Cultural Revolution

“The Cultural Revolution, formally the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People’s Republic of China from 1966 until 1976. Launched by Mao Zedong, then Chairman of the Communist Party of China (CPC), its stated goal was to preserve Chinese Communism by purging remnants of capitalist and traditional elements from Chinese society, and to re-impose Mao Zedong Thought (known outside China as Maoism) as the dominant ideology in the CPC. The Revolution marked Mao’s return to a position of power after a period of less radical leadership to recover from the failures of the Great Leap Forward, whose policies led to famine and approximately 30 million deaths only five years earlier. The Cultural Revolution damaged China’s economy while tens of millions of people were persecuted, with an estimated death toll ranging from hundreds of thousands to 20 million. Starting from the Red August of Beijing, massacres took place across the country, such as the Guangxi Massacre (massive cannibalism also occurred), the Inner Mongolia incident, the Yunnan Massacre and the Daoxian massacre. Mao launched the movement in May 1966, soon calling on young people to ‘bombard the headquarters’ and proclaiming that ‘to rebel is justified’. Mao charged that bourgeois elements had infiltrated the government and society and that they aimed to restore capitalism. Lin Biao, head of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), was written into the constitution as Mao’s successor; Lin had compiled the Little Red Book, a selection of Mao’s sayings, that became a sacred text for Mao’s personality cult. To eliminate his rivals within the CPC and in schools, factories, and government institutions, Mao insisted that revisionists be removed through violent class struggle. China’s youth responded by forming Red Guard groups around the country, which split into rival factions and sometimes open battle. Schools and universities were closed. Urban workers likewise split into factions, and the PLA had to be sent to restore order. Senior officials, most notably Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping, were purged or exiled. Millions were accused of being Rightists and persecuted or suffered public humiliation, imprisonment, torture, hard labor, seizure of property, and sometimes execution or harassment into suicide. Many urban intellectual youths were sent to the countryside in the Down to the Countryside Movement. Red Guards destroyed historical relics and artifacts and ransacked cultural and religious sites. …”
Wikipedia
Guardian – The Cultural Revolution: all you need to know about China’s political convulsion (Video)
NY Times – A Photographer’s Quest to Reverse China’s Historical Amnesia
YouTube: What was China’s Cultural Revolution? BBC News, What Was China’s Cultural Revolution and Why Was It So Violent?

In their bloodlust during the Cultural Revolution instigated by Mao Zedong, Red Guards beat and humiliated tens of thousands of fellow Chinese, driving many to suicide.