Thanks for the ping @[email protected] and @[email protected] .

I'm not sure you understand the Cultural Revolution nor traditional Chinese culture, Mao Zedong didn't want to "destroy traditional culture", that wasn't the goal of the Cultural Revolution, that was the goal of "破四旧" ("Eliminate the four old“) movement orchestrated by the ultra-lefts. "Eliminate the four old“ targeted mainly feudal values and not capitalist values, it turned out to be more anarchist than scientific as with the rest of the actions of the ultra-lefts.

From a DeepL translation of "A Concise History of the Communist Party of China" (2021) page 205:

In May 1966, the enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee adopted the "May 16th Circular", pointing out that: "The bourgeois representatives who have infiltrated the Party, the government, the army and all kinds of cultural circles are a group of counter-revolutionary revisionists, who, once the time is ripe, will want to seize power and change from the dictatorship of the proletariat to the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie." In August, the Eleventh Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee of the Party adopted the Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, which proposed that "the focus of this campaign is to straighten out those in power within the Party who have taken the capitalist road." The convening of these two meetings marked the launching of the Cultural Revolution. Since then, the Red Guard Movement has been rapidly emerging. From January 1967 onwards, the Cultural Revolution entered the stage of "total seizure of power" and soon developed into a serious situation of "overthrowing everything" and even "total civil war".

(Note that there is an official English translation of this book but I can't find a readable copy online yet, so above is the the DeepL translation of the Chinese text instead, with some minor corrections)

On traditional Chinese culture, we apply "取其精华、弃其糟粕", that means we don't throw out the baby with the bathwater, just because traditional Chinese values have bad aspects doesn't mean we can't learn from the good aspects. Maybe you have not heard of the Confucian phrases "天下为公" and "天下大同".

On July 1st 2021, in his speech at a ceremony marking the centenary of the CPC, Xi Jinping proposed "两个结合" ("Two Adapts"), that is:

We must continue to adapt the basic tenets of Marxism to China's specific realities and its fine traditional culture.

Xi stresses the importance of inheriting the fine parts of traditional Chinese culture, as opposed to liberals who decry all of it. Both socialists and liberals have reasons to criticize traditional Chinese culture. Socialists apply a scientific approach that is to inherit the good parts and throw out the feudal aspects. Liberals are against socialism so they attack traditional Chinese culture without any reservations.

"Attack" on traditional Chinese culture wasn't a new thing, during the May Fourth Movement of 1919 there was a slogan called "打倒孔家店，救出孔夫子". During the Cultural Revolution the slogan was "破四旧" as I mentioned at the beginning, and after Lin Biao's coup failed there was the "批林批孔" (criticize Lin Biao and Confucius) movement that Mao endorsed initially but didn't anymore after finding out the "Gang of Four"'s intentions.

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Obligatory Cultural Revolution tag

Can you recommend any good reading material or videos about the cultural revolution?

An interview with Deng Xiaoping in 1980

Fallaci: But what was the Cultural Revolution really trying to accomplish?

Deng: It wanted to avoid the restoration of capitalism in China. Yes — that was the intention. The intention of Chairman Mao, I mean to say, not the intention of the people who would later become the Gang of Four. However, despite the good intentions, such a goal was born of an erroneous judgment of Chinese reality. In short, once more Chairman Mao was wrong. He was also wrong when he chose what target to hit; he said that the target should be the followers of capitalism — the compagnons de route [roaders] of the capitalists who existed within the party — and with this accusation he attacked a great number of high-level veterans: men who not only had made excellent contributions to the revolution but had great experience. And among them was Premier Liu Shaoqi, who was arrested and expelled from the party. As a result, all of the revolutionary leadership was dissolved. A year or two before his death, Chairman Mao recognized this error. He said that the Cultural Revolution was wrong in two things: destroying the revolutionary leadership and provoking a wide-ranging civil war.

Fallaci: So it was truly a civil war.

Deng: Yes, it was! The people were divided into two factions who were killing each other. And since the old revolutionaries had been swept aside, only those who declared themselves “rebels” were able to emerge. Like Lin Biao and the Gang of Four. Eh! Many people died in that civil war.

Fallaci: How many?

Deng: An exact figure is impossible. It will never be possible, because they died for various reasons and because China is such a vast country. But look: enough died that we are able to say today that their deaths were reason enough for the Cultural Revolution to have never taken place. Anyway, Chairman Mao’s errors were political errors. This makes them no less serious, nor does it justify them, but political errors are one thing; crimes that are judged in court are another. I refer to the crimes for which we tried the Gang of Four and, posthumously, Lin Biao: the two groups of the Cultural Revolution that we consider counterrevolutionary. Of course… well, of course it was Chairman Mao who permitted Lin Biao and the Gang of Four to take advantage of his political errors and usurp power…