 | This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations .(July 2017) |
The Red Guards were a student mass paramilitary social movement that were first mobilized between 25 May and 2 June 1966 in China. Soon after meetings were held in order to facilitate the expansion of the Cultural Revolution in Tibet and in August 1966 students began to form the Tibetan branch of the Red Guards.
On August 8, 1966, the decision was issued to start the Cultural Revolution by the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The Red Guards were dispersed throughout China, at this time Tibet formed their own Red Guard in Lhasa. [1] This began the Cultural Revolution's destruction of Tibetan prayer flags, religious art, and sacred texts. In September 1966, Red Guards from Xianyang and Beijing began to arrive in Lhasa. These guards came from the Tibetan Nationality Institute and joined with local Red Guards to intensify the campaign against the "four olds" and class enemies. Public "struggle sessions" were held by the Red Guards against "reactionaries" or "capitalists", in which people were beaten, and publicly shamed. [2] Zhang Guohua and the Regional Party Committee wanted to minimize the Red Guards' access and criticism of the party leaders. On September 19, 1966, The Red Guards created and distributed big character posters that openly advocated the bombardment of the Regional Party Committee to many counties in Tibet. In November 1966 there was a citywide debate hosted by ten revolutionary organizations; this was to decide whether the Regional Party Committee had been "implementing a bourgeois reactionary line". This in turn divided Lhasa into two factions, both who claimed to be true followers of Mao Zedong, Gyenlo and Nyamdre. [1] The State Council in Beijing once again gave instructions that banned the exchange of revolutionary experiences in Tibet, this was ignored. On December 4, 1966, the State Council announced regulations requiring the Red Guards, who were still in Lhasa, to leave Tibet and return to their own localities by December 20. Beijing Red Guards in Lhasa were given permission to stay by the Central Cultural Revolution Group, headed by, Jiang Qing. Red Guards ousted party leaders and took over their positions. In 1968, Mao sent People's Liberation Army troops into Tibet to gain control. This resulted in a series of public executions. In 1969, the People's Liberation Army disarmed the Red Guards all across China. [2]
From June 15 to July 5, 1966, the Regional Party Committee under the leadership of Zhang Guohua held meetings to decide how to implement the Cultural Revolution in Tibet. [3] This meeting was used to figure out how the Regional Party Committee, not the local Red Guards or other revolutionary workers and cadres, could control the events to come. The solution to this was for the committee to decide among themselves who was to be sacrificed as a "capitalist roader" or reactionary. Those that were chosen were to be singled out and criticized by the masses. In August 1966 students and teachers at the Lhasa Middle School and the Tibetan Teacher's College began to organize their own Red Guard organization. [3]
In September 1966 Red Guards from the Tibetan Nationality Institute in Xianyang and Beijing began to arrive in Lhasa. Red Guards were encouraged to travel all over China to spread Mao's thinking and to ensure the "four olds" were being eradicated everywhere. With the arrival of the new Red Guards, the campaign against all thing capitalistic intensified. This began the power struggle between the Regional Party Committee and the Red Guards. Zhang Guohua was granted an order by Zhou Enlai to keep more Han Red Guards from Beijing and other areas from coming to Tibet. This order was ignored and in November 1966 three groups of metropolitan Red Guards arrived in Tibet. With the arrival of the new Red Guards the focus was directly on the party leaders.[ citation needed ]
Many temples in Tibet were destroyed prior to the Cultural Revolution. [4] The temples and monasteries that were left became targets for the Red Guards. In September 1966, Jokhang Temple was destroyed. [1] Red Guards used dynamite and artillery on many of these temples and monasteries, therefore reducing them to rubble. Libraries were also looted, and rare books, Buddhist scripture, and paintings were burned. [5] This was done in private homes as well as the temples and monasteries. Monks could no longer wear their traditional robes but were made to wear blue Mao suits instead.[ citation needed ]
Two factions were formed by the Red Guards in Tibet. These two factions each felt they were the true followers of Mao Zedong. The differences in these two factions stemmed from whether the Regional Party Committee had been "implementing a bourgeois reactionary line" or the "proletarian revolutionary line". [6] The Gyenlo faction published leaflets and publications that spelled out their commitment to rebel against the party leadership. On December 28, in response of Gyenlo, mass organizations that were supportive of the Regional Party Committee joined together to establish the headquarters of Defending Mao Zedong's Thoughts or "Headquarters of Defending" for short. In February 1967, this became the Nyamdre. [7] From May until December 1967 the disagreements between the two factions, Gyenlo and Nyamdre, escalated. The two factions fought armed battles in the streets of Lhasa.[ citation needed ]
The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC). It was launched by Mao Zedong in 1966 and lasted until his death in 1976. Its stated goal was to preserve Chinese socialism by purging remnants of capitalist and traditional elements from Chinese society. Though it failed to achieve its main objectives, the Cultural Revolution marked the effective return of Mao to the center of power in China after his political sidelining, in the aftermath of the Great Leap Forward and the Great Chinese Famine.
