A Little Red Soldier, a poem from Little Green: Growing Up During the Cultural Revolution 1

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1 Document 7 A Little Red Soldier, a poem from Little Green: Growing Up During the Cultural Revolution 1 When I turned eight, I was a Little Red Soldier in the Young Pioneers group like almost everyone else in the school. Each of us had a little red scarf, which we were told was a corner of the five-star red flag of the country, dyed red by the revolutionary martyrs blood. We wore our scarves to school every day. GLOSSARY martyrs: people who would rather die that give up the principle or cause that they believe in

2 Document 8 We Are Chairman Mao s Red Guards and Red Guards Battle Song, revolutionary songs (1968) The two songs in this document were written by Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution. Young people sang them in school and at rallies, and they were played over the radio throughout China. We Are Chairman Mao s Red Guards 2 Red Guards, Red Guards, Burning with revolutionary zeal, Tested by the storm of class struggle, Tempered for battle our hearts are red, Standing firm, direction clear, Our vigor for revolution strong, We follow the party with full devotion, We are Chairman Mao s Red Guards Red Guards, Red Guards, We want to be the successors to Communism. The revolutionary red banner passes on from generation to generation, We want to carry on the glorious tradition. Loving the country, loving the People, loving the Collective, loving to work. Connecting with the workers and the peasants, We are Chairman Mao s Red Guards.

3 Document 8 (continued) Red Guards Battle Song 3 We are Chairman Mao s Red Guards, We steel our red hearts in great winds and waves. We arm ourselves with Mao Tse-Tung s thought To sweep away all pests. We are Chairman Mao s Red Guards, Absolutely firm in our proletarian stand, Marching on the revolutionary road of our forbears, We shoulder the heavy task of our age. We are Chairman Mao s Red Guards, Vanguards of the cultural revolution. We unite with the masses and together plunge into the battle To wipe out all monsters and demons. [Refrain] Dare to criticize and repudiate, dare to struggle, Never stop making revolutionary rebellion. We will smash the old world And keep our revolutionary state red for ten thousand generations! Glossary collective: a community organized to live and work together forbears: ancestors proletarian: related to the working class refrain: the chorus of a song repudiate: to criticize and reject something for not being true or right successors: followers; people who continue a tradition vanguards: leaders of a movement vigor: strength and force to accomplish a certain goal

4 Document 9 Hold high the great red banner of Mao Zedong Thought, poster (1966) The Chinese text on this poster reads Hold high the great red banner of Mao Zedong Thought to wage the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution to the end. Revolution is no crime, to rebel is justified.

5 Document 10 Red Guards reading from Mao s Red Book at Tiananmen Square, photograph (1966) Red Guards stand in front of an image of Chairman Mao while reading from The Collected Quotations of Chairman Mao Zedong, also known as Mao s Little Red Book.

6 Document 11 Red Guards conduct a raid (1966), an excerpt from Life and Death in Shanghai by Nien Chang 4 From the direction of the street, faint at first but growing louder, came the sound of a heavy motor vehicle slowly approaching. I listened and waited for it to speed up and pass the house. But it slowed down, and the motor was cut off. I knew my neighbor on the left was also expecting the Red Guards. Dropping the book on my lap and sitting up tensely, I listened, wondering which house was to be the target. Suddenly the doorbell began to ring incessantly. At the same time, there was furious pounding of many fists on my front gate, accompanied by the confused sound of hysterical voices shouting slogans. The cacophony told me that the time of waiting was over and that I must face the threat of the Red Guards and the destruction of my home.... The Red Guards pushed open the front door and entered the house. There were thirty or forty senior high students, aged between fifteen and twenty, led by two men and one woman much older. Although they all wore the armband of the Red Guard, I thought the three older people were the teachers who generally accompanied the Red Guards.... The leading Red Guard, a gangling youth with angry eyes, stepped forward and said to me, We are the Red Guards. We have come to take revolutionary action against you! Though I knew it was futile, I held up the copy of the Constitution and said calmly, It s against the Constitution of the People s Republic of China to enter a private house without a search warrant. The young man snatched the document out of my hand and threw it on the floor. With his eyes blazing, he said, The Constitution is abolished. It was a document written by the Revisionists within the Communist Party. We recognize only the teachings of our Great Leader Chairman Mao.... Another young man used a stick to smash the mirror hanging over the blackwood chest facing the front door... I sat down by the dining table and looked around the room. It was strange to realize that after this night I would never see it again as it was... I listened to the laughter of the Red Guards overheard. They seemed so blissfully happy in their work of destruction because they were sure they were doing something to satisfy their God, Mao Zedong. Their behavior was the result of their upbringing in Communist China. The propaganda they had absorbed precluded their having a free will of their own.... Mounting the stairs, I was astonished to see several Red Guards taking pieces of my porcelain collection out of their padded boxes. One young man had arranged a set of four Kangzi wine cups in a row on the floor and was stepping on them. I was just in time to hear the crunch of the delicate porcelain under the sole of his shoe. The sound pierced my heart...

7 Document 11 (continued) I looked at what had happened to my things, hopelessly but indifferently. They belonged to a period of my life that had abruptly ended when the Red Guards entered my house. Though I could not see into the future, I refused to look back. I supposed the Red Guards had enjoyed themselves. Is it not true that we all possess some destructive tendencies in our nature? The veneer of civilization is very thin. Underneath lurks the animal in each of us. If I were young and had had a working-class background, if I had been brought up to worship Mao and taught to believe him infallible, would I not have behaved exactly as the Red Guards had done? Glossary cacophony: loud noises that are harsh and unpleasant incessantly: an action that goes on and on for a long period of time indifferently: unemotionally infallible: incapable of making mistakes Kangzi: antique, coming from the time of the Kangzi emperor ( ) precluded: to make something unlikely or impossible Revisionists: those who are trying to change communism to make it more like the old system (pre-1949) veneer: the top layer of something 1 Chun Yu, Little Green: Growing Up During the Chinese Cultural Revolution (Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2005), Listen to the Radio, Morning Sun website, /we_are_red_guards.html (accessed June 9, 2009). 3 Smash the Old World! Morning Sun website, /cr_3_1968.html (accessed June 9, 2009). 4 Nien Cheng, Life and Death in Shanghai (Penguin Books, 1988), excerpts 70 73,

China The Cultural Revolution

China The Cultural Revolution Introduction Slides The Red Guard Propaganda poster Looking at the primary sources answer this central historical question: Why did Chinese youth get swept up in the Cultural