struggle session

{{see also|Class struggle|Violent Struggle}}

The term {{lang|zh-Latn|pīdòu}} ({{lang|zh|批鬥}}) comes from {{lang|zh-Latn|pīpàn}} ({{lang|zh|批判}}, {{gloss|to criticize and judge}}) and {{lang|zh-Latn|dòuzhēng}} ({{lang|zh|鬥爭}}, {{gloss|to fight and contest}}), therefore the whole expression conveys the message of "inciting the spirit of judgment and fighting", and instead of saying the full phrase {{lang|zh-Latn|pīpàn dòuzhēng}}, one often speaks of the shortened version {{lang|zh-Latn|pīdòu}} ({{lang|zh|批鬥}}).

The term "struggle session" refers to a session of {{lang|zh-Latn|pīdòu}} ({{lang|zh|批鬥}}): the session is held in public and often attended by a large crowd of people, during which the target is publicly humiliated and subject to verbal and physical abuse, for having "counterrevolutionary" thinking or behavior.{{Cite news |last1=Buckley |first1=Chris |last2=Tatlow |first2=Didi Kirsten |last3=Perlez |first3=Jane |last4=Qin |first4=Amy |date=2016-05-16 |title=Voices From China's Cultural Revolution |url=https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/05/16/world/asia/17china-cultural-revolution-voices.html |access-date=2024-05-09 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331 |archive-date=2024-09-06 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240906005416/https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/05/16/world/asia/17china-cultural-revolution-voices.html |url-status=live }}

{{See also|Land Reform Movement|Anti-Rightist Campaign}}File:Choubapi.jpg, during the Land Reform Movement, 1946]]

Struggle sessions developed from similar ideas of criticism and self-criticism in the Soviet Union from the 1920s. Chinese communists initially resisted this practice, as struggle sessions conflicted with the Chinese concept of "saving face"; however, these sessions became commonplace at Chinese Communist Party (CCP) meetings during the 1930s due to public popularity.{{Cite book|last=Priestland|first=David|title=The Red Flag: A History of Communism|publisher=Grove Press|year=2009|isbn=978-0-8021-1924-7|page=246}}

Struggle sessions emerged in China as a tactic to secure the allegiance of the Chinese people during the Land Reform Movement (which ended in 1953).{{cite journal | last=Li | first=Lifeng | title=Rural Mobilization in the Chinese Communist Revolution: From the Anti-Japanese War to the Chinese Civil War | journal=Journal of Modern Chinese History | volume=9 | number=1 | date=2015 | pages=95–116| doi=10.1080/17535654.2015.1032391 | s2cid=142690129 }} As early as the 1940s, in areas controlled by the CCP during the Chinese Civil War, the CCP encouraged peasants to "criticize" and "struggle against" land owners in order to shape class consciousness.{{Cite journal |last=Song |first=Daolei |date=April 2010 |title=The Political Techniques of the Grievance Movement in Land Reform 土改中訴苦運動的政治技術 |url=https://www.cuhk.edu.hk/ics/21c/media/articles/c118-200812007.pdf |journal=Twenty-First Century Bimonthly 二十一世纪 |access-date=2024-06-03 |archive-date=2022-06-17 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220617044120/https://www.cuhk.edu.hk/ics/21c/media/articles/c118-200812007.pdf |url-status=live }} This campaign sought to mobilize the masses through "speak bitterness" sessions ({{lang|zh-Hant|{{Wikt-lang|en|訴苦}}}}, sùkǔ, 'give utterance to grief') in which peasants accused land owners.{{Cite journal |last=Thaxton |first=Ralph A. |date=2014 |title=Review of Social Suffering and Political Confession: Suku in Modern China |journal=The China Quarterly |issue=218 |pages=578–580 |doi=10.1017/S0305741014000563 |jstor=24741839 }}{{cite journal |last1=Lifeng |first1=Li |title=From Bitter Memories to Revolutionary Memory: On Suku in Northern China During the Land Reform of the 1940s |journal=Chinese Studies in History |date=October 2013 |volume=47 |issue=1 |pages=71–94 |doi=10.2753/CSH0009-4633470104 }}

