The Cultural Revolution of 1966-1976 was a devastating time for China and a painful stain on its rich, beautiful history. Millions of innocents suffered surveillance, interrogation, torture, and death for the sake of Chairman Mao Zedong’s lofty views for China’s future; by the time of his death, however, Mao had accomplished nothing but tearing his own nation apart. And, only upon Mao’s death did many survivors of the Cultural Revolution realize the futility of these years of suffering and the extent of the brainwashing they had endured. One common vein ran throughout the many pains China’s people suffered throughout this terrible time: shame. Here, we will explore the powerful role shame played in the Cultural Revolution through the stories of three survivors: a child, Jiang Ji-li; an expelled university student, Kang Zhengguo; and a professor, Dr. Ji Xianlin.

Source: Jean Vincent / Getty-AFP
The Chicago Tribune

The nation was pressured into unquestioning obedience under the watchful eye of Mao Zedong.

Shame. Shame dictated every moment of the Cultural Revolution— and what a great many things there were to be ashamed of: coming from a family of undesirable class status, as Jiang Ji-li and Kang Zhengguo did; being an intellectual rather than a worker, as Kang Zhengguo and Dr. Ji Xianlin were; being opposed to the revolution in any way, as each of them were accused of during this terrifying time in their lives; and much, much more. But, as we will see, shame was far from all these survivors suffered; it was the fuel that fed their tormentors’ flaming hatred, the fickle yet all-powerful justification for years of torment to come. Jiang would suffer bullying, ostracization, and pressure to denounce her beloved family; both Kang and Ji would endure imprisonment under unspeakable living conditions for their purported crimes against China. All lived in fear of da-zi-bao, posters often used for public shame, and the dreaded “struggle session”, a spectacle of public torture and humiliation that crowds would flock to enjoy.

Source: Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies

A da-zi-bao criticizing an individual who portrayed Mao Zedong with a scar in a drawing, accusing the artist of counterrevolutionary values.

Source: Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies

Another da-zi-bao, also targeting an alleged counterrevolutionary. These posters could destroy one’s reputation, livelihood, and life.

Source: Li Zhensheng/Contact Press Images
The New York Review

Victims of “struggle sessions” were often forced to wear heavy boards detailing their purported crimes around their necks.

The ever-present threat and sadistic spectacle of public shame created the ideal conditions for dangerous rumors to flourish. At only twelve years old, Jiang Ji-li suffered under her classmates’ unfounded accusations of having an inappropriate relationship with a teacher, simply because she performed well in school. Because her grandfather had been a landlord, she and her family were also accused of being exploiters of the working class— despite the fact that her grandfather had been deceased for decades. For sending away for a Russian book during his time at university, Kang Zhengguo was falsely accused of colluding with foreign powers against China, and for opposing a popular figure in the Revolution, Nie Yuanzi, Dr. Ji Xianlin was wrongfully labeled a full-blown counterrevolutionary. The consequences of these falsehoods ranged from humiliation to life-shattering devastation: while Jiang was subjected to a da-zi-bao and bullied at school, Ji was imprisoned and tortured, and Kang was sentenced to three years in a nightmarish labor camp. Through their stories, we can begin to see how shame evolves from a method of controlling people to a method of harming them.

Source: Jean Vincent / Getty-AFP
The Chicago Tribune

Propaganda advocated violence against anyone accused of opposing the Revolution.

Shame spread during the Cultural Revolution like a deadly disease. People rushed to sever their connections with those who were targeted, lest they be next in line. Childhood friends morphed into schoolyard bullies; frightened families abandoned aging parents and grandparents to the Red Guards’ scant mercy; radicalized students seized the chance to imprison and torture their once-respected professors. Those who remained loyal to their loved ones were punished for it; soon the disease of shame fell upon them, just as it had taken their friends and families. For collecting his salary and paying his party dues on his behalf during his imprisonment, Dr. Ji Xianlin’s elderly aunt suffered humiliation and insults every month; for refusing to denounce her parents and become an “educable child”, Jiang Ji-li endured pressure, interrogations, and public degradations, and for refusing to divorce her unjustly imprisoned husband, Jiang’s mother was forced to write essays criticizing her alleged failure to China. Despite the indignities these survivors suffered, they defied the cruel expectations set upon them to abandon those they loved, and their loyalty triumphed over shame and fear.

