The cultural what?

摘要

To outsiders, there is something faintly comical about China's Cultural Revolution, which started 40 years ago this week and only ended with the fall of the Gang of Four ten years later. The "struggle sessions", the self-criticisms, the absurdly elongated dunce's caps, the massed hands waving Chairman Mao's little red book, the rampaging Red Guards; with hindsight, all seem to belong more to farce than tragedy. To anyone forced to live through it, however, there was nothing remotely amusing about China's "lost decade". Hundreds of thousands of people were murdered; hundreds of millions had their lives shattered. Neighbours informed on one another, children betrayed their parents and the machinery of government was destroyed. An entire generation learned to trust no one, with consequences that mark China today (see page 69).