The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution Podcast

Mar 07 2025 29 ep. 44 mins 38
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution Podcast artwork

A podcast for building a new history of China's Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976.

  History
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Episode 26 - GUANGZHOU DURING THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

Mar 07 2025 46 mins  
Guangzhou: China's third largest city and the birthplace of Cantonese culture. Known as the "City of Flowers," the city of Guangzhou was, much like Shanghai and Beijing, a hotbed of class struggle during the Cultural Revolution. Join Drew as he dives into a revolutionary dim sum delight and sums up the experience of the GPCR there!

Episode 25 - CLEANSING OF THE CLASS RANKS (SEP-DEC 1968)

Nov 28 2024 50 mins  
With the end of the Red Guard & rebel movements and the deployment of the Mao Zedong Thought Workers Propaganda Teams, the class struggle across China seems to have calmed down. The last of the revolutionary committees are elected and founded. Things seem good- but a brutal new campaign initiated by the leadership of the provincial revolutionary committees sends many former reb

Episode 24 - MAO BADGES BY THE BILLIONS

Oct 17 2024 34 mins  
Chairman Mao badges were an ubiquitous symbol of the Cultural Revolution, with every Chinese person (and millions of people around the world) wearing them on their chest to show devotion to Chairman Mao and communist revolution. Dive into the deeper meanings and social impact of these small but iconic pieces of metal with Drew- an avid collector and researcher of them!

Episode 23 - THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION'S DARKEST HOUR (JUL-AUG 1968)

Aug 29 2024 65 mins  
The Hundred Day War at Qinghua University continues to rage on. Reports of a massacre in Guangxi Province involving cannibalism reach Beijing. Mass killings of civilians is reported in rural Guangdong Province. Ideological splits begin appearing in factory and collective-level revolutionary committees. Mao calls a meeting with rebel leaders to put an end to the Red Guard movement c

Episode 22 - THE 100 DAY WAR (MAY-JUN 1968)

Jul 05 2024 32 mins  
The Red Guard movement disintegrates and the Cultural Revolution goes off the rails as the "all-around civil war" between rebel movements reaches a violent shrieking crescendo when the two factions at Qinghua University, the "Harvard of China," go to war. Suicides and vigilante killings skyrocket across the nation. Can Mao save his revolution within a revolution

Episode 21 - INNER MONGOLIA DURING THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

Jun 07 2024 57 mins  
In this episode, we'll be traveling to the vast steppes of Inner Mongolia to see how the Cultural Revolution played out in the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region- and why it ended in brutal excess and with such sharp contradictions. A fascinating contrast to the examples of Tibet and Xinjiang that are worth summing up for their historical lessons.

Episode 20 - "BLOOD FOR BLOOD" (FEB-APR 1968)

Apr 23 2024 54 mins  
Mao and the Party Center try to bring the Cultural Revolution back to focus by establishing a series of new provincial revolutionary committees and order Red Guards to attend Marxist theory study sessions. But the Red Guards are still out for blood, and are quickly turning the all-around civil war into a war of total annihilation as the rebel movement becomes intent on destroying i

Episode 19 - INTERVIEW WITH TWO RED GUARDS

Apr 11 2024 22 mins  
AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW with two comrades, "Mr. & Mrs. Wang," who were revolutionary Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution in the city of Baoji, Shaanxi Province. A truly great experience for all listeners!

Episode 18 - WHAT WAS THE "LITTLE RED BOOK"?

Feb 21 2024 49 mins  
The "Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung" or "The Little Red Book" is one of the best selling and most controversial books ever written. It is also one of the quintessential symbols of the Cultural Revolution, radical leftist ideology, and the general zeitgeist of the Global Sixties. This month's thematic episode will have us dive into the history, develop

Episode 17 - THE ULTRA-LEFT PROLIFERATES AND THE PARTY APPARATUS COLLAPSES (NOV 1967-JAN 1968)

Jan 25 2024 62 mins  
As the factional fighting grows bloodier and the mass movements grow exceedingly more and more radical, the Party apparatus in the provinces begins to collapse. Mao and the CCRG find themselves struggling to curtail the surge of chaos, as the Cultural Revolution begins to come apart at the seams.