With frightening ease, public shame festered into degradation, and degradation into dehumanization; slowly but surely, years of this treatment carved away victims’ sense of self. Dr. Ji Xianlin describes the horrific conditions under which he and his fellow prisoners were kept: they were subjected to mental and physical torture; they were forced into backbreaking labor; they were instructed to keep their eyes on the ground at all times and were too miserable and frightened to speak to one another. The Red Guards labeled them “blackguards” and “cow-devils”. The inmates, Ji writes, were scarcely considered human, and began to view themselves accordingly. In another act of vicious dehumanization, during a portion of his own imprisonment, Kang Zhengguo was forbidden from using his own name— in addition, of course, to similarly abysmal living conditions. Assigned a number to represent his identity, he became known to his guards and cellmates only as “Number Two”. Such humiliations were difficult to recover from— Ji describes how, even after his release, he struggled to return to life as an ordinary person; he could not bring himself to meet his colleagues’ eyes or greet them in passing, as he felt such expressions of casual human companionship were not allowed to one who had fallen into cultural disgrace. The Cultural Revolution left scars that pained its victims for the rest of their lives.

The impact of these scars was nothing short of devastating. Depression was strikingly common among those targeted during the Cultural Revolution, and many beloved lives were lost to suicide. People from all walks of life— from the innocent child Jiang Ji-li to the world-wise professor Dr. Ji Xianlin— contemplated taking their own lives to escape the crushing shame and torment that permeated their every day. “But even now that my paltry successes have surrounded me with a cacophony of flattering voices, I sometimes think,” Ji writes, “I should have committed suicide. That I did not do so is a stain on my character; my very existence is cause for shame; I am living on borrowed time.” Shame— even in his elder years, when writing his memoir decades after the Cultural Revolution ended, he still found himself unable to escape that dreaded word. Tragically, Ji passed away eleven years after publishing his memoir; we can only hope that the last years of his life offered him some relief from the unjust shame that had been forced upon him so long ago, and that had followed him for so long since. As members of the human race, we each carry with us the remedies for shame— kindness, respect, understanding. Let us never forget to bestow these mercies upon ourselves and others. Let us never allow such a national tragedy to happen again.

Works Cited

Ho, Denise. “Exhibiting the Cultural Revolution, Part 1: Reading ‘Big-Character Posters.’” Medium, Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard University, 21 Aug. 2020, medium.com/fairbank-center/exhibiting-the-cultural-revolution-part-1-reading-big-character-posters-d3edd7bb0104.

Jiang, Ji-li. Red Scarf Girl: A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution. Harper Collins, 2010.

Kang, Zhengguo. Confessions: An Innocent Life in Communist China. Translated by Susan Wilf, W.W. Norton, 2008.

Li, Jie. “Exhibiting the Cultural Revolution, Part 3: Dazibao Exhibitionism.” Medium, Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard University, 21 Aug. 2020, medium.com/fairbank-center/exhibiting-the-cultural-revolution-part-3-dazibao-exhibitionism-3855a62a8bc6.

Robbins, Michael. “Chinese Cultural Revolution Recalled in Memoir ‘The Cowshed.’” Chicago Tribune, 9 May 2019, https://www.chicagotribune.com/2016/01/28/chinese-cultural-revolution-recalled-in-memoir-the-cowshed/.

Xianlin, Ji. The Cowshed: Memories of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Translated by Jiang Chenxin, New York Review Books, 2016.

Zha, Jianying. “China: Surviving the Camps.” The New York Review, 6 Jan. 2016, https://www.nybooks.com/online/2016/01/26/china-surviving-camps-cultural-revolution-memoir/. 

Introduction

When we talk about the Cultural Revolution, most people picture loud rallies, big posters, and endless slogans. But behind all that noise were small, quiet choices that changed real lives. The movement, launched by Mao Zedong to keep his power, threw China into chaos. Students became Red Guards, turning on teachers, parents, and neighbors. Schools shut down, books and temples were destroyed, and countless families were torn apart. People lived in fear, forced to betray others just to stay safe.

Fight to get mother back, and help father run away.

In 1970 Guiyang, a second-grade teacher accidentally wrote “Down with Chairman Mao” instead of “Down with Liu Shaoqi.” The school locked her up. That night, her sons marched in and took her home—no bedding, no compromise—banking on the lack of a signed confession. It worked; the case evaporated. The same brother later helped their father flee a planned public struggle session, collapsing the spectacle by removing its main “target.” It’s a portrait of legal-ish improvisation and family-first courage inside a system that performed justice through paperwork and mass theater.

She was just acting on her human conscience.

