Red Garden (China)

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The Red Guards ( Chinese  紅衛兵  /  红卫兵 , Pinyin Hóngwèibīng ) were the bearers of the Cultural Revolution initiated by Mao Zedong (1966–1976) in the People's Republic of China .

background

"Words of Chairman Mao" in various Chinese languages, many Red Guards carried the "Little Red Book" with them

The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was brought into being by Mao in order to consolidate his power and his supposed opponents in the apparatus of power under the pretext that they had taken the “ capitalist path” and were in fact not communists but revisionists from strategically important positions to evict. According to this, reactionaries had secretly lodged themselves in the party and in the educational and cultural institutions in order to enforce a capitalist system.

founding

Against this background, Nie Yuanzi , a left-wing party secretary at Peking University , hung up a poster on May 25, 1966, after consulting with Mao's confidants , denouncing the leaders of her university as revisionists. That was the prelude to the first founding of the Red Guards on May 29, 1966 by students from the elite middle school at Tsinghua University in Beijing . Their goal was to protect Chairman Mao and the Mao Zedong thought against all enemies and thus the fight against revisionism. A new, solid form of organization for the youth was born, and Mao had the troops loyal to him at his disposal to be able to take action against his opponents. The Red Guards received legitimacy through the highest authority, Mao himself. Members of the first Red Guards had sent him two revolutionary posters on July 28th. In his reply letter, he promised his support to the students and coined the crucial phrase “to rebel is justified”. A symbolic act completed the picture of Mao's sympathy for these “revolutionary successors”. On August 18, in Tian'anmen Square, in front of a million rebellious students and teachers, he took a red bracelet from a middle school student, the hallmark of the Red Guards.

Working groups

Yuanzi's wall poster was never spread and praised nationwide. As a result, pupils and students across China criticized teachers and cadres at educational institutions, whom they accused of treading the "capitalist path". In order to bring this development under control, at the beginning of June 1966 the Politburo sent so-called working groups consisting of experienced cadres to schools and universities. These tried to direct the criticism towards teachers who had a bourgeois past. So from then on they selected the people to be criticized, but also protected them from assault by the young people. This was criticized by some pupils and students who, as members of the masses, demanded the right to choose the targets themselves and to wrest confessions from them by force. Mao supported this demand of the youth and condemned the sending of the working groups as an "oppression of the masses". The working groups were then withdrawn at the end of July 1966.

The youth now had a free hand to denounce the cadres and teachers with whom they held combat meetings. Long hats were put on the victims, posters were stuck on their backs or ink was splashed on their faces. The smaller fighting sessions could only be attended by a handful of spectators; the largest included tens of thousands in Beijing's major stadiums. The fallen cadre had to wear signs with their names crossed out around their necks, remain in uncomfortable positions for hours and confess their "crimes". Many victims committed suicide as a result of the humiliation.

"Red Terror"

In the fight against revisionism, the destruction of the Four Olds played a central role. In order to build a new, socialist society, the legacy of the old society should be erased. Accordingly, the campaign was directed against “old ideas, culture, customs and habits”. At a mass meeting in Tiananmen Square on August 18, 1966, Defense Minister Lin Biao called on the Red Guards to carry out this task. The guards called the violent execution of this mission "Red Terror". First, they looted the homes of former capitalists, large landowners and overthrown cadres. They destroyed everything that could be associated with the culture of the bourgeoisie, such as books, musical instruments, records, furniture, etc. In the street, they cut off women's long braids and the heels of high shoes. The most harmless measure of this storm was the renaming of streets, schools and shops. In Beijing they named the street where the Soviet embassy was located "Anti-Revisionist Street". Guangdong Red Guards even renamed Hong Kong “Drive Out the Imperialist City”. A large part of Chinese cultural sites fell victim to the madness of the young revolutionaries. B. the Confucius Temple in Qufu . In particular, they attacked religious sites across the country, they smashed statues and frescoes and burned innumerable precious books. The Imperial Palace in Beijing only escaped destruction because Prime Minister Zhou Enlai had it guarded by units of the People's Liberation Army .

See also: Red August

Revolutionary tourism

The Cultural Revolution spread across China, among other things, because the Red Guards were granted free rail travel as well as board and lodging across the country. In addition to Beijing and other large cities, the most popular destinations were the sites from the revolutionary history of the Chinese Communist Party, such as B. Jinggang Mountains and Mao's hometown Shaoshan ; they were among the most popular travel destinations.

Fragmentation of movement

Since the Red Guards founded themselves and did not belong to any fixed organizational apparatus, various interest groups emerged from the summer of 1966 and fought one another. There was disagreement over which cadres should be protected and which should be denounced, which group should take the lead in an educational institution, whether the working groups should be supported or evicted, etc. This led to the formation of various factions in most cities in China , which fought violently . Weapons ranging from bricks to knives and spears to firearms and artillery pieces were used. Parts of China sank into a state resembling civil war. As a rule, the factions are divided into "conservatives" and "rebels" according to their interests. According to this, the conservative groups were more interested in maintaining the status quo, while the rebels were more interested in changing the balance of power. As early as the 1980s, the “class origin” was seen as a cause of the split in the movement. The population was then divided into three classes, the affiliation was determined by the occupation before the Communists came to power in 1949. The "class origin" was determined by the father's occupation. The children of former smallholders, workers and revolutionary cadres, members of the armed forces and martyrs belonged to the youth of “red class origins”. The "ordinary class origins" came from intellectual or salaried families, while the "black class origins" were children of former capitalists and large landowners.

