Introduction

When we talk about the Cultural Revolution, most people picture loud rallies, big posters, and endless slogans. But behind all that noise were small, quiet choices that changed real lives. The movement, launched by Mao Zedong to keep his power, threw China into chaos. Students became Red Guards, turning on teachers, parents, and neighbors. Schools shut down, books and temples were destroyed, and countless families were torn apart. People lived in fear, forced to betray others just to stay safe.

Fight to get mother back, and help father run away.

In 1970 Guiyang, a second-grade teacher accidentally wrote “Down with Chairman Mao” instead of “Down with Liu Shaoqi.” The school locked her up. That night, her sons marched in and took her home—no bedding, no compromise—banking on the lack of a signed confession. It worked; the case evaporated. The same brother later helped their father flee a planned public struggle session, collapsing the spectacle by removing its main “target.” It’s a portrait of legal-ish improvisation and family-first courage inside a system that performed justice through paperwork and mass theater.

She was just acting on her human conscience.

A Jiangsu zhiqing, orphaned when his parents, who both worked at a university, were accused of being “reactionary intellectuals” and committed suicide in August 1966. He and his younger brother were raised by their grandmother. In the 1970s, while he was working in the countryside as an educated youth, a local administrator showed him two letters from his parents’ old university. The first said his parents had died because they misunderstood the Cultural Revolution, but the second claimed they had spoken against the Communist Party. The administrator refused to accept the second letter and secretly gave it to him, risking her own safety to protect the truth. The false accusations deeply hurt his family—his younger brother later took his own life in 1976.

The meme: I reported my mother

Decades later, another story shocked the internet: “I reported my mother.”
It came from Zhang Hongbing, a former Red Guard who turned in his mother for criticizing Mao. She was executed the next day. Now in his seventies, Zhang publicly regrets what he did, saying he wants his story to be a warning — that blind loyalty can destroy love, family, and basic humanity. Online, the phrase “我把我媽給舉報了” (“I reported my mother”) has become a meme.

Why Mao Was So Successful

Mao’s success came from his complete control over both fear and faith. He knew how to make people believe that loyalty to him was the same as loyalty to the nation. Through propaganda, songs, and schools, he built a culture where doubting Mao felt like betraying China itself. People didn’t just fear punishment — they genuinely believed they were doing the right thing. The Cultural Revolution worked not only because of violence and power, but because millions were convinced that destroying others meant saving the revolution. It was psychological control disguised as patriotism, and that’s what made it so powerful — and so dangerous.

Mao as a God in China

Even today, Mao is treated almost like a god in China. His portrait still hangs over Tiananmen Square, and his image appears on every bill in people’s wallets. In schools, children learn to call him “the great leader,” and his old home in Shaoshan has become a sacred site for patriotic pilgrimages. The government carefully preserves places he once walked — even the field where young Mao once farmed is protected as a historical relic. This kind of worship turns a man with blood on his hands into a mythical figure. It shows how power in China still relies on controlling memory — not by erasing history, but by rewriting it into devotion.

(Image below: the field where young Mao once worked, now officially preserved by the Chinese government.)

Echoes Under Xi Jinping

Under Xi Jinping, many patterns from Mao’s era have quietly returned — just with new technology. The Communist Party still demands total loyalty and suppresses dissent, only now it uses censorship algorithms instead of Red Guards. Social media platforms are filled with patriotic slogans, while people who speak out disappear or are labeled “traitors.” Schools teach “Xi Jinping Thought,” just as they once taught Mao’s. Like Mao, Xi is also being turned into a sacred figure — local museums have begun preserving even the spoons, teacups, and chairs he once used, treating them as national treasures. This mirrors the same cult of personality that once surrounded Mao, where ordinary objects become symbols of divine power. Both leaders built systems where fear hides under pride, and where love for the country is measured by how unconditionally you follow the leader. The faces have changed, but the logic is hauntingly familiar.

(Image below: a preserved spoon reportedly used by Xi Jinping)

Conclusion

Today, the Cultural Revolution still echoes in China’s culture of fear and silence. Public criticism remains risky, and online debates can feel like modern “struggle sessions.” Mao Zedong is still praised like a saint — his image printed on money, his quotes taught to children as truth. From a young age, kids are told about his greatness, while the darker history is left untold. Only the victims of that era, and those who have learned the real facts, understand that he was not a hero, but a man who caused immense suffering — a true criminal in history.