Mao Tse-Tung
MAO : death by 1000 cuts
On 23, Nov 2015 | In b) MAO works | By foster eastman
Jiang Qing was an amazing orator and would work red guards into a frenzy screaming ‘death by a 1000 cuts… down with Lui Shaoqi’. This was an ancient Chinese method of torture and execution. Jiang Qing’s image has been transfered onto pages of a 1958 Chinese Almanac. This book was banned during the Cultural Revolution due to it’s superstitious content. The image has been cut 1000 times.
red guards
On 23, Nov 2015 | In c) MAO book of | By foster eastman
Revolution is not like inviting guests to dinner, is not like writing articles, painting pictures or sowing flowers; Revolution cannot be that graceful, that calm and easy, that modest and tolerant. Revolution is violence. It is violent action of one class overthrowing the other. (Mao Tse-tung)
On August 18, 1966, Mao assembled 800,000 of his Red Guard students to launch his Cultural Revolution. As a student pinned a Red Guard armband on him, the Great Helmsman asked her name. She responded ‘Song Binbin’, which meant ‘properly raised’ and ‘polite’. ‘ Be violent ! ’ he responded. She changed her name to ‘Yaowu’ or ‘Be Violent’. Only thirteen days earlier, girls at her school brutally beat their teacher, Bian Zhongyun to death with wooden sticks spiked with nails. She was the first victim of the Cultural Revolution. The Red Guards, the majority aged 12-17, were directed to attack the four olds in order to help create a ‘new China’. Books, art and religious artifacts were burned, museums were ransacked and posters of Mao adorned most buildings. Many quotations from ‘the little red book’ were used as guidelines to take action. The attacks on culture quickly shifted to attacks on people. Anyone in a position of authority was denounced and suffered physical and psychological abuse. This rooting out of ‘capitalist roaders’ extended to the highest echelons of the Communist Party including President Liu Shao-qi. Travel to Beijing and throughout China to establish revolutionary links was free and centers were set up to provide food, lodging and clothing. Loyalty and obedience to Mao began with teachings in nursery schools. By the tender age of three years, children were familiar with the portrait of Mao and began learning that they should love and respect him. The first Chinese characters that children learned in primary school included “long live the People’s Republic of China, long live the Chinese Communist Party, and long live Chairman Mao”. These early influences shaped the minds of children and led to attachment to the ideology of Mao. For those the age of the Red Guards, the Cultural Revolution was a chance for them to express their discomfort and their opinions violently, with no threat of consequence.
