A struggle session was a form of public humiliation used by the Communist Party of China in the Mao Zedong era to shape public opinion and to humiliate, persecute, and/or execute political rivals and class enemies. In general, the victim of a struggle session was forced to admit to various crimes before a crowd of people who would verbally and physically abuse the victim until he or she confessed.

During Mao's rule, the Chinese people were forced to attend many different types of struggle sessions, sometimes consisting of 100,000 people. During the 1950s when Mao's Government began the Land Reform movement, poorer peasants seized the land from their landlords, who were given the title of exploiting class (剥削階级), and an estimated 2 million landlords were swiftly executed after being subjected to a struggle session.


According to Lin Yu-tang, the expression comes from 批判 [pi1pan4], meaning "to judge", and 鬥爭, meaning "to fight"; so the whole expression conveys the message of inciting the spirit of judgment and fighting. Instead of saying the full phrase 批判鬥爭:pi pan dou zheng, it was shortened to 批鬥:pi dou.

Origins and purpose

Struggle sessions developed from similar ideas of criticism and self-criticism in the Soviet Union from the 1920s. The term refers to class struggle; ostensibly, the session is held to benefit the target, by eliminating all traces of counterrevolutionary, reactionary thinking. Chinese Communists resisted this at first, because struggle sessions conflicted with the Chinese concept of saving face, but struggle sessions became commonplace at Communist Party meetings during the 1930s due to public popularity.[1]

Accounts of struggle sessions


Victims of struggle sessions

Ever since the Communist notion of class enemies (階级敌人) was introduced into China, terminologies such as Capitalist roader, Counter revolutionary, and running dog of the imperialist petty bourgeoisie were a part of the public discourse of revolution, acts of vigilante justice enacted by citizens and, for at least the first few years, including the peoples army. Millions of ordinary Chinese were executed under these accusations. Mao then turned these weapons on his own comrades as leaders began to regret the loss of law and order that seemed to be destroying their previous way of life.[2]

Disuse after 1978



See also

