Male Students Told To Confess Their Sins At ‘Masculinity Confession Booth.’
“A struggle session (simplified Chinese: 批斗会; traditional Chinese: 批鬥會; pinyin: Pī Dòu Huì) was a form of public humiliation and torture used by the Communist Party of China in the Mao Zedong era, particularly during the Cultural Revolution, to shape public opinion and to humiliate, persecute, or execute political rivals and class enemies.[1]
In general, the victim of a struggle session was forced to admit to various crimes before a crowd of people who would verbally and physically abuse the victim until he or she confessed. Struggle sessions were often held at the workplace of the accused, but were sometimes conducted in sports stadiums where large crowds would gather if the target was famous enough.[1]”
…Struggle sessions developed from similar ideas of criticism and self-criticism in the Soviet Union from the 1920s.
…Lately, the term “struggle session” has come to be applied to any scene where victims are publicly badgered to confess imaginary crimes under the pretext of self-criticism and rehabilitation
The New York Times published an essay by George Yancy inviting whites to indulge in self criticism: “to tarry, to linger, with the ways in which you perpetuate a racist society, the ways in which you are racist.”
Self Criticism, from Infogalactic:
Under some systems of communism, party members who had fallen out of favour with the nomenklatura were sometimes forced to undergo “self-criticism” sessions, producing either written or verbal statements detailing their ideological errors and affirming their renewed belief in the Party line. Self-criticism, however, did not guarantee political rehabilitation, and often offenders were still expelled from the Party, or in some cases even executed.
In the Soviet Union, “criticism and self-criticism” were known as kritika i samokritika (Russian: критика и самокритика).
In the People’s Republic of China, self-criticism—called ziwo pipan (自我批判) or jiǎntǎo (检讨)—is an important part of Maoist practice. Mandatory self-criticism as a part of political rehabilitation or prior to execution—common under Mao, ended by Deng Xiaoping, and partially revived by Xi Jinping—is known as a struggle session, in reference to class struggle.
Such sessions could be elaborate, public and frequent, and included denunciations.
