IB History Mao Consolidation and Maintenance of Power Key Definitions

A decade-long campaign launched by Mao in 1966 to purge the Communist Party of perceived counter-revolutionaries and reassert his own authority after the failures of the Great Leap Forward. It mobilised millions of Red Guards to attack the "Four Olds", closed schools and universities, and caused widespread social and political chaos until Mao's death in 1976.

The Gang of Four were four senior Communist Party officials (Jiang Qing, Zhang Chunqiao, Wang Hongwen, and Yao Wenyuan) who were arrested in October 1976, one month after Mao Zedong's death. They were held responsible for the excesses of the Cultural Revolution. Jiang Qing, Mao's wife, was the most prominent. They were convicted at a televised trial in 1980-81. Their arrest ended the Cultural Revolution period and opened the way for Deng Xiaoping's reforms.

Mao's 1956-1957 invitation for intellectuals to openly criticize the Communist Party. When criticism proved sharper than expected, Mao reversed course with the Anti-Rightist Campaign, persecuting over 500,000 people.

The People's Liberation Army is the armed forces of the People's Republic of China, under the command of the Chinese Communist Party through the Central Military Commission (CMC). It evolved from the Red Army of the Chinese Civil War and took its current name in 1946. The PLA includes ground forces, navy, air force, rocket force, and strategic support. It is the world's largest military by personnel, with approximately 2 million active personnel. Mao used loyalty from key PLA officers as a central pillar of his political power.

Mao Zedong proclaimed the People's Republic of China from Tiananmen Gate in Beijing on 1 October 1949, following the CCP's victory in the Civil War. The date is commemorated annually as China's National Day. The Guomindang government under Jiang Jieshi retreated to Taiwan, where the Republic of China government continued to claim sovereignty over mainland China.

Periodic political campaigns launched by the Chinese Communist Party to enforce ideological conformity and purge dissenters. The first major rectification campaign took place in Yan'an in 1942–1944, establishing Mao's dominance within the CCP before the Civil War. After 1949, rectification campaigns were used to eliminate potential rivals, discipline party cadres, and enforce Mao's political line. The Anti-Rightist Campaign of 1957 was triggered directly by criticism expressed during the Hundred Flowers Campaign and resulted in the persecution of an estimated 550,000 people.

The Three-Anti Campaign (san fan, 1951) targeted corruption, waste, and bureaucratism within the Communist Party and government. The Five-Anti Campaign (wu fan, 1952) targeted bribery, tax evasion, fraud, theft of state property, and leaking of state economic secrets, aimed primarily at urban capitalists and business owners. Together they allowed the CCP to extend political control over cities, eliminating the bourgeoisie as a class and redistributing private business wealth to the state.