The strongest accusations in the "speak bitterness" sessions would be incorporated into scripted and stage-managed public mass accusation meetings ({{lang|zh-Hant|{{Wikt-lang|en|控訴}}}}{{lang|zh-Hant|{{Wikt-lang|en|大會}}}}, kòngsù dàhuì). Cadres then cemented the peasants' loyalty by inducing them to actively participate in violent acts against landowners. Escalating violence during the Land Reform Movement resulted in the mass killing of landlords.{{Cite journal |last1=Gao |first1=Wangling |last2=Liu |first2=Yang |date=2009 |title=The Radicalization of Land Reform 土改的极端化 |url=https://www.cuhk.edu.hk/ics/21c/media/articles/c111-200812069.pdf |journal=Twenty-First Century Bimonthly 二十一世纪 |access-date=2024-06-03 |archive-date=2021-06-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210601063104/https://www.cuhk.edu.hk/ics/21c/media/articles/c111-200812069.pdf |url-status=live }} Later struggle sessions were adapted to use outside the CCP as a means of consolidating control of areas under its jurisdiction.

Struggle sessions were further employed during the Anti-Rightist Campaign launched by Mao Zedong in 1957, in which a large number of people both inside and outside the CCP were labeled as "rightists" and subjected to persecution and public "criticism". Many alleged "rightists" were repeatedly "struggled against" and purged.{{Cite journal |last=Vidal |first=Christine |date=2016 |title=The 1957-1958 Anti-Rightist Campaign in China: History and Memory (1978-2014) |url=https://shs.hal.science/halshs-01306892 |journal=CCJ-Occasional-Papers |via=HAL Archive |access-date=2024-06-03 |archive-date=2024-06-03 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240603094833/https://shs.hal.science/halshs-01306892 |url-status=live }} According to official CCP statistics released during the "Boluan Fanzheng" period after Mao's death, the campaign resulted in the political persecution of at least 550,000 people.{{Cite web |last1=Magazine |first1=Smithsonian |last2=King |first2=Gilbert |title=The Silence that Preceded China's Great Leap into Famine |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-silence-that-preceded-chinas-great-leap-into-famine-51898077/ |access-date=2024-06-03 |website=Smithsonian Magazine |language=en |archive-date=2019-10-14 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191014232813/https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-silence-that-preceded-chinas-great-leap-into-famine-51898077/ |url-status=live }}

{{see also|Red August|Five Black Categories|Stinking Old Ninth}}

After the disasters of the Great Leap Forward, Mao Zedong had stepped back from presiding over the daily affairs of China's Central Committee. In order to regain power and defeat political enemies within the party, Mao leveraged his cult of personality to unleash the Cultural Revolution in 1966.{{Cite web |date=2016-08-05 |title="Mao's Last Revolution": China's Cultural Transformation {{!}} Origins |url=https://origins.osu.edu/milestones/august-2016-chinese-cultural-revolution-fifty?language_content_entity=en |access-date=2024-06-03 |website=origins.osu.edu |language=en |archive-date=2024-05-24 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240524143002/https://origins.osu.edu/milestones/august-2016-chinese-cultural-revolution-fifty?language_content_entity=en |url-status=live }}{{Cite book |last=Walder |first=Andrew G. |title=China Under Mao: A Revolution Derailed |date=2015 |publisher=Harvard University Press |jstor=j.ctvjf9wzk |isbn=978-0-674-05815-6 }}{{pn|date=June 2024}}

