How Mao’s Cultural Revolution still shapes China’s power

Red Memory – From the Great Leap Forward to the Cultural Revolution’s brutal purges, a new British book argues that Mao’s legacy did not end with the 1976 death—it still lives inside China’s politics, economy, and the way the state controls memory. Tania Branigan’s “Red Me

In the Cultural Revolution, the line between a classroom and a firing squad could vanish overnight. The violence was not only carried out by adults. It was often driven by the youngest cadres—youth organized into “Red Guards” who were told to crack down on “reactionary elements” within the Party and to remove “remnants of the feudal and imperialist past.”.

That youth-led brutality—brutal persecution followed a symbolic moment in summer 1966. when Mao Zedong swam over the Yangtze River to announce his return—forms the book’s central pressure point. In Tania Branigan’s Red Memory. published in 2023 by the British journalist and longtime China correspondent for The Guardian. the Cultural Revolution is not treated as a closed chapter. It is presented as a force that reshaped contemporary China: economically, socially, psychologically, culturally, and politically.

Branigan’s argument starts with what people often leave out. She says it “leaves a huge hole” to grasp today’s China without the legacy of the Cultural Revolution. The campaign that followed the 1958 “Great Leap Forward”—an effort by the People’s Republic of China to transform the country from an agrarian to an industrial society—was. she stresses. a disaster. Between 35 and 55 million people died of starvation and deprivation. By the time it ended in 1962, Mao Zedong’s position within the Communist Party had been undermined.

Then came a different kind of battle, sharper in its distrust. The dispute with Khrushchev’s Soviet Union, reaching its peak in the early 1960s, intensified suspicion and isolation. In response, Mao devised a campaign of “ideological purification” of the Party and society—what became the Cultural Revolution. It lasted until Mao’s death in 1976. and Branigan’s account keeps returning to the terrifying scale: the mass terror and violence claimed at least a quarter of a million lives. though some estimates put the number much higher.

If the trauma was immense, the political lesson the Communist Party drew was, Branigan says, almost cruel in its clarity. The Party managed to use the Cultural Revolution to shore up its position in Chinese society. It promoted a story in which people were out of control—lacking “order. discipline. hierarchy. and a tight grip”—and Branigan argues that this narrative works because it erases politics the Party itself was choosing. The account does not admit it was Mao’s method to reassert control and get rid of rivals.

Yet the book also insists that the legacy did not settle into a single doctrine. Branigan points to a second lesson the Party took after 1976: when leaders who suffered during the Cultural Revolution reasserted their role. they concluded they should avoid a situation where too much power rested in one person. In her view, that safeguard is being lost under Xi Jinping.

She describes Xi’s rule as a departure from those “guardrails” put in place for a more collective style of leadership. “It’s very much back to being a one-man show,” she says. The parallel to Mao’s era, she adds, is not only about sentiment. It shows up in policy structures and symbolic presentation: there are no term limits for the leader. and the leader remains in place indefinitely. Branigan also points to a “burgeoning personality cult.” She argues that Xi is not presented with the God-like status Mao had. but that he is increasingly personalized—portrayed as a “grandfatherly figure” who is not just a strong national leader. but someone who “loves you. like a family member.” She ties the effect to what appears in textbooks and the media. where images of personalized. patriarchal power resemble Mao’s rule.

The book’s argument about memory reaches beyond politics into daily life. Branigan says that before Covid there were spheres from which the Party had quietly retreated—personal preferences and personal relationships. During the pandemic. she describes a return to times when the Party was present in every aspect of life and could intervene in personal matters “in a very direct. brutal way.” She says not only dissidents were monitored in their movements. but “entirely apolitical people” as well. She adds that government officials could enter homes at will—an experience that. in her telling. brought back “very strong memories” of Mao’s times.

That insistence on continuity is built on the intimate mechanics of what the Cultural Revolution did to people. Branigan argues that it was uniquely scarring because it went across the country—“no part was left untouched. and no part of society.” Victims ranged from the very top of the social hierarchy to the very bottom. She says Mao’s heirs apparent both died during this decade. while babies were being killed because they were born into a landlord family. The devastation also stretched across a time span of ten years.

What made it worse. she says. was how quickly the world rearranged itself so that the roles of victim and perpetrator could blur. Red Guards, she notes, came from powerful political families; then their families entered the firing line. Some ended up in prison camps or in jail. In her account, the uncertainty of “where you stood” became part of the trauma.

