Little Red Books and Guards

By Colin Mock

Red Guards where at the height of propaganda for Mao Zedong during the Cultural Revolution

The Red Guards were an extremely powerful and influential group during the Cultural Revolution. The Red Guards were founded by a group of middle schoolers from Tsinghua University Middle School on June 2, 1966. Mao started to officially show support for the Red Guards on August 18, 1966 when he met more then one million members at Tiananmen Square. During this rally Mao wore a Red Guard armb and to show his full support for the group and it foreshadowed their involvement in the Cultural Revolution. The Red Gaurds lost their support from the Chinese government in February 1967 but in less then a year they wreaked complete and utter havoc on China.

A young red guard proudly shows off his little red book

Little Red Guards show their support for Mao Zedong with their little red books

The Red Guards were a staple of the Chinese Revolution because they stood up for everything that Mao did. If Mao Zedong wanted someone killed or something abolished you can bet that the Red Guards would be on it. Most of the most ruthless members of the guards were just middle school students. Mao almost unfairly and inhumanly took advantage of these adolescent children and toyed with their emotions so that he could make them do what he wanted. At the age of middle school children are very fickle in their beliefs and will believe most anything that you are to tell them. Knowing this Mao Zedong forced his belifs upon these children and got the results he greatly desired

The little red books were also a very important part of what the Red Guards stood for. The book was 33 chapters long containing just Mao Zedong’s ideologies and quotations from speeches. The book had 5.5-6 million copies during Zedong’s re-education attempt and was a near requirement in schools. This little red book was one of the few books that was no banned and it is easy to see why as it is all just propaganda produced by Mao Zedong.

Little Red Books like these were prized possessions of any red guard