1984, By George Orwell: Nightmare During The Chinese Cultural Revolution

Utopian Ideals and Dystopian Disappointments

A _1984_ Nightmare during the Chinese Cultural Revolution

The Cultural Revolution in China was a political campaign launched by the Central Committee of the Communist Party on May 16, 1966. It was also the call for a massive purge of China 's past and of all influences from abroad. Chinese society in this era reflects the one described in George Orwell 's _1984_. In both cases, the party in power blames its failures on past regimes or on enemy individuals, while at the same time the party making the people believe that it has brought upon a great amount of successes. Additionally, it targeted the family unit so that the party is more important in the people 's minds. With the massive amount of
In China too, Mao Zedong wanted to rid of more pragmatic leaders, so he declared them "enemies of the revolution." These included former landlords, rich peasants, counterrevolutionaries, bad elements, and rightists. Additionally, artists and cultural professionals were persecuted and forced to stop working. Some 30,000,000 victims were wiped clean from historical records after being shot in the back of the head(Frodsham 145). Mao claimed that many leaders such as China 's head of state, Liu Shaoqi, and others including Deng Xiaopeng were corrupt "capitalists" who opposed socialism and must therefore be thrown out of power. In schools, factories, and government agencies, those who were a threat to party power were criticized and persecuted. Similarly, in _1984_, Goldstein was the enemy of the party and therefore of the people. He represented everything Ingsoc was against and was the epitome of a party enemy and a threat to power. All the other party adversaries who had even a slight characteristic resembling one of Goldstein 's, were eliminated. It was normal for people to suddenly disappear one day, "a few agents of the Thought Police moved always among them, spreading false rumors and marking down and eliminating the few individuals who were judged capable of becoming
People deeply mistrusted not only their neighbors and friends, but also their family members and own children. There was an atmosphere of paranoia and of the selfish individual caring only for one 's self and of favoring the party. History was modified by the destruction of artifacts, books, and the erasing of people. This societal situation in China is corresponding to the one Orwell describes in _1984_. Parallels between Big Brother and Chairman Mao Zedong are undeniable. _1984_, written over a decade before Mao 's social movement, predicts what could happen to civilization if people in power lean towards totalitarian socialism. He saw the dangers of party power and accurately foresaw the effects it could have on the individual and to different aspects of society. "Huge portraits of the divine leader everywhere, the ritualistic cult of the Little Red Book, the endlessly blaring loudspeakers in public places, the queues, the empty shops, men and women identically clad in shoddy blue overalls and shuffling silently along drab streets, grossly overworked, half-starved, suffering from endless shortages of everything that makes life bearable, forbidden to marry for years and then promptly separated from their spouses, dehumanized, forbidden privacy, incessantly fed with lies and yet more lies, cowering under the menace of the Secret