[4][5][6][3] These public rallies were most popular in the mass campaigns immediately before and after the establishment of the People's Republic of China, and peaked during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), when they were used to instill a crusading spirit among crowds to promote Maoist thought reform.

[4][5][7][8] Struggle sessions were usually conducted at the workplace, classrooms and auditoriums, where "students were pitted against their teachers, friends and spouses were pressured to betray one another, [and] children were manipulated into exposing their parents", causing a breakdown in interpersonal relationships and social trust.

[6][9][10] In particular, the denunciation of prominent "class enemies" was often conducted in public squares and marked by large crowds of people who surrounded the kneeling victim, raised their fists, and shouted accusations of misdeeds.

[19][20][21] Struggle sessions were further employed during the Anti-Rightist Campaign launched by Mao Zedong in 1957, in which a large number of people both inside and outside the CCP were labeled as "rightists" and subjected to persecution and public "criticism".

[4] In the early phase of the revolution, mass violence spread over school campuses, where teachers and professors were subjected to frequent struggle sessions, abused, humiliated, and beaten by their students.

[39][40] Frederick T. C. Yu identified three categories of mass campaigns employed by the CCP in the years before and after the establishment of the People's Republic of China (PRC):[41] The process of struggle sessions served multiple purposes.

Klaus Mühlhahn, professor of China studies at Freie Universität Berlin, wrote: Carefully arranged and organized, the mass trials and accusatory meetings followed clear and meticulously prearranged patterns.

Dramatic devices such as staging, props, working scripts, agitators, and climactic moments were used to efficiently engage the emotions of the audience—to stir up resentment against the targeted groups and mobilize the audience to support the regime.

[48] In 2024, Netflix's global adaptation of the award-winning Chinese science fiction novel The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin sparked significant controversy in China by opening with a brutal scene from the Cultural Revolution.

[49] In the first episode, Ye Wenjie, one of the main characters, watches in horror as her father, a physics professor at the prestigious Tsinghua University, is publicly beaten to death in a struggle session.

[51] Though the series' opening was criticized on Chinese social media for casting China in a negative light, the portrayal of the struggle session was done with original author Liu Cixin's blessing.

[52] In an interview with The Chosun Daily, a Korean newspaper, Liu stated that he "provided personal opinions as an advisor" to the Netflix production, and while not all of his suggestions were taken, "the depiction of the [Cultural Revolution] did not deviate from [his] original work.