structural:summarization
Death toll

Fatality estimates vary across different sources, ranging from hundreds of thousands to millions, or even tens of millions. In addition to various regimes of secrecy and obfuscation concerning the Revolution, both top-down as perpetuated by authorities, as well as laterally among the Chinese public in the decades since, the discrepancies are due in large part to the totalistic nature of the Revolution itself: it is a significant challenge for historians to discern whether and in what ways discrete events that took place during the Cultural Revolution should be ascribed to it. For example, the 1975 Banqiao Dam failure, considered by some to be the greatest technological catastrophe of the 20th century, itself resulted in between 26,600 and 240,000 deaths. The scope of the collapse, which occurred near the end of the CR, was covered up by authorities until at least 1989.

Most deaths occurred after the mass movements ended, when organized campaigns attempted to consolidate order in workplaces and communities. As Walder summarizes, "The cure for factional warfare was far worse than the disease."

Literature reviews of the overall death toll due to the Cultural Revolution usually include the following: