Red August | |
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Part of the Cultural Revolution in China | |
![]() On August 18, 1966, Mao Zedong met with student Red Guards on Tiananmen, triggering a wave of mass killings in Beijing. | |
Native name | 红八月 |
Location | Beijing, China |
Date | 1966 August – September 1966 |
Target | Teachers, intellectuals, members of the "Five Black Categories" (Landlords, wealthy peasants, bad influences/elements and right wingers), local political leaders and perceived political enemies of Mao Zedong |
Attack type | Politicide, politically motivated violence |
Deaths | 10,275 (Deaths) 85,196 (Families displaced) |
Victims | landlords, property owners, political dissidents, “class enemies” |
Perpetrators | Chinese Communist Party, Cultural Revolution Group (Chen Boda, Jiang Qing, Kang Sheng, Yao Wenyuan, Zhang Chunqiao, Wang Li, Xie Fuzhi) and student Red Guards incited by Mao Zedong |
Motive | Destruction of the "Four Olds (Old cultures, old customs, old habits and ideas) and Five Black Categories (Landlords, wealthy peasants, bad influences/elements and “right wingers”) |
Red August (simplified Chinese: 红八月; traditional Chinese: 紅八月; pinyin: Hóng Bāyuè) is a term used to indicate a period of political violence and massacres in Beijing beginning in August 1966, during the Chinese Cultural Revolution.[1][2][3] According to official statistics published in 1980 after the end of the Cultural Revolution, Red Guards in Beijing killed a total of 1,772 people during Red August, while 33,695 homes were ransacked and 85,196 families were forcibly displaced.[1][4][5] However, according to official statistics published in November 1985, the number of deaths in Beijing during Red August was 10,275.[5][6][7]
On August 18, 1966, Chairman Mao Zedong met with Song Binbin, a leader of the Red Guards, atop Tiananmen.[8][9] This event instigated a wave of violence and mass killings in the city by the Red Guards, who also started a campaign to destroy the "Four Olds".[1][4][9][10] The killings by the Red Guards also impacted several rural districts in Beijing, such as in the Daxing Massacre, in which 325 people were killed from August 27 to September 1 in the Daxing District of Beijing.[11][12][13] Meanwhile, a number of people, including notable writer Lao She, committed suicide or attempted suicide after being persecuted.[1][11][14] During the massacres, Mao Zedong publicly opposed any governmental intervention to the student movement, and Xie Fuzhi, the Minister of Ministry of Public Security, instructed police and public security organs to protect the Red Guards instead of arresting them.[10][15][16][17][18] However, the situation went out of control at the end of August 1966, forcing the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Chinese government to take multiple interventions which gradually brought the massacres to an end.[17][19]
Red August is considered the origin of the Red Terror in the Chinese Cultural Revolution.[1][10][20][21][22] It has also been compared with Nazi Germany's Kristallnacht,[23][24][25][26][27][28] as well as with the Nanjing Massacre conducted by the Japanese military during the Second Sino-Japanese War.[26][27][28][29][30]
See also: Though I Am Gone |
On May 16, 1966, Mao Zedong launched the Cultural Revolution in mainland, China.[10] On August 5, Bian Zhongyun, the first vice principal of the Experimental High School Attached to Beijing Normal University, was beaten to death by a group of Red Guards—mostly her students—and became the first education worker in Beijing killed by the Red Guards.[1][8][10][20][31]
On August 18, 1966, Mao Zedong met with Song Binbin, a leader of the Red Guards, atop Tiananmen of Beijing.[8][9] Mao asked Song Binbin whether the "Bin" in her given name was the same Chinese character as that in Chinese Chengyu "Wen Zhi Bin Bin (文质彬彬)"; upon receiving confirmation, Mao commented that, “Yao Wu Ma (要武嘛)”, meaning "be valiant" or "(you'd) better fight".[1][8][9][10][32] After this meeting, the morale of the Red Guards was significantly boosted, triggering their massive slaughter in Beijing.[1][9] In particular, on August 25, 1966, thousands of Red Guards started a week-long massacre in Langan Market (榄杆市) of the Chongwen District.[9][17] At the same time, Red Guards launched a nationwide campaign to destroy the "Four Olds".[1][9] In Beijing alone, a total of 4,922 historic sites were ruined, and the Red Guards burned 2.3 million books as well as 3.3 million paintings, art objects, and pieces of furniture.[4][10]
