Mao Zedong launched the Cultural Revolution in 1966 to purge capitalist and traditional elements from Chinese society and reassert his authority. Red Guards attacked intellectuals, destroyed cultural artifacts, and persecuted perceived enemies, causing widespread chaos and suffering until Mao's death in 1976. The movement devastated education, disrupted economy, and traumatized a generation while attempting to create a purely communist culture.

The Cultural Revolution suppressed most poetry except propagandistic verse praising Mao and revolution, driving serious poets underground or into silence. Misty Poets like Bei Dao and Gu Cheng emerged after the revolution ended, writing obscure, metaphor-rich verse that resisted straightforward political interpretation as subtle opposition to totalitarian control. Their poetry's ambiguity protected them from censorship while expressing individual consciousness against collective conformity. The trauma of silenced voices influenced contemporary Chinese poetry's engagement with memory, censorship, and the difficulty of truthful expression under authoritarianism.