File:Xi Zhongxun on struggle session in September 1967.jpg, the father of Xi Jinping, at Northwest A&F University during the Cultural Revolution, September 1967.{{Cite book |last1=Jian |first1=Guo |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=k9NQCgAAQBAJ&dq=xi+zhongxun+cultural+revolution&pg=PA366 |title=Historical Dictionary of the Chinese Cultural Revolution |last2=Song |first2=Yongyi |author-link2=Song Yongyi |last3=Zhou |first3=Yuan |date=2015-07-23 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=978-1-4422-5172-4 |language=en |access-date=2024-04-03 |archive-date=2024-09-06 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240906005417/https://books.google.com/books?id=k9NQCgAAQBAJ&dq=xi+zhongxun+cultural+revolution&pg=PA366#v=onepage&q=xi%20zhongxun%20cultural%20revolution&f=false |url-status=live }}{{Cite web |title=Cultural Revolution, 50 years on – the pain, passion and power struggle that shaped China today |url=https://multimedia.scmp.com/cultural-revolution/?src=amp-article-text |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240416203220/https://multimedia.scmp.com/cultural-revolution/?src=amp-article-text |archive-date=2024-04-16 |access-date=2024-05-09 |website=South China Morning Post |language=zh}} The banner reads "Anti-Party element Xi Zhongxun". ]]During the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), struggle sessions were widely conducted by Red Guards and various rebel groups across mainland China. Though there was no specific definition for the "targets of struggle", they included the Five Black Categories and anyone else who could be deemed an enemy of Mao Zedong Thought. According to one source on classified official statistics, nearly 2 million Chinese were killed and another 125 million were either persecuted or "struggled against" (subject to struggle sessions) during the Cultural Revolution.

In the early phase of the revolution, mass violence spread over school campuses, where teachers and professors were subjected to frequent struggle sessions, abused, humiliated, and beaten by their students.{{Cite web |last=Wang |first=Youqin |author-link=Wang Youqin |title=Victim of the Cultural Revolution——An Investigative Account of Persecution, Imprisonment and Murder |url=http://ywang.uchicago.edu/history/victim_ebook_070505.pdf |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161012075659/http://ywang.uchicago.edu/history/victim_ebook_070505.pdf |archive-date=2016-10-12 |website=The University of Chicago |publisher= |language=zh}} Intellectuals were labelled as counter-revolutionaries ("反动学术权威") and were even called "Stinking Old Ninth",{{Cite book |last=Jiao |first=Liwei |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kb29DwAAQBAJ&dq=stinking+old+ninth&pg=PT118 |title=A Cultural Dictionary of The Chinese Language: 500 Proverbs, Idioms and Maxims 文化五百条 |date=2019-11-12 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-000-71302-2 |language=en}} subject to frequent struggle sessions and extensive torture.{{Cite news |last=Phillips |first=Tom |date=2016-05-11 |title=The Cultural Revolution: all you need to know about China's political convulsion |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/11/the-cultural-revolution-50-years-on-all-you-need-to-know-about-chinas-political-convulsion |access-date=2024-05-09 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077 |archive-date=2019-12-08 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191208010532/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/11/the-cultural-revolution-50-years-on-all-you-need-to-know-about-chinas-political-convulsion |url-status=live }}{{Cite web |last=Lamb |first=Stefanie |date=December 2005 |title=Introduction to the Cultural Revolution |url=http://spice.fsi.stanford.edu/docs/introduction_to_the_cultural_revolution |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240306163749/https://spice.fsi.stanford.edu/docs/introduction_to_the_cultural_revolution |archive-date=2024-03-06 |access-date=2024-05-09 |website=Stanford University |language=en}} During the Red August of Beijing in 1966, notable intellectuals such as Lao She and Chen Mengjia committed suicide after being humiliated and "struggled against".{{Cite web |last=Brady |first=Paul |date=1974 |title=Death and the Nobel-On Lao She's "Suicide" |url=http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/rct/pdf/e_outputs/b10/v10p005.pdf |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191227054417/http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/rct/pdf/e_outputs/b10/v10p005.pdf |archive-date=2019-12-27 |website=Chinese University of Hong Kong}}

