struggle session

English

Etymology

Calque from Chinese 批鬥大會／批斗大会 (pīdòu dàhuì)

Noun

struggle session (plural struggle sessions)

1. (historical) A form of public humiliation used by China in the Maoist period to shape public opinion and to humiliate or persecute political rivals.
   • 1970, James Chieh Hsiung, Ideology and Practice: The Evolution of Chinese Communism‎^[1], →LCCN, →OCLC, page 333:

     Wang also delivered a sensational “August 7” speech at the Foreign Ministry in a Red Guard struggle session aimed at Ch’en Yi.

   • 1998, Lowell Dittmer, Liu Shaoqi and the Chinese Cultural Revolution‎^[2], M.E. Sharpe, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 84:

     On January 8, Zhou Enlai noted, “You and your friends have come to Zhongnanhai [Liu’s official residence] ... and dragged out Liu and Deng many times.¹²⁴ Yet after a break-in and 40-minute struggle session at his home in Zhongnanhai on January 3 and Wang’s public struggle session on January 6, Liu was granted what would be his last chance to see the chairman. At midnight, January 13, Mao sent his secretary in a nondescript auto to bring Liu to the Great Hall of the People for a talk.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:struggle session.
2. (by extension, figurative) A meeting in which people who disagree with a preferred ideology are humiliated or bullied.
   • 2023, Asra Q. Nomani, Woke Army:

     Look at K-12 indoctrination to see how the Woke Army is racializing every issue and turning classrooms into ideological indoctrination centers, and faculty and staff training into struggle sessions, […]