Home Issues Past Issues MCS 2013 Issue 1 The Revolutionary Committee Grows Out of the Barrel of a Gun during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution: The Unknown Truth of “Armed Conflict” in Guangxi
The Revolutionary Committee Grows Out of the Barrel of a Gun during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution: The Unknown Truth of “Armed Conflict” in Guangxi
Abstract: During the "power seizure" stage of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China (1966-1976), there were different levels of armed conflicts which happened in all parts of the country. This phenomenon of power seizure mainly occurred among mass organizations and most of them were initially incidental armed conflicts. As the struggle for "power seizure" accelerated, all armed conflicts also rapidly escalated. The scale of the conflict was evolved from rival mass organizations’ violent fights to battles between military units, the usage of weapons were upgraded from sticks and stones to machine guns and cannons, and the conflict areas spread from the inland military regions at the outset to important strategic positions of remote areas in later stage. How did these violent conflicts lead to thousands of people being killed? Why did they develop into such a large scale? Who were behind the scenes to manipulate the conflicts? And what relationships existed between the conflicts and the PLA armed forces of "supporting left"? This paper starts with the above questions to investigate the most violent conflict in Guangxi during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. It also reveals the cover up relating to the fact that more than 100,000 people were killed during the stage of “power seizure” and at the creation of all levels of Revolutionary Committee in Guangxi province in southern China. This paper contributes to uncovering the truth and the reasons of armed conflicts during the Cultural Revolution, which is still deliberately covered up by the Chinese Communist Party today.