Religion? No way! Belief Systems, Heck Yeah!

During the Cultural Revolution, beliefs and religion were widely changed. The biggest example is how former poor people now argued against almost anything that people said, claiming it to be “bourgeois” or “four olds”. People believed they were entering a new era of China where they had all the power because of Mao Zedong, and that they were the only people right in the world. Also, another big topic was that people believed they could call rich people “black whelps” and other insults, and didn’t even look back on those things. People said that they were brainwashed during the revolution, because they believed everything Mao told them and looked up to him in every aspect of life. On top of that, these beliefs are still affecting people today because some still cherish Mao’s thoughts and saying, so they continue to try to harass people in China’s lesser communist population. Mao’s quotes that people so highly talked about all came from his “Little Red Book”. One quote he said was “If there is to be revolution, there must be a revolutionary party. Without a revolutionary party, without a party built on the Marxist-Leninist revolutionary style, it is impossible to lead the broad masses of the people in defeating imperialism and its running dogs.” When kids read something like this, they were brainwashed because they wanted to feel like they had power. This was part of Maoism. Maoism is Mao Zedong’s thoughts, whether they’re composed in a book or written as da-zi-bao. This was not seen to be China’s religion at the time because Mao eliminated the policy of having a religion, thus making them atheist.