Meanwhile, Zhou Zuoren requested euthanasia from the local police after being harassed by Red Guards, but received no reply. Zhou eventually died of a sudden relapse of an illness on May 6, 1967.{{Cite web |title=PKU Today in History - May 6: Passing of Zhou Zuoren |url=https://english.pku.edu.cn/news_events/news/campus/1605.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240430015643/https://english.pku.edu.cn/news_events/news/campus/1605.html |archive-date=2024-04-30 |access-date=2024-05-09 |website=Peking University}}{{Cite web |title=Zhou Zuoren |url=https://cuhk.edu.hk/rct/renditions/authors/zhouzr.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240509222638/https://cuhk.edu.hk/rct/renditions/authors/zhouzr.html |archive-date=2024-05-09 |access-date=2024-05-09 |website=Chinese University of Hong Kong}} Top government officials, including Liu Shaoqi, Deng Xiaoping, Peng Dehuai, and Tao Zhu, were also widely "struggled against" and even persecuted to death during the revolution.{{Cite journal |last=Teiwes |first=Frederick C. |date=1986 |editor-last=Longpu |editor-first=Zheng |editor2-last=Domes |editor2-first=Jurgen |title=Peng Dehuai and Mao Zedong |journal=The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs |issue=16 |pages=81–98 |doi=10.2307/2158776 |jstor=2158776 }}{{Cite journal |last=Shen |first=Xiaoyun |date=2016 |title=The Sudden Rise and Fall of Tao Zhu, The "Number 4 in Command" in the Cultural Revolution |url=https://www.modernchinastudies.org/us/issues/past-issues/123-mcs-2016-issue-2/1411-the-sudden-rise-and-fall-of-tao-zhu-the-number-4-in-command-in-the-cultural-revolution.html |journal=Modern China Studies |issue=2 |access-date=2024-03-24 |archive-date=2023-05-22 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230522172316/https://www.modernchinastudies.org/us/issues/past-issues/123-mcs-2016-issue-2/1411-the-sudden-rise-and-fall-of-tao-zhu-the-number-4-in-command-in-the-cultural-revolution.html |url-status=live }}

After the Cultural Revolution, struggle sessions were disowned in China, starting from the Boluan Fanzheng period, when the reformers, led by Deng Xiaoping, took power in December 1978.{{Cite book |last=Wang |first=Xiaoxuan |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ed3QDwAAQBAJ&q=boluan+fanzheng&pg=PA160 |title=Maoism and Grassroots Religion: The Communist Revolution and the Reinvention of Religious Life in China |date=2020 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-006938-4 |language=en |access-date=2024-03-24 |archive-date=2024-09-06 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240906005417/https://books.google.com/books?id=Ed3QDwAAQBAJ&q=boluan+fanzheng&pg=PA160#v=snippet&q=boluan%20fanzheng&f=false |url-status=live }}{{Cite book |last=Tong |first=Qinglin |url=http://cpc.people.com.cn/GB/64162/82819/122016/index.html |title=回首1978——历史在这里转折 |publisher=People's Press |year=2008 |isbn=9787010068954 |location=Beijing |language=zh |trans-title=Looking back at 1978—a turning point in history |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080511170617/http://cpc.people.com.cn/GB/64162/82819/122016/index.html |archive-date=2008-05-11 |url-status=dead}} Deng and other senior officials prohibited struggle sessions and other forms of Mao-era violent political campaigns, and the primary focus of Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese government shifted from "class struggle" to "economic construction".{{Cite web |date=2014-10-15 |title=50 flashbacks signal reform (I) |url=http://www.china.org.cn/archive/2014-10/15/content_33772840_2.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211115115350/http://www.china.org.cn/archive/2014-10/15/content_33772840_2.htm |archive-date=2021-11-15 |access-date=2020-04-29 |website=China Internet Information Center}}{{Cite web |last1=Yu |first1=Guangren |date= |title=Dèng Xiǎopíng de qiúshí yù fǎnsī jīngshén |script-title=zh:邓小平的求实与反思精神 |url=http://www.yhcqw.com/33/609.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200507110315/http://www.yhcqw.com/33/609.html |archive-date=2020-05-07 |access-date=2020-04-29 |website=Yanhuang Chunqiu |language=zh}}