A Jiangsu zhiqing, orphaned when his parents, who both worked at a university, were accused of being “reactionary intellectuals” and committed suicide in August 1966. He and his younger brother were raised by their grandmother. In the 1970s, while he was working in the countryside as an educated youth, a local administrator showed him two letters from his parents’ old university. The first said his parents had died because they misunderstood the Cultural Revolution, but the second claimed they had spoken against the Communist Party. The administrator refused to accept the second letter and secretly gave it to him, risking her own safety to protect the truth. The false accusations deeply hurt his family—his younger brother later took his own life in 1976.

The meme: I reported my mother

Decades later, another story shocked the internet: “I reported my mother.”
It came from Zhang Hongbing, a former Red Guard who turned in his mother for criticizing Mao. She was executed the next day. Now in his seventies, Zhang publicly regrets what he did, saying he wants his story to be a warning — that blind loyalty can destroy love, family, and basic humanity. Online, the phrase “我把我媽給舉報了” (“I reported my mother”) has become a meme.

Why Mao Was So Successful

Mao’s success came from his complete control over both fear and faith. He knew how to make people believe that loyalty to him was the same as loyalty to the nation. Through propaganda, songs, and schools, he built a culture where doubting Mao felt like betraying China itself. People didn’t just fear punishment — they genuinely believed they were doing the right thing. The Cultural Revolution worked not only because of violence and power, but because millions were convinced that destroying others meant saving the revolution. It was psychological control disguised as patriotism, and that’s what made it so powerful — and so dangerous.

Mao as a God in China

Even today, Mao is treated almost like a god in China. His portrait still hangs over Tiananmen Square, and his image appears on every bill in people’s wallets. In schools, children learn to call him “the great leader,” and his old home in Shaoshan has become a sacred site for patriotic pilgrimages. The government carefully preserves places he once walked — even the field where young Mao once farmed is protected as a historical relic. This kind of worship turns a man with blood on his hands into a mythical figure. It shows how power in China still relies on controlling memory — not by erasing history, but by rewriting it into devotion.

(Image below: the field where young Mao once worked, now officially preserved by the Chinese government.)

Echoes Under Xi Jinping

Under Xi Jinping, many patterns from Mao’s era have quietly returned — just with new technology. The Communist Party still demands total loyalty and suppresses dissent, only now it uses censorship algorithms instead of Red Guards. Social media platforms are filled with patriotic slogans, while people who speak out disappear or are labeled “traitors.” Schools teach “Xi Jinping Thought,” just as they once taught Mao’s. Like Mao, Xi is also being turned into a sacred figure — local museums have begun preserving even the spoons, teacups, and chairs he once used, treating them as national treasures. This mirrors the same cult of personality that once surrounded Mao, where ordinary objects become symbols of divine power. Both leaders built systems where fear hides under pride, and where love for the country is measured by how unconditionally you follow the leader. The faces have changed, but the logic is hauntingly familiar.

(Image below: a preserved spoon reportedly used by Xi Jinping)

Conclusion

Today, the Cultural Revolution still echoes in China’s culture of fear and silence. Public criticism remains risky, and online debates can feel like modern “struggle sessions.” Mao Zedong is still praised like a saint — his image printed on money, his quotes taught to children as truth. From a young age, kids are told about his greatness, while the darker history is left untold. Only the victims of that era, and those who have learned the real facts, understand that he was not a hero, but a man who caused immense suffering — a true criminal in history.

When we think about the Cultural Revolution, certain images come to mind: Red Guards waving their little red books, shouting slogans, tearing down temples, and humiliating teachers. These scenes are powerful—but they leave us with one big question: how did ordinary students, the kind who used to respect their teachers and follow rules, suddenly turn into people capable of violence?

The easy answer is that they were “fanatics.” But oral histories tell a more complicated story. They show how fear, peer pressure, family responsibility, broken friendships, and blind loyalty to Mao all shaped the moment. Together, these forces created what Tocqueville once called the “tyranny of the majority”—when people stop thinking for themselves and just go along with the crowd.

Fear and the Pressure to “Act Left”

One former student remembered: “My father had bourgeois thinking, but he was scared, so he acted more left than others.” That wasn’t real belief—it was fear. In that atmosphere, even silence could be dangerous. Tocqueville warned that when people trade independent judgment for comfort, they start losing their sense of responsibility (Glen-James, 2020). That’s exactly what happened. To stay safe, many shouted louder and acted harsher than others. Conformity became a shield. The more people tried to prove their loyalty, the faster fear turned into collective violence. Tyranny didn’t come from one dictator—it came from millions of small acts of self-protection.

