Struggle session
Form of public humiliation and torture / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Struggle sessions (Chinese: 批斗大会; pinyin: pīdòu dàhuì), or denunciation rallies or struggle meetings, were violent public spectacles in Maoist China where people accused of being "class enemies" were publicly humiliated, accused, beaten and tortured, sometimes by people with whom they were close.[3][4][5][6] These public rallies were most popular in the mass campaigns immediately before and after the establishment of the People's Republic of China, and later during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), with an aim to instill a crusading spirit among the crowd to promote the Maoist thought reform.[3][4][7][8]
Struggle session | |||||||||||
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Chinese name | |||||||||||
Simplified Chinese | 批斗大会 | ||||||||||
Traditional Chinese | 批鬥大會 | ||||||||||
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Tibetan name | |||||||||||
Tibetan | འཐབ་འཛིང | ||||||||||
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Struggle sessions were usually conducted at the workplace, classrooms and auditoriums, where "students were pitted against their teachers, friends and spouses were pressured to betray one another, [and] children were manipulated into exposing their parents".[6][9][10] Staging, scripts and agitators were prearranged by the Maoists to incite crowd support.[5][9][10] In particular, the denunciation of prominent "class enemies" was often conducted in public squares and marked by large crowds of people who surrounded the kneeling victim, raised their fists, and shouted accusations of misdeeds.[5][9][10][11]