The Red Guards were a mass, student-led, paramilitary social movement mobilized by Chairman Mao Zedong in 1966 until their abolishment in 1968, during the first phase of the Cultural Revolution, which he had instituted.
Nyêmo is a county in the Lhasa west of the main center of Chengguan, Tibet. It lies on the north bank of the Yarlung Tsangpo River, the northern part of the Brahmaputra. The county has an area of 3,276 square kilometres (1,265 sq mi), and as of 2011 had a population of 30,844 people, mostly engaged in agriculture or herding.
Xie Fuzhi was a Chinese Communist Party military commander, political commissar, and national security specialist. He was born in 1909 in Hong'an County, Hubei and died in Beijing in 1972. Xie was known for his efficiency and his loyalty to Mao Zedong, and during the Cultural Revolution he played a key role in hunting down Mao's enemies in his capacity as Minister of Public Security from 1959 to 1972.
Zhang Guohua was a Chinese lieutenant general and a politician, serving during the invasion of Tibet and the Sino-Indian War and later as a Chinese Communist Party Committee Secretary for the Tibet Autonomous Region.
Nie Yuanzi was a Chinese academic administrator at Peking University, known for writing a big-character poster criticising the university for being controlled by the bourgeoisie, which is considered to have been the opening shot of the Cultural Revolution. She became a top leader of the Red Guards in Beijing, and was sentenced to 17 years in prison after the end of the Cultural Revolution.
Revolutionary committees were tripartite bodies established during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) in the People's Republic of China to facilitate government by the three mass organizations in China – the people, the People's Liberation Army (PLA), and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). They were originally established in the power-seizure movement as a replacement to the government of China. Some have argued that it quickly became subordinate to it, whereas others have argued that it effectively supplanted the old apparatus, replacing it with an accountable system elected annually by the people through mass organizations, for the duration of the Cultural Revolution.
Qi Benyu was a Chinese Communist theorist, mainly active during the Cultural Revolution. Qi was a member of the ultra-left Cultural Revolution Group, director of the Department of Petitions and deputy director of the Secretary Bureau of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. Qi also acted as head of the history department of the communist theory journal Red Flag. In 1968 he was arrested, stripped of all his positions, and sent to prison.
Geshe Sherab Gyatso (1884–1968), was a Tibetan religious teacher and a politician who served in the Chinese government in the 1950s. After living in Lhasa for a period, he fell from favor with the establishment there in the 1930s and returned to his home in Amdo, an eastern Tibetan area. He associated himself first with the Nationalist Government of the Republic of China and then with the Communists of the People's Republic of China. He held a number of government posts in Tibetan areas under the People's Republic of China. He was also initially the vice-president and later the president of the Buddhist Association of China; the latter position he held until 1966. In 1968, during the Cultural Revolution, Sherab Gyatso's left leg was broken by a Red Guard. On November 1, 1968, he died. After the Gang of Four was arrested, on August 26, 1978, the Qinghai provincial government rehabilitated him.