Frederick T. C. Yu identified three categories of mass campaigns employed by the CCP in the years before and after the establishment of the People's Republic of China (PRC):{{cite book|last=Yu|first=Frederick T. C.|title=Communication and Change in the Developing Countries|date=1967|publisher=East-West Center Press|isbn=9780824802172|editor-last=Lerner|editor-first=Daniel|location=Honolulu, HI|pages=201–202|chapter=Campaigns, Communications, and Development in Communist China|oclc=830080345}}

• Economic campaigns sought to improve conditions, often by increasing production in particular sectors of the economy.
• Ideological campaigns sought to change people's thinking and behaviour.
• Struggle sessions were similar to ideological campaigns, but "their focus is on the elimination of the power base and/or class position of enemy classes or groups."{{cite book|last=Cell|first=Charles P.|url=https://archive.org/details/revolutionatwork0000cell/page/9|title=Revolution at Work: Mobilization Campaigns in China|date=1977|publisher=Academic Press|isbn=9780121647506|location=New York|page=[https://archive.org/details/revolutionatwork0000cell/page/9 9]|oclc=2968117|postscript=none}}. (Summarization of Yu's categories.)

The process of struggle sessions served multiple purposes. First, it demonstrated to the masses that the party was determined to subdue any opposition (generally labeled "class enemies"), by violence if necessary. Second, potential rivals were crushed. Third, those who attacked the targeted foes became complicit in the violence and hence invested in the state. All three served to consolidate the party's control, which was deemed necessary because party members constituted a small minority of China's population.{{cite journal | last=Wu | first=Guo | title=Speaking Bitterness: Political Education in Land Reform and Military Training Under the CCP, 1947–1951 | journal=The Chinese Historical Review | volume=21 | number=1 | date=March 2014 | pages=3–23| doi=10.1179/1547402X14Z.00000000026 | s2cid=144044801 }}{{cite book | last=Solomon | first=Richard H. | title=Mao's Revolution and the Chinese Political Culture | location=Berkeley, CA | publisher=University of California Press | date=1971 | isbn=9780520018068 | oclc=1014617521 | pages=195–200}}{{cite journal | last=Perry | first=Elizabeth J. | title=Moving the Masses: Emotion Work in the Chinese Revolution | journal=Mobilization | volume=7 | number=2 | date=2002 | pages=111–128 | doi=10.17813/maiq.7.2.70rg70l202524uw6 | s2cid=145444202 | url=http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:11591713 | access-date=2020-08-27 | archive-date=2024-09-06 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240906005418/https://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/11591713 | url-status=live | url-access=subscription }}

Both accusation meetings and mass trials were largely propaganda tools to accomplish the party's aims. Klaus Mühlhahn, professor of China studies at Freie Universität Berlin, wrote:

{{Blockquote | text=Carefully arranged and organized, the mass trials and accusatory meetings followed clear and meticulously prearranged patterns. Dramatic devices such as staging, props, working scripts, agitators, and climactic moments were used to efficiently engage the emotions of the audience—to stir up resentment against the targeted groups and mobilize the audience to support the regime.{{cite book | last=Mühlhahn | first=Klaus | title=Criminal Justice in China: A History | location=Cambridge, MA | publisher=Harvard University Press | date=2009 | isbn=9780674033238 | oclc=938707409 | pages=182–183}}Also, {{cite magazine | last=Strauss | first=Julia | title=Morality, Coercion and State Building by Campaign in the Early PRC: Regime Consolidation and After, 1949-1956 | magazine=The China Quarterly | issue=188 | date=December 2006 | pages=906–908 | url=https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/3516/1/morality_coercion_and_state_building_Strauss.pdf | access-date=2024-03-13 | archive-date=2024-03-17 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240317215920/https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/3516/1/morality_coercion_and_state_building_Strauss.pdf | url-status=live }}}}

