Author Description

Mao Zedong once famously said, "Power grows from the barrel of a gun," a prime example of which is the People's Liberation Army (PLA). With the founding of the People's Republic of China, the PLA's mandate extended beyond safeguarding national security to maintaining domestic order and keeping the Chinese Communist Party in power. In the 1960s and 1970s, the PLA was Mao's chief instrument in preparing, launching, and further developing the Cultural Revolution, but its role was complex and often opaque. Through the Storm meticulously traces the PLA's role through archival research and interviews with retired cadres and officers to show that the military's role in the Cultural Revolution has been historically understated and that it eclipsed that of the more high-profile civilian Red Guards in both scales and duration. With its Chinese edition hailed in media and academia as an "exceptionally valuable" achievement, this book's condensed English edition offers international readers a deeper understanding of the PLA's role in launching and perpetuating modern Chinese history's most sustained and violent campaign.