Editing Cultural Revolution (section)

===Death toll===
[[File:Xi Zhongxun on struggle session in September 1967.jpg|thumb|A [[struggle session]] in September 1967 targeting [[Xi Zhongxun]], the father of [[Xi Jinping]], who had been labeled an "anti-party element"<ref>{{Cite web |title=Beijing Revises 'Correct' Version of Party History Ahead of Centenary |url=https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/history-04152021091451.html |access-date=20 May 2021 |website=Radio Free Asia|date=15 April 2021 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Cole |first=J. Michael |date=22 April 2021 |title=The Chinese Communist Party is playing dangerous games with history |url=https://ipolitics.ca/2021/04/22/the-chinese-communist-party-is-playing-dangerous-games-with-history/ |url-status=live |access-date=20 May 2021 |website=iPolitics |archive-date=2021-04-22 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210422235008/https://ipolitics.ca/2021/04/22/the-chinese-communist-party-is-playing-dangerous-games-with-history/}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=With whiffs of Cultural Revolution, Xi calls for struggle 50 times |url=https://asia.nikkei.com/Editor-s-Picks/China-up-close/With-whiffs-of-Cultural-Revolution-Xi-calls-for-struggle-50-times |access-date=20 May 2021 |website=Nikkei}}</ref>]]

Fatality estimates vary across different sources, ranging from hundreds of thousands to millions, or even tens of millions.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Chirot |first=Daniel |url={{google books |plainurl=y |id=e-kVgozyE8gC |page=198}} |title=Modern Tyrants: The Power and Prevalence of Evil in Our Age |year=1996 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-0-691-02777-7 |pages=198 |quote=At least one million died, though some estimates of deaths go as high as 20 million |author-link=Daniel Chirot}}</ref><ref name="Song-2011c">{{Cite web |last=Song |first=Yongyi |author-link=Song Yongyi |date=2011-10-11 |script-title=zh:文革中到底"非正常死亡"了多少人？– 读苏扬的《文革中中国农村的集体屠杀》 |trans-title=How many really died in the Cultural Revolution? – After reading Su Yang's ''Collective Killings in Rural China during the Cultural Revolution'' |url=http://www.cnd.org/cr/ZK11/cr651.gb.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220624112011/http://www.cnd.org/cr/ZK11/cr651.gb.html |archive-date=2022-06-24 |website=China News Digest |language=zh}}</ref><ref name="Ling-2011">{{Cite web |last1=Ling |first1=Zhijun |last2=Ma |first2=Licheng |date=2011-01-30 |script-title=zh:"四人帮"被粉碎后的怪事："文革"之风仍在继续吹 |trans-title=The strange thing after the collapse of the Gang of Four: the wind of Cultural Revolution continued to blow |url=http://history.people.com.cn/GB/205396/13852546.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200622104204/http://history.people.com.cn/GB/205396/13852546.html |archive-date=2020-06-22 |website=[[People's Daily]] |language=zh |script-quote=zh:粉碎"四人帮"之后，叶剑英在一次讲话中沉痛地说："文化大革命"死了2000万人，整了1亿人，浪费了8000亿人民币。}}</ref><ref name="Pye-1986">{{cite journal |last1=Pye |first1=Lucian W. |year=1986 |title=Reassessing the Cultural Revolution |journal=The China Quarterly |volume=108 |issue=108 |pages=597–612 |doi=10.1017/S0305741000037085 |issn=0305-7410 |jstor=653530 |s2cid=153730706 |quote=See, for example, Huo-cheng, Li, "Chinese Communists reveal for the first time the number 20 million deaths for the Cultural Revolution," [[Ming Bao]] (Daily News), 26 10 1981, p. 3}}</ref><ref name="WangS-2012">{{cite web |date=18 August 2012 |title=Remembering the dark days of China's Cultural Revolution |url=https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1017272/remembering-dark-days-chinas-cultural-revolution |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180609084717/http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1017272/remembering-dark-days-chinas-cultural-revolution |archive-date=9 June 2018 |access-date=29 November 2019 |website=[[South China Morning Post]] |quote=According to a working conference of the Communist Party's Central Committee in 1978, 20 million Chinese died in the revolution, 100 million were persecuted and 800 billion yuan was wasted.