It also acknowledged that the Cultural Revolution was “utterly wrong, in both theory and practice”.
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The People’s Daily, the ruling Communist Party’s official mouthpiece, published an opinion piece on its website at midnight local time, saying that China should never allow the events of 1966-1976 to happen again. “It was not and will not be any revolution or social progress in any sense”, it said.
Probably, the silence on the 50th anniversary of the Cultural Revolution was in deference to Mao.
But the anniversary has been largely ignored in the Chinese media, reflecting continuing sensitivities about a period that was later declared a “catastrophe”.
The commentary urged readers to lay to rest any further debate of the Cultural Revolution and to move forward under the leadership of President Xi Jinping.
The Hong Kong-based English language newspaper, South China Morning Post, recalls the politics of China in the 1960s in this detailed account of the Cultural Revolution.
The 1981 resolution “on the Cultural Revolution (as a catastrophe) has withstood the test of time and it remains unshakably scientific and authoritative”, it said.
Some Chinese intellectuals argue that the Cultural Revolution is the essential modus operandi of the Communist Party.
Dr Liu Xiaomeng of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences said there was also a need to push back against the leftist factions, which held commemorative activities on Monday in provinces like Liaoning and Shanxi and have been calling for a more positive reappraisal of the Cultural Revolution, including a recognition of its role in mobilising the people to root out corrupt officials.
Mao recruited Chinese youths to join his Red Guard paramilitary group and encouraged them to attack the Four Olds of Chinese society: Customs, culture, habits and ideas. Thousands of people were beaten to death, and even more driven to suicide.
In the editorial, the Global Times, said “It is not possible for such a revolution to be repeated”.
Five decades ago the directive called on ordinary people to rid society of “members of the bourgeoisie threatening to seize political power from the proletariat”, a reference to Mao’s premier Liu Shaoqi and his “Soviet revisionist” supporters within the party. Mao also encouraged a personality cult around himself, which led to people nearly worshipping his writings and image. About 1.5 million people were estimated to have died in the period.
Hong Kong-based political analyst Willy Lam said this message is in line with a speech made by Mr Xi in 2013 that the 30-year period before the reform and opening up in 1979 and the period since then can not be used to negate each other.
A second editorial, published in the state-run Global Times tabloid, said: “The decade of calamity caused severe damage, leaving permanent pain for many Chinese”.
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Rights activists also fear that the turmoil of the era, which Deng Xiaoping sought to avoid with a pledge to end political campaigns, has long simmered just below the surface in China.
