Don’t Let Our Youth Become Radical Ideology’s Blunt Instruments
One profound lesson from China’s Cultural Revolution is that without accountability, young people brainwashed by radical ideology can cause great harm to others and society.
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In 1966, China’s Communist dictator Mao Zedong launched the Cultural Revolution, a sweeping political movement to remold the Chinese people into worthy members of the communist utopia and eliminate all dissenting voices. Knowing he would need loyal foot soldiers to carry out his order by any means necessary, Mao turned to China’s youth. He sought to take advantage of young people’s enthusiasm for change and natural disdain for authorities and make them his blunt instruments.
Mao kicked off the Cultural Revolution at Beijing University, one of the most elitist colleges in China. Students answered Mao’s call to action by blanketing their campus with big character posters, denouncing university administrators and party leaders, and humiliating them in public struggle sessions. The movement quickly spread to other universities and high schools in Beijing. Radicalized students called themselves Mao’s “Red Guards” and vowed to punish anyone, especially those authority figures who “betrayed” the party and stalled China’s march to Communism.
At the Experimental High School in downtown Beijing, an exclusive all-girls school for children of senior Party leadership, a group of teenagers formed their own “Red Guards” unit. They began to torture the school’s vice principal and party secretary, Bian Zhongyun. Before the Cultural Revolution, these girls probably had never hurt any living being and would scream at the sight of cockroaches. But their utter loyalty to Mao and blind faith in Communism had turned them into little monsters. Other adults at the school didn’t intervene, probably out of fear for their own safety. The beating of Bian went on for weeks until August 5, 1966, when Bian was beaten to death and became the first high-profile casualty of the Cultural Revolution.
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