CCP Reintroduces Class Struggle Campaign to Target Wealthy Chinese, Control the Masses

Youths at a rally during the height of the Red Guard upheaval waving copies Mao's Little Red Book and carrying a poster of Karl Marx on Sept. 14, 1966. The Cultural Revolution set off a decade of violence and tumult to achieve communist goals and enforce a radical egalitarianism. AP Photo

As China’s economy falters, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is once again pushing the hardcore communist ideology of class struggle and targeting the rich. Recently CCP propaganda has been frequently promoting the “Maple Bridge Experience,” a Maoist social management strategy aiming to eliminate ideological liberalization through class struggle.

The so-called Maple Bridge Experience originated in the 1960s, when the CCP mobilized the masses in a township in Zhuji County, Zhejiang Province, to “supervise and reform” the “Four Categories” of people. These “Four Categories” were the CCP’s collective term for landlords, rich peasants, “counter-revolutionaries, and villains.” The strategy divided the population into classes and encouraged class struggle to purge these supposed enemies of communism. In 1963, Mao Zedong instructed that the “Maple Bridge Experience” be promoted nationwide to strengthen the CCP’s totalitarian rule and to crush the regime’s opponents at the grassroots level. This resulted in the murder of many who fell under the Four Categories.

Reintroduction of Class Struggle

Over past decades, the CCP used the Maple Bridge Experience to control the grassroots, with the strategy garnering more attention in recent years. CCP mouthpiece the People’s Daily published a commentary on Nov. 22, claiming that a “Maple Bridge Experience of the new era” should be adopted. According to the article, this year marks the 60th anniversary of Mao’s promotion of the Maple Bridge Experience.