"Mao wished to purge the higher echelons of power...He turned to radical students, giving them licence to denounce all authority...party officials [encouraged] the youngsters to raid the homes of class enemies, stigmatized as social outcasts"
goodreads.com/book/show/2607…
goodreads.com/book/show/2607…
"Some [teachers and students] were made to wear dunce caps...many were paraded around the campus...Beatings came soon enough...students egged each other on, trying to outdo each other in their demonstrations of revolutionary furor, the abuse intensified"
goodreads.com/book/show/2607…
goodreads.com/book/show/2607…
"Mao [accused] the education system of favoring students from bad class backgrounds - capitalists, landlords -as they were better equipped to succeed in education. Worst of all, schools were failing in their mission of training 'revolutionary successors'"
goodreads.com/book/show/2607…
goodreads.com/book/show/2607…
"Mao went straight to the students, seeing in the young his most reliable allies. They were impressionable, easy to manipulate and eager to fight...‘We have to depend on them to start a rebellion, a revolution'"
goodreads.com/book/show/2607…
goodreads.com/book/show/2607…
"students were warned not to assist class enemies. The motto of the Socialist Education Campaign, after all, was ‘Never Forget Class Struggle’. To instill class hatred in them, regular sessions of ‘Recalling Bitterness’ were organised"
goodreads.com/book/show/2607…
goodreads.com/book/show/2607…
"teachers were forced to crawl on a path paved with coal cinders until their knees and palms were burned...Lin Biao made a lengthy speech, appealing to the excited youngsters to destroy 'all old ideas, old culture, old customs and old habits of the exploiting classes"
"For years the Red Guards harbored resentment of students from bad family backgrounds who relied on their marks to succeed. [Mao] voiced opposition to an education system he viewed as dangerously meritocratic, demanding admission of children from ‘exploiting families’ be limited"
"Chairman Mao quotation contests became popular. The same students who learned to seize buildings, kidnap enemies, torture captives, and fire guns were now trying to outdo each other in mastering the Little Red Book. One student could recite all 270 pages without missing a word"
"the slogan 'Father is Close, Mother is Close, but Neither as Close as Chairman Mao' was inculcated into every child. As one student noted, 'We were drilled to think that anyone, including our parents, who was not totally for Mao was the enemy.'"
goodreads.com/book/show/2607…
goodreads.com/book/show/2607…
"There was a hierarchy in the ritual consumption of class enemies. Leaders feasted on the heart and liver...After several teachers had been sliced up in a middle school, a crowd carried away chunks of flesh in bags dripping with blood. Students cooked the meat in casseroles"
"In its effort to atomise society, the regime took sword and fire to traditional social bonds. Love was considered a decadent, bourgeois emotion...'We did not have sex or even think about it. Sex was bourgeois. When Revolutionaries fell in love...they didn't even touch hands'"
"Mao [forced] rural populations to murder traditional village leaders...all assets of the victims were handed to the crowd...land was distributed to the poor...victims killed during land redistribution...1.5 to 2 million..many others stigmatized as exploiters and class enemies"
"even a person who had never spoken about political matters could be an enemy in his heart, and such inner convictions could no longer be concealed from the proletariat. The pressure was too much for some to handle. At Peking University, 23 people committed suicide"
"students, teachers, artists, writers, and journalists were interrogated in front of crowds, made to confess in indoctrination meetings, and forced to denounce each other in a bid to save themselves...Mao demanded absolute loyalty from intellectuals"
goodreads.com/book/show/2607…
goodreads.com/book/show/2607…
"the communists promised each disaffected group what it wanted most: land for the farmers, independence for all minorities, freedom for intellectuals, protection of private property for businessmen, higher living standards for the workers. One by one, these promises were broken"
