Maoism and the Chinese Revolution by Elliott Liu

Author:Elliott Liu [Liu, Elliott]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781629631370
Publisher: PM Press
Published: 2016-05-03T04:00:00+00:00

20. Red Guards in Beijing: 1966–1967

Throughout the summer and autumn of 1966, the epicenter of the CR remained in Beijing. Mao called on Red Guards to attack the “four olds”: old customs, culture, habits, and ideas. In response, Red Guards posted big character posters on public streets, distributed propaganda extolling revolutionary virtues, performed street theater castigating revisionism, and criticized educational officials. Some Red Guard groups also destroyed historical artworks and cultural or religious sites. Others carried the mobilization to an extreme, targeting members of the deposed bourgeoisie and petit-bourgeoisie and their relatives. Attacks on “black” categories soon became a salient feature of the Red Guard movement.

The targets of Red Guard groups were subjected to extended criticisms before mass audiences, forced to wear placards and dunce caps announcing their crimes, held before crowds in “jet” poses, with their arms pulled behind them and their heads held low, and were often beaten if they resisted. According to police statistics, from mid-August to the end of September, Red Guards searched 33,600 homes in Beijing, resulting in at least 1,772 beating deaths.12 Mao eventually called on the Red Guards to show restraint in their criticisms, while also maneuvering to insulate the party and the economy from disruption: in September 1966, he forbade Red Guards from raiding party offices and reminded workers and peasants to refrain from taking action and stay on the job.13

Red Guards also targeted sexual expression in the campaign against bourgeois culture, criticizing women for wearing makeup and skirts or engaging in extramarital affairs. When Wang Guangmei, Liu Shaoqi’s wife, was accused of sexually manipulating party leaders, she was paraded before crowds in a dress, high heels, and a fake pearl necklace, indicating that she was a prostitute.14 By contrast, Red Guards tended to perform androgyny and asexuality, with young women dressing similarly to men, avoiding contact across genders, and publicly denying sexual activity. In this way, many women entered public politics through the CR, but at the cost of abandoning struggles over specific women’s issues. The Red Guards declared that “women hold up half the sky,” but virtually no independent women’s movements appeared during the CR, and gender issues remained muted beneath class and worker identities. The ACWF itself would be disbanded in early 1967 in an attack on “revisionist elements.”

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