Membership in the Red Guards was initially reserved exclusively for young people of “red class origin”. Accordingly, the children of intellectuals in particular had to feel like second-class revolutionaries. At the beginning of October 1966, the political leadership, which until then had also emphasized the class line, gave signs of a change of course and said that one shouldn't let the class origin determine everything, but rather look at the political performance of each individual. New Red Guards were founded, which also took in young people of “ordinary” or “black” origin and felt that they belonged to the “rebel” group. The original “conservative” guards now also opened up to their formerly spurned fellow students, but the majority preferred new “rebel” groups that rejected the previous strong emphasis on the class line as revisionist. So the children of the middle class and the children of the functionaries faced each other in factions fighting against each other. Recent research rejects class ancestry as the cause of the split into factions. They cite the disagreements over the working groups as the cause of the split, particularly in the capital Beijing.

resolution

Mao tried to put an end to the faction struggles, after all, the Red Guards should produce "revolutionary successors" and not dispute each other over personalities. In October 1967 the party ordered that the classes of the pupils and students, which had now been suspended for over a year, should begin again. This did not succeed immediately, however, as most of the teachers had been persecuted and could not be reinstated now. There was also a discipline problem among the young people. On the one hand, the focus on academic achievement had been discredited since the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, on the other hand, respect for teachers had been destroyed. In addition, many young people were involved in the violent factional struggles for months. The attempts to start teaching again were accordingly unsuccessful. Only a few political courses could be resumed, but the faction battles continued. In July 1968, Mao pulled the ripcord and dissolved the Red Guards that had existed until then. Working groups and units of the People's Liberation Army now came to schools across the country and took control. Some of the young people were violently disarmed. Since two new cohorts now needed space at the educational institutions and the labor markets stagnated, the political leadership decided to send tens of thousands of young people to the countryside. This not only solved the problem of the surplus of schoolchildren and students, but also separated the former members of the Red Guards from their comrades and their bases of power. Between 1967 and 1979 a total of 16,470,000 urban youth were sent across the country.

swell

Adaptations

  • In the film " The Last Emperor ", Red Guards terrorize prisoners who treat Puyi politely.
  • Red Guards appear in the film " Farewell, My Concubine ".
  • In Jung Chang's autobiography " Wild Swans " of terror and the atrocities of Red Guards is described.
  • Ji-Li Jiang's novel "Red Scarf Girl" describes the crimes of the Cultural Revolution.
  • Li Cunxin 's autobiography "Mao's Last Dancers" repeatedly describes the crimes of the Red Guards.
  • In the Trisolaris trilogy of Liu Cixin is repeated reference is made to the Red Guards and the Cultural Revolution.

Video

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Anita Chan et al .: Students and Class Warfare: The Social Roots of the Red Guard Conflict in Guangzhou (Canton). In: The China Quarterly. Vol. 83, Cambridge Sept. 1980, p. 420.
  2. ^ Roderick MacFarquhar, Michael Schoenhals: Mao's Last Revolution. Cambridge 2006, p. 55ff.
  3. ^ Roderick MacFarquhar, Michael Schoenhals: Mao's Last Revolution. Cambridge 2006, p. 104.
  4. ^ Roderick MacFarquhar, Michael Schoenhals: Mao's Last Revolution. Cambridge 2006, p. 88.
  5. ^ Roderick MacFarquhar, Michael Schoenhals: Mao's Last Revolution. Cambridge 2006, pp. 107f.
  6. ↑ Andrew Walder: Beijing Red Guard Factionalism: Social Interpretations Reconsidered. Stanford 2001, p. 12.
  7. ^ Roderick MacFarquhar, Michael Schoenhals: Mao's Last Revolution. Cambridge 2006, p. 85.
  8. ^ Roderick MacFarquhar, Michael Schoenhals: Mao's Last Revolution. Cambridge 2006, p. 123 f.
  9. ^ Roderick MacFarquhar, Michael Schoenhals: Mao's Last Revolution. Cambridge 2006, p. 113.
  10. ^ Roderick MacFarquhar, Michael Schoenhals: Mao's Last Revolution. Cambridge 2006, p. 117.
  11. ^ Roderick MacFarquhar, Michael Schoenhals: Mao's Last Revolution. Cambridge 2006, p. 115.
  12. ^ Roderick MacFarquhar, Michael Schoenhals: Mao's Last Revolution. Cambridge 2006, pp. 118f.
  13. ^ Anita Chan et al .: Students and Class Warfare: The Social Roots of the Red Guard Conflict in Guangzhou (Canton). In: The China Quarterly. Vol. 83, Cambridge Sept. 1980, pp. 397-446.
  14. ^ Andrew G. Walder: Beijing Red Guard Factionalism: Social Interpretations Reconsidered. Stanford 2001.
  15. ^ Roderick MacFarquhar, Michael Schoenhals: Mao's Last Revolution. Cambridge 2006, pp. 247f.
  16. ^ Anita Chan et al .: Students and Class Warfare: The Social Roots of the Red Guard Conflict in Guangzhou (Canton). In: The China Quarterly. Vol. 83, Cambridge Sept. 1980, p. 443.
  17. ^ Roderick MacFarquhar, Michael Schoenhals: Mao's Last Revolution. Cambridge 2006, p. 251.