The era of Communist China and the Cultural Revolution (1949-1976) marked a significant period in China's history. The ongoing conflict between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the nationalist Kuomintang Party (KMT) led to the Chinese Civil War (1945–1949). In 1949, the CCP, a close ally of the Soviet Union, defeated the Nationalist Party and took control of mainland China. CCP leader Mao Zedong founded the People's Republic of China, now also commonly known as Communist China (“History of China”). Mao Zedong and the CCP supported socialism and Marxism-Leninist theories. Mao realized the need for social reconstruction and adopted the Soviet model of development. Despite the technical and economic problems faced by China, Mao was aware of the cultural and political difficulties of the country's development. “He believed that only through controlled conflict could China sustain social change” (Solomon 250). After numerous failed attempts in the 1950s and early 1960s to impose communism, including the Great Leap Forward that caused the Great Chinese Famine and killed tens of millions of people, Mao set in motion a social movement political known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (“Cultural Revolution”). The Revolution was launched in 1966 in fear of the arrival of a new elite and in an attempt to reassert its authority. Mao ordered the purge of anyone who did not fully support him and threatened his socialist framework. He sought to “create a China in which peasants, workers and educated people worked together – no one was better than anyone else and everyone worked for the good of China – a classless society” (Trueman). As a result, Mao focused on imposing a cleansing of C...... middle of paper ...... as “rightists” who sought to portray anti-communist ideals. This process was called the “Anti-Rightist Campaign” (Zhang 207). The loosening of regulations on script production allowed for the expansion and development of genres and styles throughout socialist cinema. In this phase, in addition to the already consolidated genres of drama, comedy and thriller, biography, children's films, myths, musicals, opera films and docu-drama were experimented with. However, it is important to note that the stylistic nature of the films has become secondary. Throughout social cinema, directors have been stymied due to “direct service to politics, a lack of psychological depth, and a distance from the artistic achievements of foreign films” (Zhang 212). All of this was due to the significant power of Mao and the CCP. The third phase, the Cultural Revolution (1966-78), suspended all feature film production