When the professor mentioned this word”Cultural Revolution”, I even have forgotten this event is related to culture. For our generation, the impression of this event is not very clear.I know it mainly from the literary described by intellectuals in that era.This is a huge catastrophic events in China’s modern history.
For the entire decade of the Cultural Revolution, schools in China did not operate; this left an entire generation with no formal education. All of the educated and professional people had been targets for reeducation. Those that hadn’t been killed were dispersed across the countryside, toiling on farms or working in labor camps.
All sorts of antiquities and artifacts were taken from museums and private homes; they were destroyed as symbols of “old thinking.” Priceless historical and religious texts also were burned to ashes.
The exact number of people killed during the Cultural Revolution is unknown, but it was at least in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions. Many of the victims of public humiliation committed suicide, as well. Members of ethnic and religious minorities suffered disproportionately, including Tibetan Buddhists, Hui people and Mongolians.
Terrible mistakes and brutal violence mar the history of Communist China. The Cultural Revolution is among the worst of these incidents, not only because of the horrific human suffering inflicted, but also because so many remnants of that country’s great and ancient culture were willfully destroyed.
http://www.history.com/topics/cultural-revolution