"The violent phase of the Cultural Revolution, from 1966 to 1969, deeply marked Chinese society. In addition to the estimated half a million people who died from torture, beatings and forced suicide, thousands more were brutalized as a result of the frenzied activities of Red Guard factions who inflicted untold physical and psychological damage. Young people raised without the supervision of parents who had been sent away for re-education lived hand to mouth on the fringes of society. Those whose elders returned from years of hard labour witnessed the enormous physical and psychological toll, from which some never recovered. Many young people who inflicted the humiliating verbal abuse and public beatings on neighbours and former teachers in the name of the revolution would later hear the CCP’s apology to some of their victims, leaving the former Red Guards to reflect on why they had been urged to commit such outrages on people who were now deemed to be innocent of all charges against them. For a whole generation, the realization that their loyalties earned them only manual labour jobs in rural China and that their supposed ‘counter-revolutionary’ targets were exonerated contributed to changing attitudes toward the Party and its ageing leadership. Economically, the country also suffered. Because the major struggles were in urban areas, production fell as workers spent their time in political struggle. Agricultural production in many areas also dropped, and income stagnated. One of the few positive developments was that the urban turmoil brought opportunities for small town and village enterprises, which produced necessities such as chemical fertilizer and small consumer goods that city factories, absorbed with political activity, failed to supply. Overall, however, Mao’s plans for a strong economic and military state in his own lifetime suffered yet another major setback as the Cultural Revolution finally drew to a close. All of this generated a new cynicism about the CCP and Mao’s revolution. Because the times required it, ordinary Chinese became adept at attending meetings and saying little; at hiding all real feelings and guessing what the local leadership wanted them to say and do. ‘Politically correct’ slogans and jargon were the order of the day. Even formerly stalwart members reexamined their long-held views. Although the majority of the people who suffered during the movement were ultimately rehabilitated and readmitted to the Party ranks, the cynicism remained."