}}</ref><ref name="Strauss-1994">{{cite news |last1=Strauss |first1=Valerie |last2=Southerl |first2=Daniel |date=17 July 1994 |title=How Many Died? New Evidence Suggests Far Higher Numbers For the Victims of Mao Zedong's Era |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1994/07/17/how-many-died-new-evidence-suggests-far-higher-numbers-for-the-victims-of-mao-zedongs-era/01044df5-03dd-49f4-a453-a033c5287bce/ |url-status=live |access-date=9 May 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190509114452/https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1994/07/17/how-many-died-new-evidence-suggests-far-higher-numbers-for-the-victims-of-mao-zedongs-era/01044df5-03dd-49f4-a453-a033c5287bce/ |archive-date=9 May 2019 |issn=0190-8286}}</ref> In addition to various regimes of secrecy and obfuscation concerning the Revolution, both top-down as perpetuated by authorities, as well as laterally among the Chinese public in the decades since, the discrepancies are due in large part to the totalistic nature of the Revolution itself: it is a significant challenge for historians to discern whether and in what ways discrete events that took place during the Cultural Revolution should be ascribed to it.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Wang |first=Youqin |date=2007-12-15 |title=Finding a Place for the Victims: The Problem in Writing the History of the Cultural Revolution |journal=China Perspectives |language=fr |volume=2007 |issue=4 |doi=10.4000/chinaperspectives.2593 |issn=2070-3449 |doi-access=free}}</ref>

Most deaths occurred after the mass movements ended,<ref name="Walder2019a">{{Cite book |last=Walder |first=Andrew G. |title=Agents of disorder: inside China's Cultural Revolution |year=2019 |isbn=978-0-674-24363-7 |publisher=Harvard University Press |location=Cambridge, MA |pages=23}}</ref> when organized campaigns attempted to consolidate order in workplaces and communities.<ref name="Walder-20192">{{Cite book |last=Walder |first=Andrew G. |title=Agents of disorder: inside China's Cultural Revolution |year=2019 |isbn=978-0-674-24363-7 |publisher=Harvard University Press |location=Cambridge, MA |page=143 |author-link=Andrew G. Walder}}</ref>{{rp|172}} As Walder summarizes, "The cure for factional warfare was far worse than the disease."<ref name="Walder2019a" /> Serious man-made disasters such as the [[1975 Banqiao Dam failure]], also caused many deaths.

[[Literature review]]s of the overall death toll due to the Cultural Revolution usually include the following:<ref name="Song-2011c" /><ref name="Yan2016">{{cite journal |last=Yan |first=Fei |date=June 2016 |script-title=zh:政治運動中的集體暴力：「非正常死亡」再回顧（1966–1976） |trans-title=Collective violence in political movements: a review of the "unnatural deaths" (1966–1976) |url=https://www.cuhk.edu.hk/ics/21c/media/articles/c155-201603016.pdf |journal=[[Twenty-First Century]] |volume=155 |pages=64–65, 74 |language=zh}}</ref><ref name="open2012">{{cite journal |last=Jin |first=Zhong |date=2012-10-07 |script-title=zh:最新版文革死亡人數 |trans-title=The latest version of the Cultural Revolution death toll |url=http://www.open.com.hk/content.php?id=1008 |url-status=live |journal=Open Magazine |location=Hong Kong |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220629225002/http://www.open.com.hk/content.php?id=1008%23.YrzXDnbMJw8 |archive-date=2022-06-29 |language=zh}}</ref>
{| class="wikitable sortable"
|+
!Time
!Source
!Deaths (in millions)
!Remarks
|-
|2014
|[[Andrew G. Walder]]
|1.1–1.6<ref name="Walder-2014">{{cite journal |last=Walder |first=Andrew G. |year=2014 |title=Rebellion and Repression in China, 1966–1971 |journal=Social Science History |volume=38 |issue=3–4 |pages=513–39 |doi=10.1017/ssh.2015.23 |s2cid=143087356}}</ref>