On August 22, 1966, Mao approved a document from the Ministry of Public Security, ordering "do not use police force—no exception—to intervene or suppress the movement of revolutionary students".[4][33] On the following day, Mao gave a talk at a Work Conference of the Central Committee of CCP, publicly supporting the student movement and opposing any intervention to the "Cultural Revolution of students":[15][34]
In my view, Peking is not all that chaotic. The students held a meeting of 100,000 and then captured the murderers. This caused some panic. Peking is too gentle. Appeals have been issued, [but after all] there are very few hooligans. Stop interfering for the time being. It is still too early to say anything definite about the reorganization of the centre of the [Youth] League; let us wait four months. Decisions taken hurriedly can do only harm. Work teams were dispatched in a hurry; the left was struggled against in a hurry; meetings of 100,000 were called in a hurry; appeals were issued in a hurry; opposition to the new municipal [party] committee of Peking was said, in a hurry, to be tantamount to an opposition to the [party] Centre. Why is it impermissible to oppose K? I have issued a big character poster myself, 'Bombard the Headquarters!' Some problems have to be settled soon. For instance, the workers, peasants, and soldiers should not interfere with the students' great Cultural Revolution. Let the students go into the street. What is wrong with their writing big-character posters or going into the street? Let foreigners take pictures. They take shots to show aspects of our backward tendencies. But it does not matter. Let the imperialists make a scandal about us.
On August 26, Xie Fuzhi, the Minister of Ministry of Public Security, also ordered to protect the Red Guards and not arrest them, claiming that it was not incorrect for the Red Guards to beat "bad people" and it was fine if the "bad people" were killed.[10][16][17][18][35] On the next day, Daxing Massacre broke out in the Daxing District of Beijing.[11][12][13] And in his subsequent meetings with top public security officials from different provinces, Xie reiterated his point of view that the killings made by Red Guards were not public security issues and it would be a mistake if the public security was to arrest the Red Guards.[4][16][17][33]
By the end of August 1966, the situation had grown out of control, forcing the Central Committee of CCP and the Chinese government to take multiple interventions, which gradually brought the massacres to an end.[17][19] On September 5, People's Daily published an article (用文斗, 不用武斗) calling for an end to the violent combat and massacres.[36]
Nevertheless, millions of Red Guards continued to arrive in Beijing to see Mao Zedong at Tiananmen Square on several occasions, including September 15, October 1 and so on.[18]
During Red August, killing methods by the Red Guards included beating, whipping, strangling, trampling, boiling, beheading and so on.[8][9] In particular, the method used to kill most infants and children was knocking them against the ground or slicing them in half.[9][37][38]
Red August of Beijing is regarded as the origin of Red Terror in the Chinese Cultural Revolution, instigating Red Guards' movement in multiple cities including Shanghai, Guangzhou, Nanjing and Xiamen, where local political leaders, intellectuals, teachers and members of the Five Black Categories were persecuted and even killed by the Red Guards.[1][21][22][24][27][41][42]
There has been comparison between the date "18 August 1966", which was the key point during Red August, and the Kristallnacht, which was the prelude of Nazi Germany's Holocaust.[23][24][25][26][27][28] Moreover, Red August along with the subsequent massacres across China during the Cultural Revolution has also been compared to the Nanjing Massacre conducted by the Japanese military during the Second Sino-Japanese War.[26][27][28][29][30]