China's ruling Communist Party will likely never open all the files on its recent painful past, including the Cultural Revolution and Great Leap Forward, and sees no need to reassess those periods, a senior party historian said Monday.
The 1958-1961 Great Leap Forward, when millions starved to death in Mao Zedong's botched industrialization campaign, and the 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution are two of modern China's most sensitive historical events.
During the Cultural Revolution, children turned on parents and students on teachers after Mao declared class war, convulsing the country in chaos and violence.