https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.th...mao-little-general-horror-cultural-revolution
“We became Red Guards [because] we all shared the belief that we would die to protect Chairman Mao,” she says over a cup of tea in a Beijing cafe. “Even though it might be dangerous, that was absolutely what we had to do. Everything I had been taught told me that Chairman Mao was closer to us than our mums and dads. Without Chairman Mao, we would have nothing.”
.......
"She remembers the vicious persecution of her teachers, the lynching of suspected class enemies, the hysterical mass rallies, and how Red Guards roamed Beijing, setting upon those with supposedly counter-revolutionary footwear, clothing or hair.
“We thought that if you wore skinny trousers you were a monster,” said Yu, recalling how scissors were used to lop the tips off pointy shoes, slice open excessively fashionable trousers or shear off locks of hair.
In one post, Yu recalls the excitement of boarding public buses with her Red Guard comrades and spending entire days reading extracts of Mao’s Little Red Book to commuters. “It was quite fun,” she recalled, leaning over the table in laughter. “I still remember the words in the book today. ‘Revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery. It can’t be done elegantly and gently.’”
“I believed it,” Yu went on. “I thought Mao Zedong was great and that his words were great.”
Other memories are more painful. As the summer of 1966 progressed, and a period of so-called “red terror” began, the thrill of having been let out of class and let loose on the Chinese capital faded and was replaced by an atmosphere of fear. Red Guards marauded across the city, ransacking and looting homes and staging public “struggle sessions” in which victims were savagely beaten, tortured and sometimes killed. At least 1,772 people are known to have been murdered in Beijing alone. Some targets committed suicide to escape the relentless persecution.
As violence engulfed the capital, an editorial in the Communist party journal, Red Flag, fanned the rapidly spreading flames. “The Red Guards have ruthlessly castigated, exposed, criticised and repudiated the decadent, reactionary culture of the bourgeoisie … landing them in the position of rats running across the street and being chased by all,” it read, according to Michael Schoenhals’ seminal book on the period, China’s Cultural Revolution.
One night Yu recalls being unable to sleep because of the ferocious beating being inflicted on one of her teachers. “Each time we fell asleep the screams woke us up. The screaming never stopped.”
