The Cultural Revolution was launched by Chinese Communist Party chairman Mao Zedong during his last decade in power (1966-76) to renew the spirit of the Chinese revolution. Fearing that China would develop along the lines of the Soviet model and concerned about his own place in history, Mao threw China's cities into turmoil in a monumental effort to reverse the historic processes underway. Mao thus ultimately adopted four goals for the Cultural Revolution

  1. to replace his designated successors with leaders more faithful to his current thinking;
  2. to rectify the Chinese Communist Party
  3. to provide China's youths with a revolutionary experience;
  4. and to achieve some specific policy changes so as to make the educational, health care, and cultural systems less elitist.

He initially pursued these goals through a massive mobilization of the country's urban youths. They were organized into groups called the Red Guards, and Mao ordered the party and the army not to suppress the movement. One of the keys to getting control and keeping everyone off guard was to put things up-side-down. Doctors became farmers, farmers were sent into the hospitals, all matters of traditional were rejected including Religion Traditional Chinese Medicine and Kung Fu! If you were seen to be preaching, teaching or practicing anything other than Mao's' words, you were immediately sent to re-education camps (imprisoned). This was more disastrous to Shaolin Kung Fu, Traditional Chinese Medicine and many 'traditional type disciplines; to the point of almost making them disappear from China all together. This was the final death of Shaolin Kung Fu in China; worse than all three previous burnings together, the invasions and Buddhist persecutions!