Why the Cultural Revolution Failed

Liu Jiming · The Human Realm (renjingw.com.cn), August 21, 2026

Editor’s note (from the original publication): Some judge the Cultural Revolution a “failure,” others a “victory.” In this “random thought,” Mr. Liu opens with Chairman Mao’s “cave dialogue” of 1945 and goes straight to the Cultural Revolution’s central regret: democracy remained at the stage of mobilization by movement, “speaking out freely and airing views fully,” and never took root as institutional hardware that could be operated, consolidated, and handed down. Education by movement, as “software,” is important; but without the “hardware” of institutions and law to guarantee it, old ideas and the old order can revive as power changes hands. This perspective, reflecting on history along the two dimensions of a “new road of democracy” and “institutional constraint from without,” goes to the heart of the question of how to break out of the historical cycle of order and chaos, rise and fall. It is a reflection with a clear stance, a sharp edge, and real intellectual substance.

We therefore welcome readers to join the discussion. We hope to see views from different angles that challenge or add to the arguments of the essay; deeper exploration of the relationship between “democracy by movement” and “institutional democracy”; and a focus on institution-building and the supervision of power, rather than a descent into mere shouting matches.

True intellectual maturity begins with the courage to face reflection squarely. We publish this essay in the belief that truth grows clearer through debate, and that only through reasoned discussion can the lessons of history be turned into wisdom for the road ahead.

In the famous “cave dialogue,” when Huang Yanpei asked Chairman Mao how to escape the historical cycle of order and chaos, Mao answered with full confidence that the only way was democracy: let everyone rise up and take responsibility, and supervise the government.[1] To this end, in his last years he staked everything on a single decisive battle and launched the Cultural Revolution, giving socialist democracy concrete forms: speaking out freely, airing views fully, big-character posters, and great debates.[2] The pity is that these forms were never carried through to the institutional level, to the selection, recall, and supervision of cadres. In the end the whole effort fell short at the last step, and when the man was gone, his policies died with him.[3] This was the tragedy of a great revolutionary leader, and the greatest tragedy of the twentieth-century international communist movement, and indeed of human history.

The chief reason the Cultural Revolution failed is that it abolished bourgeois right without establishing a proletarian right suited to socialist public ownership.[4] Mao Zedong placed too much faith in human subjective initiative, always believing that people could be remolded through ceaseless education by movement. But Marxist materialism tells us that ideas of private property, thousands of years old, cannot be rooted out of people’s minds in a few short decades, still less can communist ideas of common ownership be established at a stroke. As the old saying goes, “Following goodness is like climbing a mountain; following evil is like a landslide.”[5]

Education is only the software that shapes people’s thoughts and conduct. Real change must rely on the hardware of institutions and law. Without the latter as a guarantee, old institutions and old ideas can easily revive as power changes hands, and come back in force. In this sense, the separation of powers in bourgeois states may well be a scientific design, and it is an important reason why the capitalist system has stood for centuries without changing. When so many socialist leaders died, their countries changed color and changed nature faster than an actor changes masks, and this is the reason why.[6]

I am sure that saying this will offend some people. Many on the Chinese left speak only of the “greatness” of the Cultural Revolution and avoid speaking of its shortcomings and mistakes. To a great extent this is because of the right’s long campaign of accusation and slander against the Cultural Revolution. But when we discuss its shortcomings and mistakes, we do so from the standpoint of the proletariat; the right does so from the standpoint of the bourgeoisie. We speak of shortcomings and mistakes on the premise of fully affirming the Cultural Revolution’s achievements and its great significance; they repudiate it wholesale. Our starting points differ, and so our conclusions are utterly different. The day the left can move beyond the righteous indignation of defending the Cultural Revolution, face its shortcomings and mistakes squarely, and sum up the lessons of its failure, will be an important sign that the left has begun to mature.

Translator’s notes

[1] In July 1945, the educator and democratic leader Huang Yanpei visited Yan’an and asked Mao how the Communists could escape the “historical cycle” in which every regime rises vigorously and then decays. Mao replied that they had found a new road: democracy. “Only when the people supervise the government will the government not slacken; only when everyone takes responsibility will the regime not die with its leader.” The exchange took place in Mao’s cave dwelling and is known as the “cave dialogue” (窑洞对).

[2] Known together as the “Four Bigs” (四大), these were written into the 1975 Constitution as rights of citizens and removed in 1980.

[3] “When the man is gone, his policies die with him” (人亡政息) is from the Confucian classic The Doctrine of the Mean.

[4] “Bourgeois right” (资产阶级法权) is the standard English rendering of Marx’s bürgerliches Recht in the Critique of the Gotha Programme: the principle of equal exchange that survives into the first stage of socialism.