User:Remsense/Cultural Revolution

Background
As a landmark event in Chinese history, the Cultural Revolution cannot be understood without adequate context: both within China, and throughout the world.

Emergence of social revolution
Beginning in Europe during the early modern period, increasing social sophistication and economic interconnection led to the emergence of new political philosophies—first liberalism, and then socialism—all ultimately contributing to a historical wave of mass upheaval and revolution. Classically, a distinction is made between so-called political revolutions, which replace one government structure or ruling bloc with another, with social revolutions, which seek to additionally rewrite social norms and the values of the greater population. The confessional dimension of the 17th-century English civil wars can be contrasted with the greater scope of universal liberty and nationalism seen in the French Revolution over a century later, which ultimately destroyed the social norms of feudalism and divine right forever in France. The 19th century would become the so-called Age of Revolutions in Europe, as popular resentment slowly shifted from the class of nobility to a newer class of capitalists and urban landlords. Ultimately, several socialist revolutions in part seeking to abolish the fundamental paradigm of private property itself would be crushed, until the Russian Empire collapsed under the strain of World War I—with the Soviet Union becoming the first state officially ruled in by the proletariat in world history, despite having a much higher peasant population needing to be included in government compared to the rest of Europe.