The Cultural Revolution A People's History, 1962-1976 [Audiobook]

The Cultural Revolution: A People's History, 1962-1976 (Audiobook)
English | November 08, 2016 | ASIN: B01MPZKLWK | MP3@64 kbps | 14h 19m | 394 MB
Author: Frank Dikötter | Narrator: Paul Costanzo
After the economic disaster of the Great Leap Forward that claimed tens of millions of lives from 1958-1962, an aging Mao Zedong launched an ambitious scheme to shore up his reputation and eliminate those he viewed as a threat to his legacy. The stated goal of the Cultural Revolution was to purge the country of bourgeois, capitalistic elements he claimed were threatening genuine communist ideology. Young students formed the Red Guards, vowing to defend the Chairman to the death, but soon rival factions started fighting each other in the streets with semiautomatic weapons in the name of revolutionary purity. As the country descended into chaos, the military intervened, turning China into a garrison state marked by bloody purges that crushed as many as one in 50 people.