The Cultural Revolution in Inner Mongolia

Abstract

A significant aspect of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution has been to reveal the least stable areas of China geographically and politically. One of these is Inner Mongolia. Also, the events of the upheaval— in direct contradiction to the Maoist dictum that “the Party must always control the gun, the gun must never be allowed to control the Party”— have caused a breakdown in Party and Government authority and a shift to military control in many parts of China: administrative organs at provincial, municipal and local levels have been replaced by People's Liberation Army (PLA) directed “Revolutionary Committees.” In most areas of China, the political upheaval can be ascribed to a power struggle between the Party, Red Guards and other semi-organised groups. However, the Cultural Revolution in the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region takes on added significance in that “local nationalism” among the Mongol national minority played an important role in the conflict between the established political structure and the efforts of the Maoists to “seize power.”

Driving Change, Sparking Debate: Chi Bulag and theMorin Huurin Inner Mongolia, China

“…Yet at the very moment that many marin huur players saw their careers taking off in the mid-1960s, many Mongol musicians, including Bulag, were persecuted as the Cultural Revolution reached Inner Mongolia. In 1967, thousands of Mongol artists and elites were either imprisoned or killed in what became one of the most horrific purges of the Cultural Revolution (Hyer and Heaton 1968;Sneath 1994;Brown 2006). The year 1976 marked the close of the Cultural Revolution after the death of Mao Zedong.…”

The Impact of the Cultural Revolution in China on the Mongolians of Inner Mongolia

“…A number of papers have been written in the west on the subject of the Cultural Revolution in Inner Mongolia. Hyer and Heaton's (1968) account of the period in the China Quarterly deals with events up until 1968, and relies heavily upon an analysis of the news reports broadcast by Radio Inner Mongolia at that time. The paper focuses upon the fate of Ulanhu, the Chairman of the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region who fell from power during the Cultural Revolution.…”

“…There was only one Mongol in a significant position on this committee (Wang Caitien). 26 The Cultural Revolution had so far affected Inner Mongolia less severely than much of China. Red Guard factions had not become well armed-as happened in some parts of the country [*H.RG]and relatively few people had been killed, hundreds rather than thousands.…”