Julia C. Strauss observed that public tribunals were "but the visible dénouement of a show that had been many weeks in preparation".{{cite book | last=Strauss | first=Julia C. | chapter=Traitors, Terror, and Regime Consolidation on the Two Sides of the Taiwan Straits: 'Revolutionaries' and 'Reactionaries' from 1949 to 1956 | title=Traitors: Suspicion, Intimacy, and the Ethics of State-Building | editor1-last=Thiranagama | editor1-first=Sharika | editor2-last=Kelly | editor2-first=Tobias | location=Philadelphia, PA | publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press | date=2011 | isbn=9780812242133 | oclc=690379541 | page=105}}

Anne F. Thurston, in Enemies of the People, gave a description of a struggle session for the professor You Xiaoli: "I had many feelings at that struggle session. I thought there were some bad people in the audience. But I also thought there were many ignorant people, people who did not understand what was happening, so I pitied that kind of person. They brought workers and peasants into the meetings, and they could not understand what was happening. But I was also angry."{{cite web |url= http://www.worldandischool.com/public/1987/june/school-resource12592.asp |title= Enemies of the People |publisher= World and ischool |date= June 1987 |access-date= 2011-03-07 |archive-date= 2007-09-30 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20070930021423/http://www.worldandischool.com/public/1987/june/school-resource12592.asp |url-status= dead }}

{{See also|Farewell My Concubine (film)|To Live (1994 film)|3 Body Problem (TV series)}}

The struggle session has become one of the most emblematic and recognizable visuals from the Cultural Revolution, often depicted in film and TV to immediately place viewers in the era.{{cite book |first1=Belinda Q. |last1=He |chapter=Seeing (through) the Struggle Sessions |pages=19–40 |id={{Project MUSE|3278780|type=chapter}} |editor1-last=Kyong-McClain |editor1-first=Jeff |editor2-last=Meeuf |editor2-first=Russell |editor3-last=Chang |editor3-first=Jing Jing |title=Chinese Cinema: Identity, Power, and Globalization |date=2022 |publisher=Hong Kong University Press, HKU |isbn=978-988-8754-89-2 }} Belinda Qian He, professor of East Asian and Cinema & Media studies at the University of Maryland, even describes these "show trials" as "the period's iconic form of violence".{{Cite web |last=Archive |first=Asia Art |title=Image and Pidou(hui) as a Tale of Multiple "Show Trials" in China |url=https://aaa.org.hk/en/grants/the-robert-h-n-ho-family-foundation-greater-china-research-grant-papers/image-and-pidouhui-as-a-tale-of-multiple-show-trials-in-china |access-date=2024-06-03 |website=aaa.org.hk |language=en |archive-date=2024-04-13 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240413034555/https://aaa.org.hk/en/grants/the-robert-h-n-ho-family-foundation-greater-china-research-grant-papers/image-and-pidouhui-as-a-tale-of-multiple-show-trials-in-china |url-status=live }}

{{Blockquote|text=Pidouhui [struggle session] stands out as one of the most spectacular icons of China's socialist class struggle, with a few highly visible formal elements: gesticulating and slogan-shouting masses, the objects of the struggle with their heads hung or kneel down (sometimes also wear the "dunce caps" or hold their arms in a humiliating and painful position called the "jet plane style"), big sign boards with a denunciatory label written on it and with the person's name crossed out, among others.}}

Notable examples of struggle sessions shown in Chinese cinema can be found in Farewell My Concubine (1993) and To Live (1994). Both historical dramas achieved immense international acclaim, and both films were censored in mainland China for their critical depictions of the Cultural Revolution.