Liu Zihou was a Communist revolutionary leader and politician of the People's Republic of China. He served as Governor of Hubei and Hebei provinces, and as the top leader of Hebei during the Cultural Revolution, but was ousted from his positions after he opposed the reforms of Deng Xiaoping. He was a protégé of Li Xiannian, one of China's top leaders.
The January Storm, formally known as the January Revolution, was a coup d'état in Shanghai that occurred during the Cultural Revolution in between 5 January to 23 February 1967. The coup, precipitated by the Sixteen Articles and unexpected local resistance towards Maoism in Shanghai, was launched by Maoist rebel factions towards the city's party leadership under the directives of the Cultural Revolution Group (CRG) through Maoist leaders such as Zhang Chunqiao, Wang Hongwen and Yao Wenyuan, with backing from Mao Zedong, Kang Sheng, and Jiang Qing. The coup culminated in the overthrow of the Shanghai Municipal Committee of Chen Pixian and Cao Diqiu, and led to the creation of the Shanghai People's Commune on 5 February 1967.
Lhasa is a prefecture-level city, one of the main administrative divisions of the Tibet Autonomous Region of China. It covers an area of 29,274 square kilometres (11,303 sq mi) of rugged and sparsely populated terrain. Its urban center is Lhasa, with around 300,000 residents, which mostly corresponds with the administrative Chengguan District, while its suburbs extend into Doilungdêqên District and Dagzê District. The consolidated prefecture-level city contains additional five, mostly rural, counties.
Li Jingquan was a Chinese politician and the first Chinese Communist Party Committee Secretary of Sichuan following the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949. He supported many of Mao Zedong's policies including the Great Leap Forward.
Nenghai was a Vajrayana Buddhist monk of the Gelug school and religious leader in modern China. He is considered one of the key figures of the "Movement of Tantric Rebirth" (密教復興運動) which sought to revitalize Chinese Esoteric Buddhism.
Basang or Pasang is a retired Tibetan politician of the People's Republic of China. A former slave, she joined the People's Liberation Army and rose to prominence during the Cultural Revolution, when she became Vice-Chairwoman of the Revolutionary Committee of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR). She was a member of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party for 14 years and was the only woman leader in the TAR government from 1979 to 2002.
Thubten Kunphel, commonly known as Kunphela, was a Tibetan politician and one of the most powerful political figures in Tibet during the later years of the 13th Dalai Lama's rule, known as the "strong man of Tibet". Kunphela was arrested and exiled after the death of the Dalai Lama in 1933. He later escaped to India and became a co-founder of the India-based Tibet Improvement Party with the aim of establishing a secular government in Tibet. He worked in Nanking after the attempt to start a revolution in Tibet failed, and returned to Tibet in 1948.
Cow demons and snake spirits, also rendered in English as ox-demons and snake-spirits is a Chinese term used during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) to demonize perceived enemies. Tang dynasty poet Du Mu (803–852) coined the term in the preface of a poetry collection by Li He (791–817) to praise the fantastical elements in Li's poetry.
Scarlet Guard organizations were political organizations formed during the Cultural Revolution in China to oppose the more radical Red Guards.
During the Cultural Revolution, a Rebel Faction referred to a group or a sociopolitical movement that was self-proclaimed "rebellious". Composed of workers and students, they were often the more radical wing of the Red Guards and grew around 1967, but were accompanied by further splits and sectarianism.
During the Cultural Revolution, a Conservative Faction, also called a Loyalist Faction, referred to a group or a sociopolitical movement that embraced the local establishment. Composed of well-born children and political activists, the conservatives made up the majority of the Red Guards after Red August, but declined with the rise of the rebels.