the cultural revolution in china (1966.5-1976.10) was a large scale political campaign launched by the late iron man mao zetong. afraid of china's heading for the so-called revisionist road, which was alien to the orthodox marxist doctrine, mao gathered a bloc of radicals to aid him in his attack on the leadership of the communist party. law-and-order was shattered. the whole country was in complete upheaval. good-willed as the intent might seem, the cr turned out to be a nightmare in the history of china's development. official chinese communist party documents termed it as a colossal mistake which is in no conformity with revolution in any sense of the word.
my experience with cr as i remember is that everywhere there were red guards, those mao's crazy supporters. the feverish rgs went so far as to resort to violence, dragging out government officials, blocking railroad traffic, hampering production in factories, fighting among themselves, destroying cultural relics. i still recall a remote relative of mine, whose family was victim to the fractional fight among the rgs. members of the family belonged to and believed in different rg organizations. they argued, debated, and there was no peace at home. at last, they fought with fists. as a tragic result, one lost an eye. what is really sad is that this is only a very small incident in the tragedy of the whole nation.
a wrong revolution waged by a problem-minded leader made common people suffer. this is the real picture of cr.