Persuasive Essay Can a Cultural Revolution take place in the US, one of the most powerful countries in the would? The Revolution had a great effect on China, origin of the eastern civilization. During the Cultural Revolution in China, the economy stopped growing, the development of China nearly stopped and the Chinese teenagers did not get enough education. We don’t know what would happen in the future, but a revolution is not easy to take place in the United States because in the US, there is democracy and because the people in the US are more educated and wealthy. Compare the people in China before 1966, people in the US are more free and active, and tend to do things by themselves. The United States is a democracy with a republican form of government. Democracy, however, is absent in China.
Through huge propaganda campaigns, the Communists in China made Mao Zedong a popular hero. The Communists controlled the government. (Ahmad 352) But in the US, the people elect their president. This shows that the people do not think the President is a God and always follow what he says. In China, Chairman Mao controlled what people read, what people heard and what things people learned in school.
(Jiang 265) On the contrary, the presidents of the United States don’t have such an influence. This means that the government is not fully controlled by the President. Because of democracy, anybody can oppose what the President says and what he does. So democracy makes a Cultural Revolution not likely to happen in the US. A second reason why the US will not have a cultural revolution is that people in the US have more education and are not as poor as the Chinese before 1966. China was weakened by centuries of corrupt government and foreign invasion.
(Jiang 16) People needed someone to give them a hope and lead them to that hope so they followed Chairman Mao. But I don’t think the people in the US need that hope. The US economy is not in bad shape and hence the outcry from society for government reform is not as serious as in China. People in the US also have more knowledge and have their own religions.
The Chinese weren’t as educated and didn’t believe in any religion because of communism. “You can break with your family and follow Chairman Mao, or you can follow your father and become an enemy of the people,” the man from the Revolutionary Committee said to Ji Li. (Jiang 265) You can see that the Chinese thought Chairman Mao was God. But people in the US normally do things by their own thoughts. A Cultural Revolution will be difficult to occur in a more educated and richer society. A Cultural Revolution still could take place in the United State if our democratic government fell and if the country got poorer and poorer.
When the society has a majority of poor people but only few extremely rich people, we might see something like the Mexican Revolution happen. This means that even our democratic government will fall when people cannot find a way to make their living. The situation would be similar to the one of China before its Cultural Revolution occurred. We could see some kind of civil wars happen in America and overthrow the government. In history, poor people without much fire-power can defeat an army. That is why the communists defeated Chang’s army, their opposition, before they came to power.
Before 1949, Chang’s army was more advanced and he controlled most parts of China. The US also supported him. But still the Communists defeated him. (Ahmad 351) But, can the democratic government fall or the economy drop so much? No, these are not easy to happen. Because the President and members of the House of Representatives are elected by the people and they have a system of checks and balances because of democracy. In 1989, the students in Tiananmen Square wanted to have more democracy and freedom (“Chinese Rebellion”).
That’s what we have in the United States. The US also has a very strong economy. It has one of the best economies in the world. The people now have much education and are not poor.
So a Cultural Revolution would never take place. American is not going to have a Cultural Revolution. The government has a balance of power and the people have more knowledge and money. No people can control the government in a democratic country. More educated and richer people won’t be brainwashed by other people.
They have their own thoughts. People would not blindly follow orders from a dictator, and therefore, no Cultural Revolution would have a chance to take place. If China had a government like the United States of America, but not a Communist Party controlled government, the Cultural Revolution wouldn’t have happened in China either. Perhaps one day they will change their form of government.