Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1966, from Chinese, translation of Wuchan Jieji Wenhua Da Geming "Proletarian Cultural Great Revolution."
Wikipedia
The Cultural Revolution, formally the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement that took place in the People's Republic of China from 1966 until 1976. Set into motion by Mao Zedong, then Chairman of the Communist Party of China, its stated goal was to preserve 'true' Communist ideology in the country by purging remnants of capitalist and traditional elements from Chinese society, and to re-impose Maoist thought as the dominant ideology within the Party. The Revolution marked the return of Mao Zedong to a position of power after the Great Leap Forward. The movement paralyzed China politically and negatively affected the country's economy and society to a significant degree.
The Revolution was launched in May 1966, after Mao alleged that bourgeois elements had infiltrated the government and society at large, aiming to restore capitalism. He insisted that these " revisionists" be removed through violent class struggle. China's youth responded to Mao's appeal by forming Red Guard groups around the country. The movement spread into the military, urban workers, and the Communist Party leadership itself. It resulted in widespread factional struggles in all walks of life. In the top leadership, it led to a mass purge of senior officials, most notably Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping. During the same period Mao's personality cult grew to immense proportions.
Millions of people were persecuted in the violent struggles that ensued across the country, and suffered a wide range of abuses including public humiliation, arbitrary imprisonment, torture, sustained harassment, and seizure of property. A large segment of the population was forcibly displaced, most notably the transfer of urban youth to rural regions during the Down to the Countryside Movement. Historical relics and artifacts were destroyed. Cultural and religious sites were ransacked.
Mao officially declared the Cultural Revolution to have ended in 1969, but its active phase lasted until the death of the military leader Lin Biao in 1971. After Mao's death and the arrest of the Gang of Four in 1976, reformers led by Deng Xiaoping gradually began to dismantle the Maoist policies associated with the Cultural Revolution. In 1981, the Party declared that the Cultural Revolution was "responsible for the most severe setback and the heaviest losses suffered by the Party, the country, and the people since the founding of the People's Republic".
The Cultural Revolution (or People's Revolution) in Libya was a period of political and social change, radicalization, and oppression in Libya. It started with Gaddafi's declaration of a cultural revolution during a speech in Zuwara on 15 April 1973. This came after increasing tensions between Gaddafi and his colleagues in the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) had led him to agree to step down. Gaddafi had told the RCC that he would announce his resignation to the people at the Zuwara speech, but he instead surprised them with his declaration of the Cultural Revolution. By the end of the Cultural Revolution period, Gaddafi was uncontested leader of Libya.
The Cultural Revolution continued to at least September 1974, when the independence of action of the People's Committees was reduced by the national leadership in the Revolutionary Command Council. In a wider sense, it came to its conclusion in the establishment of Gaddafi's "state of the masses" (" jamahiriya") in 1977.
The cultural revolution was presented by Gaddafi as a period of democratization, introduction of sharia law, and spontaneous popular mobilization against five identified threats to the power of the people: Communism, conservatism, capitalism, atheism, and the Muslim Brotherhood.
In practice the cultural revolution marked the beginning of the sidelining of other Libyan political and religious leaders and the concentration of power in Gaddafi's hands alone.
The cultural revolution marked the beginning of the first wave of "green terror" against opponents of Gaddafi.
Usage examples of "cultural revolution".
I imagined individually the one hundred million tragedies of the Great Cultural Revolution, when deaths, deportations, and family separations were carried out daily by Chinese troops and Red Guard units.
Those potentially harmful effects of unity have flared up again in modern China, notably during the madness of the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s, when a decision by one or a few leaders closed the whole country's school systems for five years.
This comes close to a cultural revolution in the allocation of leisure time.
Those potentially harmful effects of unity have flared up again in modern China, notably during the madness of the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s, when a decision by one ora few leaders closed the whole country's school systems for five years.
Those potentially harmful effects of unity have flared up again in modern China, notably during the madness of the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s, when a decision by one or a few leaders closed the whole country’.
The so-called Cultural Revolution in China, the Monk knew, had been a sham, nothing more than a fixing of the lines of power.
Does it means some sort of new madness like the Cultural Revolution is brewing?
I bought dozens of volumes from booksellers who in the old days had peddled the cultural revolution.
At the time, the sounds of Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution, ripping apart Chinese society, echoed through the listeners' earphones.
Marshal Luo, having just woken up after not enough sleep following the worst day he'd known since the Cultural Revolution, had a telephone thrust into his hands.
This actually makes an impression on the Chinese guys, who, up to the point, have looked like the contents of Madame Tussaud's Dumpster after an exhibit on the Cultural Revolution.