Proletariat

The short form and abbreviation - Cultural Revolution (CR) - tend to obscure the proletarian intent of Mao's last revolution. In 1966 the overarching ideological, and hence political, struggle was reduced to a polarity between the proletarian (socialist) and bourgeois (capitalist) paths to the future. The people's democratic dictatorship was to be replaced by a dictatorship of the proletariat - the meaning of which extended far beyond industrial workers to include peasants, students and all those who were not actively or passively capitalist-roaders. Nevertheless, the most fervent advocates of this dictatorship were militant "leftist" factions.