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Ariana Lindquist
SHPN-MAZU-3432.tif
The ceremony processes in front of a stage of Communist Party officials.
Chinese folk religion was under assault by Chinese intellectuals, Christian missionaries and the Chinese government since the late Qing Dynasty. This oppression was particularly vicious under Mao who, rightly so, identified Chinese folk religious practices as the soul and core of traditional social structures, which he was intent on destroying and remaking into a communist utopia. In 1979, exhausted from the destructive excesses of the Cultural Revolution and deeming folk religion nearly obliterated, the government took a more indifferent attitude towards these traditional practices.
Chinese folk religion was under assault by Chinese intellectuals, Christian missionaries and the Chinese government since the late Qing Dynasty. This oppression was particularly vicious under Mao who, rightly so, identified Chinese folk religious practices as the soul and core of traditional social structures, which he was intent on destroying and remaking into a communist utopia. In 1979, exhausted from the destructive excesses of the Cultural Revolution and deeming folk religion nearly obliterated, the government took a more indifferent attitude towards these traditional practices.
