• What were the camps? 🤔
  • Places of extreme dehumanization. Imagine being forced to do the toughest, most humiliating jobs.
  • Suffered from systematic starvation. That's like being made to work out all day without being given a sandwich at the end!
• Location, Location, Location 🗺️
  • Picture the coldest winter or the hottest summer day you've experienced. Now, imagine facing that every day in some of the worst camps located in the most inhospitable parts of China.
• Food for Confession! 🍚
  • To get even the tiniest bit of food, prisoners had to confess to their 'crimes'. No confession, no food. Worse, they faced sleep deprivation, beatings, and more starvation.
• Cold Hard Facts ❄️
  • 10 million: Average prisoners every year during Mao's time.
  • 25 million: Total prisoners that died. This includes suicides, hunger, ill treatment, and executions.
  • 5000: Total labour camps by 1976.

🔥 Hot Tip: The prison's term for suicide was "alienating themselves from the Party and the people". Dark, right?

• What's the Cultural Revolution? 🌀
  • It caused huge economic disruptions! Imagine your computer crashing right before a big assignment is due. But on a country-wide scale!
• Some 'Not-So-Fun' Facts 📊
  • 🏭 Industrial production? Down 13.8%.
  • 🛠️ Steel output? Dropped like your favorite song's bass - from 15 million tonnes to 11 million.
  • 🚂 Rail freight? Went down from 555 million tonnes to 421 million.
  • 🌾 Agricultural production? Took a 2% dive.
  • 💰 And the PRC's deficit? It went from 1 billion yuan to a whopping 2.25 billion yuan.
• The "Belt-Tightening" Measures! ⛓️
  • State companies' assets? Frozen. That's like freezing your pocket money!
  • Bank transactions? Restricted. Imagine banks acting like the strictest parents!
  • Want to travel between provinces? 🚌 You need a permit!
  • Buying cooking oil and rice? 🍚 Special permits only!

🎈 Fun Fact: Officials kept saying everything was "not merely good, but excellent" - even when things were clearly not excellent. Ever had a friend pretend everything's fine when it's not? Just like that!