Broken Friendships and Family Burdens

Another interviewee recalled how politics broke apart childhood bonds: “Friends who grew up together stopped talking because their parents had different class backgrounds.” Politics entered daily life and destroyed trust. Classmates turned into enemies. Once trust disappeared, it became easier to justify hurting someone. For some young people, joining the Red Guards wasn’t about ideology at all—it was about protecting their families. She said that if she stayed out of the movement, her parents would face harsher punishment. In a world where guilt was inherited, being politically active could save the people you loved. Robert Dahl (1989) once wrote that political systems—democratic or authoritarian—depend on how people balance private life with public rules. During the Cultural Revolution, that balance completely collapsed.

“Grabbing Houses” and the Power of Words

A man from Shanghai described a trend he called “grabbing houses.” Poorer families rushed into rich people’s homes and simply moved in. They called it justice. In reality, it was robbery—but it was robbery with a slogan. Politics mixed with greed, and language made it look moral. Under the banner of “class struggle,” envy and desire were dressed up as righteousness. Orwell would have called it “Newspeak.” Levitsky and Ziblatt (2018) warned that when words lose their meaning, political norms fall apart. That’s what happened here: words like “enemy” and “struggle” turned violence into virtue. Ironically, being a Red Guard could also protect your family. Some wealthy households avoided raids simply because their children were in the movement. In that way, joining became less about belief and more about survival.

Mao’s Aura

Fear and social pressure explain part of it, but Mao’s presence gave everything a sacred meaning. In August 1966, Mao greeted millions of Red Guards at Tiananmen Square. For many students, that day felt like being chosen by history itself. His smile, his silence, even his wave seemed like an order. Tocqueville once observed that people often hand power to leaders while cheering them on. That was exactly what happened. Mao became the emotional center of the movement. He made obedience feel noble and violence feel patriotic. Students didn’t think they were punishing teachers—they believed they were serving the revolution.

Complicated Memories

When we look back, it’s easy to call the Red Guards monsters. But the truth is more uncomfortable: they were scared kids trying to fit in, children trying to protect their parents, and teens influenced by a leader’s appeal. Huq and Ginsburg (2018) say the first step of democratic erosion happens when citizens choose safety over responsibility. That’s what we see here. Tyranny didn’t need evil people—it only needed ordinary people who stopped questioning what they were told.

Why It Still Matters

The Cultural Revolution isn’t just a story about China’s past. It’s a warning for every society. Tocqueville feared the tyranny of the majority—when people prefer comfort to conscience. Dahl reminded us that even good citizens can support unjust systems. Levitsky and Ziblatt showed how political norms die when words and values are twisted. When fear replaces discussion, when slogans replace truth, when families break apart over politics, and when leaders are worshipped instead of questioned—the tyranny of the majority returns. And it never looks like tyranny at first. It often arrives with cheering crowds and a sense of pride.

The Red Guards were young, anxious, idealistic, desperate to belong. They remind us that under the wrong conditions, ordinary people can do terrible things for reasons that seem right at the time. So maybe the question isn’t, “Why did they change so fast?” The harder question is, “What would we have done in their place?” Because history’s most chilling lesson is this: tyranny doesn’t need monsters. It only needs people like us—choosing safety over judgment, one small step at a time.

References

East Asian Library, University Library System, retrieved from CR/10: China’s Cultural Revolution in Memories: The CR/10 Project website: https://culturalrevolution.pitt.edu/
Dahl, R. (1989). Democracy and Its Critics. Yale University Press.
Glen-James, A. (2020). Democratic Despotism as Described by Alexis de Tocqueville. Raw History.
Huq, A. Z., & Ginsburg, T. (2018). How to Lose a Constitutional Democracy. UCLA Law Review.
Irm, H. (2022). Lecture: Problematics of the ‘Best’ & ‘Worst’ Political Systems. NTUlearn.
Levitsky, S., & Ziblatt, D. (2018). How Democracies Die. Crown Publishing Group.

“The support between husband and wife”

In this interview, a man born shortly after the beginning of the Cultural Revolution recounts his research into the psychological factors behind whether someone would be able to survive or not through the suffering they endured. He arrives at a rather counter-intuitive conclusion: that it was not material conditions, but primarily the bond between husband and wife, and family writ large, that determined one’s ability to persevere.

He notes many cases of success, including the noted Wang Meng, who would go on to become a Minister of Culture for China later on in the late 1980s. He notes how, throughout his experience when sent away to Xinjiang, he was able to maintain his optimism through the support of his wife. However, I would like to add onto this portrayal of his experience. What his relative success shows is that having some kind of support structure, some kind of mental mechanism to cope with the harshness of life, he was able to find meaning through his suffering. In fact, later on, the basis for many of his most famous novels and short stories would come from his experiences during the Cultural Revolution, giving him the ability to not just survive, but even flourish long after his imprisonment ended, demonstrating the importance of purpose and meaning when surviving in light of dire odds.

