24
24
s tudents were wounded with stones, blades and explosives. The more
the blood flowed, the angrier each group became.
One Red Guard faction came across a lone member of the rival
gang on campus, dragged him to an empty dorm room, tied him up, and
interrogated him, searching for the secrets to their adversaries' weak
points. The captured student at first refused to talk. The interrogators
beat him with a chair leg. They snared another student and hung him
from the ceiling of the room for days. Yet another, they bludgeoned
with a poker. This time, they made a mistake. The poker had a sharp
projection at the end which punctured the imprisoned student's skin
every time it struck. When the questioning session was over, the
student's legs were bleeding profusely. He died a few hours later.
Why had the tormentors used so much force? Their captive was a
traitor to the precepts of Chairman Mao. The Chairman himself had
said that revolution is not a dinner party. Sometimes it was hard to
remember that the person hanging from the rafters had sat three chairs
away from you in homeroom since the two of you were little kids.
The commitment of students on both sides to the words of Mao
was passionate. They spat phrases from the Great Leader like machine
gun bullets, ferocious in their devotion to "dialectic truth." But in
reality, the Maoist ideology--with its noble goal of liberating
humanity--was being used by one Red Guard faction to seize power
from another. Idealism transformed the rapacity of the students into a
sense of selfless zeal.
The Cultural Revolution threw China into chaos. Finally, the
military took control of the country and restored order. The Red Guard
members were drafted as they came of age. The teenagers who had
fought each other went their separate ways. Gao Yuan entered military
service, then studied in Peking. He met an American girl, moved to the
U.S., and wrote a book about his experience--Born Red. Not long after,
others who had suffered through the Cultural Revolution would pen
memoirs revealing even greater horrors.
<< < GO > >>
24
24
s tudents were wounded with stones, blades and explosives. The more
the blood flowed, the angrier each group became.
One Red Guard faction came across a lone member of the rival
gang on campus, dragged him to an empty dorm room, tied him up, and
interrogated him, searching for the secrets to their adversaries' weak
points. The captured student at first refused to talk. The interrogators
beat him with a chair leg. They snared another student and hung him
from the ceiling of the room for days. Yet another, they bludgeoned
with a poker. This time, they made a mistake. The poker had a sharp
projection at the end which punctured the imprisoned student's skin
every time it struck. When the questioning session was over, the
student's legs were bleeding profusely. He died a few hours later.
Why had the tormentors used so much force? Their captive was a
traitor to the precepts of Chairman Mao. The Chairman himself had
said that revolution is not a dinner party. Sometimes it was hard to
remember that the person hanging from the rafters had sat three chairs
away from you in homeroom since the two of you were little kids.
The commitment of students on both sides to the words of Mao
was passionate. They spat phrases from the Great Leader like machine
gun bullets, ferocious in their devotion to "dialectic truth." But in
reality, the Maoist ideology--with its noble goal of liberating
humanity--was being used by one Red Guard faction to seize power
from another. Idealism transformed the rapacity of the students into a
sense of selfless zeal.
The Cultural Revolution threw China into chaos. Finally, the
military took control of the country and restored order. The Red Guard
members were drafted as they came of age. The teenagers who had
fought each other went their separate ways. Gao Yuan entered military
service, then studied in Peking. He met an American girl, moved to the
U.S., and wrote a book about his experience--Born Red. Not long after,
others who had suffered through the Cultural Revolution would pen
memoirs revealing even greater horrors.
<< < GO > >>