Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
to ask the headquarters either—let them come to me. If Xiuying was
dead and I had to pay the price, I would do so.
...
I never discovered whether she died or not, but I suspected that
there were many victims of home raids who had died during or after
the attacks. Xiuying's death would hardly have been news, but the
thought that I might have killed her weighed heavily upon me for days.
Still, eventually I managed to persuade myself it was all right. We were
in a war and there are always casualties on the battlefields. I shouldn't
be intimidated by the death of one class enemy. The revolution had to
succeed, and I had to continue to do my part. When I was assigned
new tasks, I tried to be as brave as before.
(Zhai 1994, 97-98)
By November 1966 Mao was taken aback by the viciousness of the
attacks against teachers and other authorities and tried to remind the
Red Guards that not all people in authority were revisionists or capi-
talist roaders. He did not, however, rein in the movement at this time,
and things steadily worsened. Several high officials in China's
government were hauled out of their homes, struggled, and more or
less forced to admit to trumped-up accusations against them. During
the summer of 1967, mobs broke into Peng Dehuai's house and
dragged him out to a struggle session. A mob broke into the British
embassy in Beijing, terrorized British diplomats, and burned a part of
the British embassy compound. Anarchy prevailed in several major
Chinese cities as rival groups claiming to be the most loyal of Chair-
man Mao's Red Guards fought and murdered each other. One Chinese
intellectual remembers how university and urban life was violently
disrupted as the city of Hefei in Anhui province descended into law-
lessness:
At the university, the sixteen-year-old daughter of Colonel Li, still in
junior high, made herself famous by being one of those daredevil Red
Guards who prided themselves on their blood lineage. She sported a
dagger with ´clat, because both of her parents had served in the early
Red Army. One day, while roaming the streets with a band of teenagers
of her faction, she saw a teenage boy coming toward them.
“Who is that? Friend or enemy?”she asked her companions. “I have
not seen him before. Enemy, I believe,” one of the boys said. “Then what
are we waiting for? Let's get him,” she urged, walking up to the solitary
youth. “Stop! Who are you, kid? Which faction?” “You have no right to
stop me or ask me questions. Let me go by.”
“Here's for your impudence, you dog!” Her dagger went straight
into the youngster's heart. Her companions were dumbfounded. “Come
on!” she said cheerfully. “I'll treat you to ice-suckers to celebrate our
