society. This was the Cultural Revolution, a campaign led by Mao Zedong that sought to remove perceived capitalist and traditional elements from the party and culture, mobilizing the youth into the Red Guards to attack intellectuals, officials, and old customs. The goal was to renew revolutionary zeal and tighten Mao’s control, often through intense political struggle, upheaval, and widespread social disruption that lasted for about a decade. The other options don’t fit this description because the Great Leap Forward began around 1958 as an economic and social campaign to rapidly transform China’s agriculture and industry, but it focused on development rather than ideological purification and ended in widespread famine. The May Fourth Movement occurred in 1919 as a student-led push for modernization and anti-imperialist reform, well before the Mao era. The Long March, from 1934 to 1935, was a strategic retreat by the Communist forces to survive and regroup, not a post-1966 effort to reshape society.

Beginning in 1966, the movement aimed to reassert Maoist orthodoxy and purify Chinese society. This was the Cultural Revolution, a campaign led by Mao Zedong that sought to remove perceived capitalist and traditional elements from the party and culture, mobilizing the youth into the Red Guards to attack intellectuals, officials, and old customs. The goal was to renew revolutionary zeal and tighten Mao’s control, often through intense political struggle, upheaval, and widespread social disruption that lasted for about a decade.

The other options don’t fit this description because the Great Leap Forward began around 1958 as an economic and social campaign to rapidly transform China’s agriculture and industry, but it focused on development rather than ideological purification and ended in widespread famine. The May Fourth Movement occurred in 1919 as a student-led push for modernization and anti-imperialist reform, well before the Mao era. The Long March, from 1934 to 1935, was a strategic retreat by the Communist forces to survive and regroup, not a post-1966 effort to reshape society.