The Reluctant Red Guard

Yang Nainming was 14-years-old when his school was shutdown in Shenyang, the capital of Liaoning Province in northeast China.

It was mid-way through 1966, the beginning of a decade’s worth of chaos formerly known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.

“The craziest parts of it were during the early years,” said Yang, now 66 and living in Thailand.

“All the schools closed on the order of Chairman Mao Zedong,” said Yang. “The students had a new task, we had to rid the education system of antirevolutionary elements,” he said.

“It was a movement that began in the schools with the students targeting their teachers,” Yang said in reference to the young militant Red Guards sanctioned by Mao.

The principle and the school secretary were among the first to be paraded around by Red Guards who subjected them to “struggle sessions.” A stage was set up in the playground where rallies were held and where struggle sessions were conducted.

“A very good sports teacher was severely beaten by Red Guards and later he committed suicide by jumping off a high building,” he said. “He couldn’t bear the pressure. It wasn’t just limited to the school. It was everywhere and his family were tormented by Red Guards,” Yang said. “Two other teachers at the school were also badly targeted by the Red Guards to the extent they also committed suicide.”

Chanting slogans and cursing the enemies of the revolution was done on a daily basis at the school. Many of those found to be class enemies were sent to detention centers to a fate unknown.

“I wasn’t a Red Guard by choice — you had to go along, and if you didn’t you were suspect,” Yang said. “There was a lot of pressure. When the people were in the stage getting criticized, cursed, and beaten I was frightened to death,” he said.

“If a student didn’t want to be Red Guard and didn’t want to participate, they would end up being accused of being a counter-revolutionary,” he said.

“It was all about struggle. It was all about fighting,” he recalled.

Yang’s younger brother and his three sisters were scared as well. At home, they would discuss what occurred at their respective schools but they’d never argue if it was good or bad, or question the ideology behind it.

“No one would dare to say something critical of the Communist Party, they would not say anything even in their own home. Anyone could denounce them, even families. The walls had ears,” Yang said.

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