That uncertainty turned into a kind of social trap. Branigan describes the complicity as “universal” because silence itself became dangerous. If someone’s friend was accused of being a “black element” and they said nothing. their silence would make them suspect—and that suspicion would extend beyond the individual to their family. She includes a memory she says a victim she interviewed recalled: a friend did not denounce him at a rally. and the victim felt that showed courage and loyalty—“that was the maximum you could do in those circumstances.”.

In the book, Branigan gives examples of betrayal that were not abstract. She writes about a 17-year-old who denounced his mother for criticizing Chairman Mao and called for her execution. and she says she was executed. She also describes husbands and wives turning on each other. In her telling. these betrayals were often carried out under pressure: family members were told to draw a line and cut off relatives. She also references an incident she says was connected to Xi Jinping’s own trial—where he was criticized by his own mother at the denunciation rally—something many people believed they had to do “for the sake of other family members.” Branigan’s point is that the sheer number of these intimate betrayals and the traumas they caused still resonate.

One of the most human moments in Branigan’s account comes from a form of grief that tries to survive after guilt. She describes the episode of the 17-year-old youth and his father who ask for their mother and wife to be executed. and then points to his attempts to cultivate her memory as an effort to atone and do justice. Branigan says such attempts to cultivate memory of the victims are rare.

Scar literature, she says, appeared soon after Mao’s death. Immediately after 1976, there was an outburst of “scar literature,” memoirs and poems about the suffering of the time. Branigan argues that authorities tolerated it. and she gives the reason in two parts: it offered catharsis. but it also helped leaders who had themselves been purged—Deng Xiaoping. among them—justify and consolidate their return and rehabilitation. Still, she stresses the limits: no books were published that blamed Mao for the horrors of the Cultural Revolution.

Deng, Branigan says, asked Party historians to draw up an official verdict of the era. The goal was not memorialization. It was described as accurately recounting events and saying “Never Again!” while also moving on. The blame was placed on the leftists who were purged from the party. This. Branigan says. left the Party with an odd position: the Cultural Revolution became a warning example of what could happen without top-down control when masses were allowed to roam free. She links the fear to political moments like the 1989 demonstrations on Tiananmen and the protest movement in Hong Kong. where it was invoked.

Over time, she argues, memory closed down. More restrictions on publications were enforced. and after Xi Jinping came to power. she says the tightening became visible in ways ranging from archives closing to popular history accounts being censored online. She notes that a history magazine—investigating sensitive elements of modern Chinese history and run mostly by octogenarian former officials—was shut down.

The book also returns to how quickly the leadership tries to manage the past. Branigan says Xi Jinping’s first public act after taking power was to take the Chinese leadership to visit the National History Museum to see an exhibition about how the Communist Party had saved China. Within months. she says Xi gave a speech warning the country faced Seven Great dangers. including “historical nihilism. ” which she defines as versions of history not aligned with the Party’s version. Branigan says Xi put “historical nihilism” on par with western democracy and the free press as dangers to the Party.

She then describes the shrinking space for remembrance in practical terms. She says the small Museum of the Cultural Revolution. which she describes as a niche institution that kept a low profile. was closed entirely. She also says there was a new law against slandering China’s heroes and martyrs. and that the space for memory has become much smaller.

Branigan frames her own motivation around a brief window before that clampdown. She says between 2010 and 2012 there was a moment when Party media were willing to discuss the Cultural Revolution. More people came out to talk about it, and it seemed as if there might be an opening. Then Xi took over. and Branigan says it was suppressed and led to an even more controlled and censored public sphere.

She also makes a comparison that clarifies why she thinks some mirrorings are misleading. She says the parallel to Stalinist terror is tempting. but that in the Soviet Union Stalin’s death was followed by de-Stalinization: Stalin’s corpse was removed from Lenin’s Mausoleum. his images were removed. and cities named after him—including Stalingrad—were renamed. She says nothing of that sort happened in China. Mao’s images, she writes, are still ubiquitous.

