The Cultural Revolution had many good aspects to it but also many problematic parts. The main critique nowadays in China boils down to it having been fundamentally ultra-left in its conception. I don’t know if they have this saying in China but here in the West we would call it “putting the cart before the horse”. In essence, ultra-left errors consist in attempting to leapfrog necessary stages of development and trying to force society into modes of production for which the economic basis is yet too premature.

The collectivization and radical democratization initiatives that were attempted in the Cultural Revolution were a way of trying to establish the social and productive relations of full communism before the necessary productive forces for such an advanced stage existed. From the point of view of the CPC today this was dangerous mistake, because a communist government that is not careful and tries to advance faster than a society is ready for can cause significant damage to the society and lose the trust of the population.

The intention was of course noble, and we can greatly benefit from studying some of the revolutionary ways in which workplaces, communities, villages, etc. were organized and run during the Cultural Revolution. They put into practice many of the sorts of things that we will one day want to see implemented under full communism. Sadly, they were too ahead of their time. China still had a long way to go developing the material basis for a prosperous society and if it had failed to do so the communist party may well have been overthrown.