Gao is careful to point out that many people did indeed suffer and die over the course of the Cultural Revolution’s ten-year period, 1966-1976. There were suicides, deaths from the factional infighting, there were cases of torture. Many lives were absolutely shortened as a result of the Cultural Revolution. Gao himself was put under house arrest and subject to struggle sessions. He understands denunciations of the Cultural Revolution by those who suffered during the event as understandable and a way to heal emotional trauma. However, the official state project of simplifying everything that happened during the Cultural Revolution as shi nian haojie is something else completely.
