The Eleventh Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee of the CPC

It was held in Beijing from August 1 to August 12, 1966. The Plenum was presided over by Mao Zedong. Liu Shaoqi reported on the work of the Central Committee since the Tenth Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee and assumed responsibility for assigning the working group. On August 5, Mao Zedong wrote “Bombard the Headquarters—My Big-Character Poster”, accusing certain leading comrades from the central to the local levels of standing in a reactionary bourgeois position, practicing the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, and throwing the proletariat. On August 7, after the big-character poster was issued at the Plenary Session, the Plenum turned to accusing Liu Shaoqi, Deng Xiaoping and other leaders who presided over the daily work of the Central Committee.

The Plenum discussed and adopted the "Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on the Great Proletarian ‘Cultural Revolution’” (i.e., the "Sixteen Articles"), which stipulated that the goal of the struggle for the “Cultural Revolution” was to overthrow "those persons in authority who are taking the capitalist road", to criticize "reactionary bourgeois academic ‘authorities’", and to take back the leadership into the hands of the proletariat. The method of carrying out the “Cultural Revolution” was to use the " Four Bigs" (i.e., the Big Voice, the Big Release, the Big Character Posters, and the Big Debates). The Plenum discussed and approved the major decisions and measures of the Central Political Bureau on domestic and international issues since the Tenth Plenary Session of the Eight Central Committee in September 1962. It also reorganized the leading bodies of the Central Committee according to Mao Zedong's proposal and decided to remove Peng Zhen, Luo Ruiqing, Lu Dingyi and Yang Shangkun from the posts of secretary and alternate secretary of the Central Committee Secretariat; to re-elect six members and three alternate members of the Political Bureau; to re-elect two members of the Central Committee Secretariat; and to elect 11 members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau.

The convening of the Eleventh Plenary Session of the Eighth CPC Central Committee and the Enlarged Meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee in May of the same year marked the full-scale launch of the “Cultural Revolution”, and the “Left” erroneous thinking began to dominate the Party Central Committee.

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