In her book. she captures this duality through a scene she recounts: a local politician removed by internal Party purge. whose arrest came with the seizure of an enormous statue of Mao from his home. made of pure gold. She calls this “golden Mao” a symbol of the contradictions in contemporary Chinese memory politics. She links it to a paradox she says the system embraced: Mao began appearing on banknotes. The symbolic embrace of Mao. she argues. enabled the system to move away from his policies—“the reverse of what happened in the Soviet Union.”.

Her explanation for why this matters is direct. She says there is a crucial difference between the Soviet Union and Communist China: in the former. the Party could claim Stalin had moved away from Lenin; in China. Mao was there from the very beginning. She says destroying Mao’s image would bring down the whole thing. And there is a deeper principle. she adds: once people are given the right to criticize historical leaders. why shouldn’t they judge current ones?.

The Cultural Revolution also left a mark on how China adapted economically. Branigan says it caused a setback to the Chinese economy. while noting that quantifying the damage remains a subject of discussion. She adds that the bad shape of the Chinese economy in 1976 encouraged the turn to the market. She describes a pool of young people with no education and no jobs. and says encouraging entrepreneurship became a way to deal with that problem.

There was also a psychological preparation for the individualism of capitalism. in her account: a sense that people can rely only on themselves and must constantly adapt because their status is constantly changing. She says many businesspeople claim that the Cultural Revolution prepared them for the resilience and adaptability needed for success in a capitalist system. She includes a line she found in Mao and Markets by Christopher Marquis and Kunyuan Qian. quoting a Chinese tycoon who suggests the Cultural Revolution taught people like him to act like wolves to survive.

In the second phase of the Cultural Revolution. she returns to the Red Guards who were no longer wanted in the cities. By 1968, Branigan says, Mao had lost patience with them and sent them to work in the countryside. She describes their life there as “absolutely punishing.” The city kids. she says. were particularly ill-prepared for the backwardness of country life. She adds that most peasants could hardly sustain their own families. so the young arrivals—she describes “the masses of youngsters pouring into the countryside”—were even less able to feed themselves.

She notes a detail the Party now likes to emphasize because it ties to Xi Jinping’s biography. She says Xi tells the story of how this experience “turned him into a man. ” and she argues that because of her father’s connections. he had a better time than many young people in the countryside. Still. she says it was brutal even for privileged youths: a level of hardship. privation. and loneliness that likely forged him deeply and gave him resilience.

Branigan stresses that Xi’s public recounting does not discuss why he had to go. or that he was one among seventeen million other young people sent there. She says many others who shared that experience feel the same way: it was brutal. and while it does not wipe out the brutality. they insist it gave them resilience.

When asked about comparisons—especially with European and US campus protests—Branigan draws a hard line. She criticizes portraying the Cultural Revolution as zealous, blinkered youth. In reality, she says, it was instigated from the top, a fact the Party avoids discussing.

Still, she sees parallels in how strategies work. She says she has been struck by how today’s far-right movements use mass emotions—especially mass hatred—against a “dangerous Other” accused of being an internal enemy or inherent danger to society. In her view, the purpose is to overturn existing institutions so the movement can enhance its power. She calls this a more important parallel to the Cultural Revolution than youth zeal.

The questions then come fast: how much Mao is there in Donald Trump?. Branigan says the similarities are “amazing,” noting that Chinese people often invoke the comparison. She points to a personality cult around Trump, devoted core supporters, and how he plays supporters off against each other. She also says he appeals directly to bypass traditional power structures and he has a love of disruption and disorientation.

But she emphasizes differences too. She says Mao believed in revolution. In Branigan’s telling. the Cultural Revolution was primarily about his power. but he also genuinely believed the revolution had lost its way and that the Party had become impure. requiring a rooting out to create a more perfect Communist society. She says Trump does not believe in social revolution. Her conclusion is careful: she is not mapping them directly. but she sees compelling parallels in the use of hatred to forge political force.

In the end, Red Memory is not only a record of a decade of violence that lasted until 1976. It is a description of what remains after the speeches end. after the purges stop. after the museums close and the archive doors tighten. Branigan’s account returns again and again to the same human lesson: that the Cultural Revolution was not simply a past event. It taught institutions how to control uncertainty. it taught families how to survive suspicion. and it left China with a scar that—according to her—still shows up in how power is presented and how memory is allowed to breathe.

Mao Zedong Cultural Revolution Red Memory Tania Branigan Xi Jinping Great Leap Forward Red Guards historical nihilism personality cult Chinese history political memory China museums