On the other hand, he also recounts the example of Li Rui and the sense of alienation he must have felt during his experience. Going from being Mao Zedong’s personal secretary, he had the unfortunate fate of being banished to Anhui to undergo “reform through labor” for nearly two decades. Whereas his material separation from Beijing may have been startling on its own, it was his emotional separation from his wife that most characterized his dire circumstances, with his relationship transforming from one of mutual love and respect to enmity and distrust. From enjoying the emotional comforts of family, he now was labeled a “rightist” and denounced by his loved ones, sapping him of the psychological purpose to persevere through adversity. Ultimately, he would pass away in 2019, detached from his former family and censored by the very Party he had sacrificed his career for.

“Hope in Prison”

In this interview, a survivor of the Cultural Revolution describes his shock regarding the treatment of people during the 60s, and attempt to find meaning amidst what he saw as an otherwise senseless campaign. Unlike the previous interviewee, he notes how, upon being accused of being a spy due to his family’s Christian faith and overseas relatives, many of his siblings made a clean break with his father, taking an “evasive attitude” simply to preserve themselves. He recounts how, not sharing his siblings’ evasiveness regarding their father, he, too, was eventually imprisoned.

There, he experienced a complete alienation of his relationship with the outside world, finding no purpose in living in a world where he was not afforded the basic dignity, respect, or comfort others seemed to enjoy.

However, it was the kindness of strangers, including the company of one of his very captors and the support at work of people he thought of as dangerous convicts, that have him the motivation to live. Despite the bad hand society had dealt him, he nonetheless maintained his conviction that, even if the people around him were “bad guys,” they must have had some goodness in them.

This reminds me of Viktor Frankl’s own reflections in his classic memoir Man’s Search for Meaning, where he describes how simply the hope of one day being free gave him the psychological will to continue living. In much the same way, this man’s embrace of hope over bitterness, of life over death, enabled him to persevere despite it all.

“God Smiled Upon Us”

Ending on an optimistic note, in this interview, a former Sent Down Youth sent to the countryside in the “Up to the Mountains and Down to the Countryside” movement speaks of the extraordinary role of luck in his ability to persevere through the Cultural Revolution. For him, the life in the grasslands, while certainly tough, was at least stable and away from the chaos exhibited elsewhere.

Working in the Inner Mongolian region of China, he was able to immerse himself in the nomadic lifestyle of its inhabitants, being able to satisfy his intellectual curiosity in a way that was inaccessible to many affected by the movement elsewhere. Despite having to “learn everything from the beginning,” he found meaning in what he saw as a “new and magical place,” maintaining optimism that he could “learn and master everything.” His unusually positive recount of his experience as a Sent Down Youth is thus an outgrowth of the sense of purpose and belonging he found in being able to explore a hitherto new land. This sense of meaning that allowed him to persevere, if not flourish, is so ingrained in him that he mentions how, to this day, he still visits the grasslands every year.

Students will explore memoirs, documentaries, or oral history projects related to the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). Select one aspect that complicates our current understanding of the campaign. Rather than repeating a single individual’s story, draw insights from 2–3 sources and weave their shared experiences into a coherent analysis.

A really fancy example of such oral history/memory project can be found here (you probably won’t be able to create such effects, but pay attention to the narratives and organization.)

https://interaction.sixthtone.com/feature/2022/Memory-Project-The-Shanghai-Lockdown/Links to an external site.

Here are some Cultural Revolution memoir/oral history resources:

Websites:

• 1. CR/10: https://culturalrevolution.pitt.edu/#mainLinks to an external site.
• 2. Surviving China’s Cultural Revolution: http://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9Hxkz0koQlCwdrplyws0p1rFU21EXggnLinks to an external site.
• 3. Memory Project by Wu Wenguang: https://repository.duke.edu/dc/memoryprojectLinks to an external site.
• 4. Down to the Countryside Movement website: https://www.library.dartmouth.edu/digital/digital-collections/down-countryside-movementLinks to an external site. 

Memoirs are numerous. Here are a sample of shorter stories:

• 1. Some of Us: Women Growing Up in the Mao EraActions 
• 2. Ten Years of Madness: Oral Histories of China’s Cultural RevolutionLinks to an external site.
• 3. Growing Up in The People’s Republic: Conversations Between Two Daughters of China’s RevolutionLinks to an external site.