Red Guards
The PLA
reading
Mao’s
Little Red
Book
Elena Songster & Jessica Stowell, OU
Phase I: Red Guards (1966-69)
8 August 1966
• 16 point decision
• Red Guards destroy the “four olds”:
•
•
•
•
Thought
Culture
Customs
Habits
4
Phase I: Red Guards (1966-69)
• Purge of party cadres
– Deng Xiaoping
• Purge of intellectuals
The Red Guards
• Galvanized by the August 1966
Rally, the Red Guards became
the primary instruments of the
Cultural Revolution
• “We have to depend on them to
start a rebellion, a revolution,
otherwise we may not be able to
overthrow the demons and
monsters. We must liberate the
little devils. We need more
monkeys to disrupt the palace”
(Mao, 1965-interesting!)
The Red Guards
• One of the key instruments employed during the Great Cultural
Revolution by Mao is The Red Guards.
• These are people in their teens and twenties who supported the
shake-ups within the Communist Party in the Cultural Revolution.
• Their key activity was to terrorise closet capitalists.
• They attacked and tortured respected teachers, abused elderly
citizens, humiliated old revolutionaries, and, in many cases, battled
former friends in bloody confrontations.
• They carried Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book with religious fervour,
often using the quotations to justify their revolutionary efforts.
• Most of the Red Guards did not finish their education as a result of
the cultural revolution.
Red Guard
•
The Red Guard is the name given to
the hundreds of thousands of students
who left their schools to spread Mao’s
message; that the Moderates were
bringing China down the ‘Capitalist
Road’, and needed to return to pure
Communism once again
•
They were responsible for a majority
of the chaos created during the
Cultural Revolution
•
They traveled the countryside and
visited factories, etc. to spread the
message
•
At the end of the Cultural Revolution,
they were sent to the countryside to
‘learn from the peasants’
Red Guard
• Red Guard activities were
promoted as a reflection
of Mao's policy of
rekindling revolutionary
enthusiasm and
destroying "outdated,"
"counterrevolutionary"
symbols and values.
• Mao's ideas, popularized
in the Quotations from
Chairman Mao, became
the standard by which all
revolutionary efforts were
to be judged.
• A Young group
of Red Guards
Mao gathered
to fight against
democratic
society.
Red Guards
• Schools closed so the kids
could join
• They beat anyone that they
thought were
counterrevolutionaries
• Most of these people with
authority.
• They were publicly
humiliated, beaten, and
sometimes killed
Struggle Sessions
Elena Songster & Jessica Stowell, OU
The Red Guard
•
They had the workers arrange
meetings so frequent that production
came to a standstill
•
Anyone who complained was accused
of being a bourgeois, etc.
•
Vandalism was also common, as the
Red Guard started to stamp out
authorities, like the leader of the
factory, etc.
•
High levels of violence ensued
•
This meant that national output fell
dramatically during the course of the
Cultural Revolution
•
This caused the Chinese economy to
be crippled through the three-year
duration of the Cultural Revolution
Youth: Red Guards
Elena Songster & Jessica Stowell, OU
Red Guards (1966-69)
• Renamed streets and
buildings
• Lined the streets with
pictures of Mao
• Attacked and humiliated
those in Western or
traditional clothing
• As early as 1967, the Red
Guards were seen by many
in the Party to be a liability.
A Red Guard
Red Guards: Struggle Sessions
(Purges)
• Red Guard denounce teachers,
parents, school leaders in public
facing hundreds of people for
crimes against Mao and the
Revolution.
• This was a unique method used
by the Communist Party of China
in the Mao era to shape public
opinion and to humiliate,
persecute, and/or execute
political rivals, so-called class
enemies .
Red Guards March to
Canton
Cultural Revolution
•
•
•
In June 1966 middle schools and
universities throughout the
country closed down as students
devoted all their time to Red
Guard activities. Millions of
these young students were
encouraged to attack
"counterrevolutionaries (teachers
school leaders, and parents) "
and criticize those in the party
who appeared to have deviated
from Maoist thought.
Left is a painting of a young "Red
Guard" participating in the
campaign. The big characters on
the board read "Field for
Criticism." The head of Mao
Zedong appears in the upper left
corner.
Why do you think the artist chose
to include Mao's image in this
poster?