四种矛盾看文革The Cultural Revolution through Four Contradictions

The Cultural Revolution is often summed up simply as "too much democracy", "the masses out of control" or even "the tyranny of the majority". Are such explanations really sufficient? Who exactly made up the Red Guards? Were the rebel factions perpetrators of violence during the movement, or victims who were later purged? Was the army during the Cultural Revolution a guardian of order, or a participant in the power struggle? Was the Cultural Revolution merely an extreme event of an exceptional era, or the product of a certain institutional logic? In this small online salon, we will try using "four contradictions" as an analytical framework: - The new regime and the old system - Bureaucrats and the masses - Civil officials and military commanders - The dictator and his successors Through a structured overview, we aim to understand the internal logic of the Cultural Revolution, how power operated, and its social and psychological mechanisms. This event will avoid emotional discussion and simplistic attributions of blame.