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China Cultural Revolution

Tue, May 17, 2016   /   02:33 pm
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    FILE - In this file photo taken Sept. 14, 1966, youths are seen at a rally during the height of the Red Guard upheaval waving copies of the collected writings of Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong, often referred to as Mao’s Little Red Book and carrying a poster of Karl Marx. AP Photo File

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    FILE - In this file photo taken Aug. 29, 1966, drummers raise their cymbals and sticks as others hold up small booklets containing the writings of then Chairman Mao Zedong during a demonstration by Red Guard youth groups in front of the Soviet Embassy in Beijing. AP Photo File

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    FILE - In this file photo taken Nov. 1, 1967 photograph, Chinese citizens view writings and slogans emblazoned on a wall at the height of the decade-long Cultural Revolution initiated a year earlier by Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong in Beijing. AP Photo File

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    FILE - In this file photo taken Dec. 5, 1980, Mao Zedong’s widow Jiang Qing sits in the defendant’s box during her trial for various crimes committed during China’s violent 1966-76 Cultural Revolution. Jiang claimed she was being scapegoated for implementing Mao’s directives that resulted in the persecution of millions. AP Photo File

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    An elderly Chinese man walks past a security guard holding a prong for restraining attackers near a portrait of Mao Zedong and Cultural Revolution anti-soviet banners at a curio market in Beijing, China, Monday, May 16, 2016. AP Photo/Ng Han Guan

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    Vendors unfurl a banner from 1969 depicting former Chinese leader Mao Zedong as he "inspects the great army of the Cultural Revolution" and the slogan "Navigating the seas depends on the helmsman" at a curio market in Beijing, China, Monday, May 16, 2016. AP Photo/Ng Han Guan

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    Vendors wait for customers at a curio market near a display of former Chinese leader Mao Zedong alongside images of emperors and deities in Beijing, China, Monday, May 16, 2016. AP Photo/Ng Han Guan

On Monday May 16 , exactly 50 years ago, China embarked on what was formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, a decade of tumult launched by Mao Zedong to revive communist goals and enforce a radical egalitarianism. The milestone was largely ignored Monday in the Chinese media, reflecting continuing sensitivities about a period that was later declared a "catastrophe." Agitation against the Soviet Union's retreat from Stalinism was a major driving force of the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution.

AP Photo/Ng Han Guan