Hi guys, I'm doing a project on The Great Leap Forward and the Chinese Cultural Revolution but I can't find any really solid long term impacts as since Mao's reign, their government has done a remarkable job in reversing many of the negative effects and sweeping the rest under the rug. All i can find are immediate impacts however, what I really need are things that have lasted up until at the very least the 90s. Thank you all for your time and even if nothing comes of this post its greatly appreciated nonetheless.
I know a lot more about the economics of China, so I am going to focus my answer more on Economics than other areas. The Cultural Revolution resulted in massive distortions. However, the intensity of the Cultural Revolution varied dramatically from region to region, and the article by Bai suggests those regions with the highest levels of violence are still a lot poorer today. The Cultural Revolution disrupted the lives of many of the post-Mao leaders of China. For example, Xi Jinping had his education cut short by the Cultural Revolution. I think the psychological impact of the Cultural Revolution might be an angle to explore further.
I have interestingly also seen the opposite argument. The Cultural Revolution was launched because Mao Zedong hated the growing power of bureaucrats, and he wanted to "shake thing up" to end administrative sclerosis. State capacity went down in some rural areas along the coast, and many farmers started reestablishing capitalist relations. Rural decollectivization in many places was a bottom up phenomenon that started because the Cultural Revolution paralyzed the state's ability to respond, and local authorities just let farmers do their own thing rather than putting them under state control.
If your paper is more about the Communist legacy on modern China, rather than the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, I might recommend looking into the urban planning legacy of Marxism. Or to be more precise, Engels, who had very specific thoughts on cities and urban planning. In fact, the Hukou system, the Chinese internal passport system that de facto turns rural Chinese into second class citizens, is a legacy of Communism that has largely survived to this day.
Economic Legacies of the Cultural Revolution, Liang Bai
The Silent Revolution: Decollectivization from Below during the Cultural Revolution, Frank Dikötter
The Origins and Social Consequences of China's Hukou System, Tiejun Cheng and Mark Selden
Have you tried finding interviews people who experienced this? I have talked to people who grew up during this period, and while their reconciliations can be problematic it is very interesting to hear their points of views.