|Examines the period between 1966 and 1971.<ref name="Walder-2014" /> Walder reviewed the reported deaths in 2,213 annals from every [[county (China)|county]] and interpreted the annals' vague language in the most conservative manner. For instance, "some died" and "a couple died" were interpreted as zero death, while "death in the scale of tens/hundreds/thousands" were interpreted as "ten/a hundred/a thousand died". The reported deaths underestimate the actual deaths, especially because some annals actively covered up deaths.<ref name="Song-2011c" /><ref name="open2012" /><ref name="Song-2017">{{Cite web |last=Song |first=Yongyi |author-link=Song Yongyi |date=2017-04-03 |script-title=zh:广西文革绝密档案中的大屠杀和性暴力 |trans-title=Massacres and sexual violence recorded in the classified documents of the Cultural Revolution in Guangxi |url=http://www.cnd.org/cr/ZK17/cr905.gb.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220622192624/http://www.cnd.org/cr/ZK17/cr905.gb.html |archive-date=2022-06-22 |website=China News Digest}}</ref> Annal editors  were supervised by the [[Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party|CCP Propaganda Department]].<ref name="Song-2011c" /><ref name="Song-2017" /> In 2003, Walder and Yang Su coauthored a paper along this approach, but with fewer county annals available at the time.<ref name="Yan2016" /><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Walder |first1=Andrew G. |last2=Su |first2=Yang |year=2003 |title=The Cultural Revolution in the Countryside: Scope, Timing and Human Impact |journal=The China Quarterly |volume=173 |issue=173 |pages=74–99 |doi=10.1017/S0009443903000068 |jstor=20058959 |s2cid=43671719 |issn=0305-7410}}</ref>
|-
|1999
|Ding Shu 
|2<ref name="Open Magazine-1999">{{ubl|{{cite news |date=August 1999 |script-title=zh:兩百萬人含恨而終─文革死亡人數統計 |journal=Open Magazine |location=Hong Kong |language=zh}}|A different version appears in:{{Cite news |last=Ding |first=Shu |date=2004-03-15 |script-title=zh:文革死亡人数的一家之言 |language=zh |trans-title=Home report on the Cultural Revolution's death toll |work=China News Digest |url=http://www.cnd.org/CR/ZK04/cr209.hz8.html}}}}</ref>
|Ding's figures include 100,000 killed in the Red Terror during 1966, with 200,000 forced to commit suicide, plus 300,000–500,000 killed in violent struggles, 500,000 during [[Cleansing the Class Ranks]], 200,000 during [[One Strike-Three Anti Campaign]] and the [[May Sixteenth elements|Anti-May Sixteenth Elements Campaign]].<ref name="Open Magazine-1999" /><ref name="Song-2011c" /><ref name="Yan2016" /><ref name="open2012" />
|-
|1996
|CCP History Research Center
|1.728<ref name="ConsensusNet-2016">{{Cite web |year=2016 |script-title=zh:文革五十周年：必须再来一次反文革 |trans-title=Fiftieth anniversary of the Cultural Revolution: It must be opposed once again |url=http://www.hybsl.cn/beijingcankao/beijingfenxi/2016-01-08/56368.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200625142850/http://www.hybsl.cn/beijingcankao/beijingfenxi/2016-01-08/56368.html |archive-date=2020-06-25 |website=胡耀邦史料信息网 |publisher=[[Consensus (website)|Consensus Net]]}}</ref>
|The 1.728 million were counted as "[[unnatural death]]s", among which 9.4% (162,000) were CCP party members and 252,000 were intellectuals. The figures were extracted from {{zhi|c=建国以来历次政治运动事实|l=Facts on the Successive Political Movements since the Founding of the PRC}}, a book by the party's History Research Center, which states that "according to CCP internal investigations in 1978 and 1984&nbsp;... 21.44 million were investigated, 125 million got implicated in these investigations; [...] 4.2 million were detained (by Red Guards and other non-police), 1.3 million were arrested by police, 1.728 million of unnatural deaths; [...] 135,000 were executed for crimes of counter-revolution; [...] during ''violent struggles'' 237,000 were killed and 7.03 million became disabled".<ref name="ConsensusNet-2016" /><ref>{{cite news |date=October 1996 |title=Title unknown |journal=Zhengming Magazine |location=Hong Kong |script-quote=zh:中共一九七八年和一九八四年的内部调查&nbsp;...「两千一百四十四万余人受到审查、冲击；一亿两千五百余万人受到牵连、影响」...「四百二十余万人曾被关押、隔离审查；一百三十余万人曾被公安机关拘留、逮捕；一百七十二万八千余人非正常死亡&nbsp;...「十三万五千余人被以现行反革命罪判为死刑；在武斗中有二十三万七千余人死亡，七十三万余人伤残」}}</ref> While these internal investigations were never mentioned or published in any other official documents, the scholarly consensus found these figures very reasonable.<ref name="open2012" /><ref name="Chen 1998">{{cite book |last=Chen |first=Yung-fa |script-title=zh:中國共產革命七十年 (下) |publisher=Linking |year=1998 |location=[[Taipei]] |page=817 |language=zh |script-quote=zh:文化大革命的非正常死亡人數只有大躍進的十分之一不到, 從農民觀點來看, 其錯誤之嚴重, 遠遠不如大躍進&nbsp;... 二千六百萬人慘死 |author-link=Chen Yung-fa}}</ref>
|-
|1991
|[[Rudolph J. Rummel]]
|7.731<ref name="Rummel-1991">{{Cite book |last1=Rummel |first1=R. J. |url={{google books |plainurl=y |id=iIEPoEL4lG0C |page=263}} |title=China's Bloody Century: Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1900 |year=1991 |publisher=Transaction |isbn=978-1412814003 |page=263}}</ref>
|Rummel included his estimate of ''[[Laogai]]'' camp deaths in this figure.<ref name="Yan2016" /> He estimated that 5% of the 10 million people in the Laogai camps died each year of the 12-year period, and that this amounts to roughly 6 million.<ref name="Rummel-1991" />
|-
|1982
|[[Ye Jianying]]
|3.42–20<ref name="open2012" /><ref name="Pye-1986" />
|Several sources have quoted a statement made by [[Yuanshuai#People's Republic of China|Marshal]] [[Ye Jianying]], of "683,000 deaths in the cities, 2.5 million deaths in the countryside, plus 123,700 deaths due to [[Violent Struggle|violent struggles]] and 115,500 deaths due to [[struggle session]]s and imprisonment, in addition to 557,000 people missing."<ref name="open2012" /><ref name="ConsensusNet-2016" /><ref name="Dai-2016" /> In a 2012 interview with Hong Kong's ''Open Magazine'', an unnamed bureaucrat in Beijing claimed that Ye made the statement in a 1982 CCP meeting, while he was the party's [[Vice Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party|Vice Chairman]].<ref name="open2012" /><ref name="Dai-2016">{{cite news |last=Dai |first=Kaiyuan |date=2016-04-18 |script-title=zh:文革的本质：– 场大清洗 |language=zh |trans-title=The nature of the Cultural Revolution: a great purge |work=China News Digest |url=http://www.cnd.org/cr/ZK16/cr859.gb.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220408122445/http://www.cnd.org/cr/ZK16/cr859.gb.html |archive-date=2022-04-08 |quote=Note 12}}</ref> Several sources have also quoted that Marshal Ye estimated the death toll to be 20 million during a CCP working conference in December 1978.<ref name="Ling-2011" /><ref name="Pye-1986" /><ref name="WangS-2012" /><ref name="open2012" />
|-
|1979
|{{lang|fr|[[Agence France Presse]]}}
|0.4<ref name="AGP-1979">Agence France Presse, Beijing, 3February 1979; compiled into [[Foreign Broadcast Information Service|FBIS]]-Chi 79.25 (5 February 1979), p. E2.{{Title missing}}</ref>
|This figure was obtained by an AFP correspondent in Beijing, citing an unnamed but "usually reliable" source.<ref name="AGP-1979" /> In 1986, [[Maurice Meisner]] referred to this number as a "widely accepted nationwide figure", but also said "The toll may well have been higher. It is unlikely that it was less."<ref>{{cite book |last=Meisner |first=Maurice |url=https://archive.org/details/maoschinaaftera00meis/page/371/ |title=Mao's China and After: A History of the People's Republic |publisher=Free Press |year=1986 |edition=2nd |pages=371–372, 394 |quote=Li's estimate for Guangdong is roughly consistent with a widely accepted nationwide figure of 400,000 Cultural Revolution deaths, a number first reported in 1979 by the Agence France Presse correspondent in Peking based on estimates of unofficial but "usually reliable" Chinese sources. The toll may well have been higher. It is unlikely that it was less.}}</ref> Jonathan Leightner asserted that the number is "perhaps one of the best estimates".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Leightner |first=Jonathan |url={{google books |plainurl=y |id=RzUlDwAAQBAJ |page=27}} |title=Ethics, Efficiency and Macroeconomics in China: From Mao to Xi |year=2017 |publisher=[[Taylor & Francis]] |isbn=978-1-351-80583-4 |page=27 |quote=There is no agreement on how many people died during the Cultural Revolution. Perhaps one of the best estimates is 400,000, made by a Beijing correspondent for Agence France-Presse (Meisner 1999: 354).}}</ref>
|}