In 2024, Netflix's global adaptation of the award-winning Chinese science fiction novel The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin sparked significant controversy in China by opening with a brutal scene from the Cultural Revolution.{{Cite web |last=Gan |first=Nectar |date=2024-03-22 |title=Netflix blockbuster '3 Body Problem' divides opinion and sparks nationalist anger in China |url=https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/22/style/china-reaction-netflix-show-3-body-problem-intl-hnk/index.html |access-date=2024-06-03 |website=CNN |language=en |archive-date=2024-06-02 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240602225428/https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/22/style/china-reaction-netflix-show-3-body-problem-intl-hnk/index.html |url-status=live }} In the first episode, Ye Wenjie, one of the main characters, watches in horror as her father, a physics professor at the prestigious Tsinghua University, is publicly beaten to death in a struggle session.{{Cite web |last=Romano |first=Aja |date=2024-04-12 |title=The Chinese backlash over Netflix's 3 Body Problem, explained |url=https://www.vox.com/culture/24125194/netflix-3-body-problem-backlash-china-changes-criticism |access-date=2024-06-03 |website=Vox |language=en-US |archive-date=2024-05-09 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240509202104/https://www.vox.com/culture/24125194/netflix-3-body-problem-backlash-china-changes-criticism |url-status=live }}

The scene may have been inspired by the true story of Ye Qisong, who was a renowned Chinese physicist persecuted during the Cultural Revolution, and who shares the same family name as the fictional character. The real Ye even founded the Department of Physics at Tsinghua University.{{Cite web |title=History-Department of Physics |url=https://www.phys.tsinghua.edu.cn/phyen/About/History.htm |access-date=2024-06-03 |website=www.phys.tsinghua.edu.cn |archive-date=2024-06-05 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240605061516/https://www.phys.tsinghua.edu.cn/phyen/About/History.htm |url-status=live }}

Though the series' opening was criticized on Chinese social media for casting China in a negative light, the portrayal of the struggle session was done with original author Liu Cixin's blessing.{{Cite web |last=Beulchan |first=Lee |date=2024-04-18 |title=Interview: The Three-Body Problem author Liu Cixin "My novel is not a metaphor for US-China tensions" |url=https://www.chosun.com/english/long-reads-en/2024/04/20/6MLR5T6PCBEYPB4GSZMKTTD3MU/ |access-date=2024-06-03 |website=The Chosun Daily |language=en |archive-date=2024-05-19 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240519172459/https://www.chosun.com/english/long-reads-en/2024/04/20/6MLR5T6PCBEYPB4GSZMKTTD3MU/ |url-status=live }} In an interview with The Chosun Daily, a Korean newspaper, Liu stated that he "provided personal opinions as an advisor" to the Netflix production, and while not all of his suggestions were taken, "the depiction of the [Cultural Revolution] did not deviate from [his] original work." Liu had originally intended to open the novel the same way, but moved the scenes to the middle of the narrative on the advice of his Chinese publisher to avoid government censorship.

When asked why he emphasized the Cultural Revolution in his book, Liu stated:

{{Blockquote|text="It was necessary to mention the event to develop the story. The plot required a scenario where a modern Chinese person becomes completely disillusioned with humanity, and no other event in modern Chinese history seemed appropriate except the Cultural Revolution."}}

{{Portal|China|Communism}}

• Anti-Bolshevik League incident, 1930s purge
• Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries, early 1950s purge
• Futian incident, 1930 purge
• Acts of repudiation, Cuba
• Self-criticism (Marxism–Leninism)
• Show trial
• Two Minutes Hate, in Orwell's novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four
• Kangaroo court
• Presumption of guilt

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{{Marxist & Communist phraseology}}

{{Cultural Revolution}}

{{Chinese Communist Party}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Struggle session}}

Category:Campaigns of the Chinese Communist Party

Category:Cultural Revolution

Category:Group processes

Category:Maoist China

Category:Maoist terminology

Category:Meetings

Category:Political repression in China

Category:Abuse of the legal system

Category:Vigilantism

Category:Crowd psychology

Category:Torture in China

Category:Mass psychogenic illness