Red Bloodbath
In 1965, Mao began claiming that the Communist party was being hijacked by the bourgeoisie. That it was time to purge the party -- and the people -- of pretenders.
On May 16, 1966, he formally unleashed the Red Guards or hong wei bing, calling for a war against the bourgeoisie. Mostly youngsters, the Red Guards violently endorsed the Chairman's call to arms, aimed at removing the 'closet capitalists' and the enemies of Socialism from society.
Thousands of workers, farmers and professional soldiers joined the Guards. Workers turned on their bosses, students turned on teachers. Children turned on their parents. Liu Shaoqi and his supporters were imprisoned. Mao was named Supreme Commander.
The Revolution had begun.
In the first few years of the revolution, the Red Guards killed, tortured, imprisoned and intimidated millions of people. Thousands were brutally executed or sent into hard labour camps in the purge. Students were forced to quit school and help farmers, creating what is now described as the uneducated, 'lost generation.'
Their bible was Quotations From Chairman Mao Tse-Tung, better known as the Little Red Book.
Apart from politicians, writers, artists, teachers, journalists, musicians were among the main victims of this 'cleansing' of the society and the Chinese Communist Party. Among others, Mao denounced and imprisoned Deng Xiaoping as 'the number one revisionist toeing a capitalist line.' Hounded by Red Guards, Deng's son Deng Pufang jumped from the fourth floor of his laboratory in September 1968 and was paralysed.
Aiding and abetting Mao in this purge -- or if China's official version is to be believed, 'misguiding him'-- was the Gang of Four, led by his wife Qing and three of her associates -- journalist turned politician Zhang Chunqiao, Korean war veteran and Red Guard Wang Hongwen and Yao Wenyuan, playwright and editor of Liberation Daily, Shanghai's main newspaper.
June 1966: Red Guards, mostly high school and university students, wave copies of Mao's Little Red Book as they march through Beijing's streets at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution.
Also See: Remembering a war