Mao: The Unknown Story

AFTER TERROR IN SCHOOLS, Mao directed his Red Guards to fan out into society at large. The targets at this stage were the custodians of culture, and culture itself. On 18 August, Mao stood next to Lin Biao on Tiananmen while Lin called on Red Guards throughout the country to “smash … old culture.” The youngsters first went for objects like traditional shop signs and street names, which they attacked with hammers, and renamed. As in many revolutions, puritans turned on the softer and more flamboyant. Long hair, skirts and shoes with any hint of high heels were pounced on in the streets, and sheared by scissors-wielding teenagers. From now on, only flat shoes, and uniform-like, ill-fitting jackets and trousers, in only a few colors, were available.

But Mao wanted something much more vicious. On 23 August he told the new authorities: “Peking is not chaotic enough … Peking is too civilised.” As Peking was the trail-blazer and the provinces all copied the capital, this was a way to pump up terror nationwide. That afternoon, groups of teenage Red Guards, many of them girls, descended on the countryard of the Peking Writers’ Association. By then, a “uniform” was firmly in fashion for the Red Guards: green army-style clothes, often ordinary clothes dyed army green, or sometimes real army uniforms handed down by parents, red armband on the left arm, Little Red Book in hand — and a leather belt with brass buckles. Thus attired, the Red Guards rained blows with their heavy belts on some two dozen of the country’s best-known writers. Large insulting wooden plaques were hung on thin wire from the writers’ necks, as they were thrashed in the scorching sun.

The victims were then trucked to an old Confucian temple, which housed Peking’s major library. There, opera costumes and props had been brought to make a bonfire. About thirty of the country’s leading writers, opera singers and other artists were made to kneel in front of the bonfire and were set upon again with kicks and punches, sticks and brass-buckled belts. One of the victims was the 69-year-old writer Lao She, who had been lauded by the regime as “the people’s artist.” The following day, he drowned himself in a lake.

The site, props and victims had all been chosen to symbolize “old culture.” The selection of the victims, all household names, was unquestionably done at the very top, since till now they had all been official stars. There can be no doubt that the whole event was staged by the authorities; the loosely-banded teenage Red Guards could not possibly have organized all this on their own.

Mao had also cleared the way for the atrocities to escalate by issuing explicit orders to the army and police on the 21st and 22nd, saying that they must “absolutely not intervene” against the youngsters, using uncommonly specific language such as “even firing blanks … is absolutely forbidden.”

To spread terror deeper and closer to home, Mao got the young thugs to make violent raids on victims selected by the state, which gave their names and addresses to the Red Guards. The boss of Sichuan, for instance, ordered the department in his province that looked after prominent cultural figures to hand out a list to his son’s Red Guard organization — something he could only have done if Mao had told him to.

On 24 August, national police chief Xie Fu-zhi told his subordinates to pass out such information. Clearly responding to questions like “What if the Red Guards kill these people?” Xie said: “If people are beaten to death … it’s none of our business.” “Don’t be bound by rules set in the past.” “If you detain those who beat people to death … you will be making a big mistake.” Xie assured his reluctant subordinates: “Premier Chou supports it.”

It was with the authorities’ blessing that Red Guards broke into homes where they burned books, cut up paintings, trampled phonograph records and musical instruments — generally wrecking anything to do with “culture.” They “confiscated” valuables, and beat up the owners. Bloody house raids swept across China, which People’s Daily hailed as “simply splendid.” Many of those raided were tortured to death in their own homes. Some were carted off to makeshift torture chambers in what had been cinemas, theaters and sports stadiums. Red Guards tramping down the street, the bonfires of destruction, and the screams of victims being set upon — these were the sights and sounds of the summer nights of 1966.