In a very real way we can say that after 17 years the CCP had definitely established themselves as the dominant and accepted political force in the country no more Kuomintang, no more foreign powers, far fewer rightists and thus they could "relax" their grip" by risking a healthy, re-dedicating CR to start focusing on improving the Party's control rather than just cementing the Party's control.
It is simply unrealistic politics to imagine that all revolutions don't have this "consolidation phase". I would contend that the Iranian Revolution is nearing the end of their consolidation phase; if the US had honored the JCPOA treaty and if European nations had the courage to honor their word the Islamic Revolution would have become totally legitimized domestically, and Iran would have to come up with a "New Stage in the Iranian Islamic Revolution" and their own "16 points". Instead, a totally desperate US has just gone nuclear, by banning anyone from buying Iran oil. Iran's enemies are as close to war as they can possibly get with that move, simply because they don't want Iranian Islamic Socialism to spread any more than they want Socialism With Chinese Characteristics to spread.
Indeed, Iran is in a situation we can compare to China in 1963. People act like China was always an equal with the West, as they have been in the 21st century back then China was still banned from the World Trade Organisation, under US sanctions which would not be lifted until Nixon in 1971, and watching the US wage war on its neighbors & set up nearby military bases. Revolutionary fervour is often imposed rather than chosen Mao rejected Soviet revisionism and laxity because China did not have the leeway, options and power that the USSR had. If the incredibly belligerent decision of banning Iranian oil actually takes hold, we should thus not be surprised if Iranian "hard-liners" promote a 2nd Iranian Cultural Revolution as a result indeed, how can socialist-inspired nations relent when compromise is certain death and disgrace? How can we say that China's CR failed when it obviously convinced the West to call off their Cold War? Regarding Iran, all I can say is: Iranian Cultural Revolution II is far, far, far more likely than the eruption of an unpatriotic civil war which aims to ally itself with the US. LOL".
At this point in China's CR history, Han elaborates the very essence of the unheard & the unreported point of view of the Cultural Revolution:
"After the '16 points' was publicized, it became very difficult for individual party leaders to use 'party leadership' as a shield against criticism. " The 'chaos' that attacks on the local party leaders would cause was the price Mao was willing to pay in order to create opportunities to empower the masses. " The '16 Points' and Mao's support liberated the suppressed rebels throughout China. It also took away the sacred veneer from local 'dictators' whom ordinary people called 'tuhuangdi ' (local emperors) and subjected them to mass criticism. " Former rebel leaders in Jimo like Lan Chengwu and Wang Sibo say that Mao called his 1966 revolution 'cultural' because he wanted to cultivate a more democratic political culture in order to eradicate the tuhuangdi phenomenon."
This is the crucial evolution of socialism: away from the Party dictators and jingoistic loyalists, and towards the "rebels", who should also be considered synonymous with "true socialists" and "true revolutionaries of empowerment".
In many ways this encapsulates why the West essentially ends modern Chinese history with 1966 to them, China always remained a "totalitarian" system with absolutely zero local democratic empowerment. Han agrees that the previous system was in an genuine but certainly not complete sense of the word "totalitarian" (centralized and dictatorial), but he shows that the CR specifically fought to change this reality; it was even led by the "totalitarians" themselves.
The West has remained stuck in their false mindset by misinterpreting and not discussing the CR. They have refused to tell the truth and do not even try to understand the CR. Again empowering Chinese and Iranian-style socialism, and not empowering their domestic leftists, are their malign motivations.
Han demonstrates that the CR represents a fundamentally-positive and democratic evolution in the quality of their socialist democracy. This evolution facilitated an explosion in rural-dominated China's rural economies, industries and schooling and lay the foundation, taught the skills and started the industries which fueled their post-1980 economic success. Modern China's success cannot be understood without grasping this evolution created specifically by the CR because it fundamentally changed the entire country, even if revolutionary fervour inevitably waned some with the arrival of Deng Xiaoping.
The CR was so intense, so thorough and so very democratic (China being 80% rural at the time), that it cannot be ignored by anyone who wants to grasp modern China; failure to understand the CR also means that one's politics are stuck in the '60s, and certainly that is a fair assessment of the West they have totally regressed to the right politically, culturally and economically since then. This link is never discussed.
Which Red Guards fought which Red Guards and why?
Now that the background running up until 1967 is laid, we can properly understand the fighting that came after. Without this fighting, the CR would have been just another "anti-rightist campaign". The fighting was the result of the creation and state protection of totally-grassroots groups, which Han called "mass associations"; these mass associations sat in opposition to "mass organizations", which represented the CCP status quo.
"With the issuing of '16 points', the official Red Guards organized under the auspices of local party leaders dissolved very quickly. Independent rebel associations began to appear," and these are Han's "mass associations". In Jimo County a dozen new, independent Rebel Red Guard associations emerged through the spontaneous democracy guarded by the Mao-faction and the army (the left and center).
Han notes how the Chinese Constitution had always protected free assembly, but that it was never really permitted; these associations were the first time rural peasants could create unified groups which served as a challenge to Party domination. Han relates the universal political participation, and how political debate between associations was constant and transparent. This not only allowed the mastery and tweaking of political ideas, but it empowered the peasant masses by allowing them to speak publicly for the first time ever. These are the kinds of things which prove the CR's democratic bonafides, but which the West cannot accept nor popularize. Indeed, how can the CR be undemocratic when it fostered, protected and promoted new grassroots institutions? What is more democratic than spontaneous grassroots organizations? We see here the truly revolutionary nature of the CR.
Each village Han studied had roughly three to five new mass associations, and he related how widespread the democratic participation was down to the household level. "The major difference between them was whether or not to overthrow the old village party bosses."
Therefore, the CR was essentially a massive referendum on the performance of individual civil servants.
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