Research Paper on The Red Guards

Introduction

Mao Zedong, born in 1893, is one of the most respected personalities in China. Mao joined the secondary school at the age of 17 where he acquired political skills. In 1911, he joined the Xinhua Revolution Army that was against the monarchy class of the Chinese society and the Nationalist Party which was under the leadership of Sun Yat-sen. They withdrew the monarch in 1912 and established the Republic of China. Mao was interested in changing the Chinese culture and old tradition. He was inspired by the 1921 Russian Revolution and joined the Communist Party of China (Esherick, 2006). President Sun Yat-sen tolerated the rapidly growing party and even signed a cooperation agreement with it. However, after his death his successor Chiang Kai-shek broke the deal and started to harass communist members by killing and imprisonment them. The move forced Mao to move to high mountains of Jiangxi where the people elected him to the small republic. He established a strong army with expertise in guerrilla warfare. Mao faced a setback in his political when Chiang assembled close to one million troops headed towards his direction. Mao chose to retreat to retreat in spite of pressure from his followers to fight Chiang's forces. This humiliation and the fallout of the great leap forward economic strategy of 1958 are the significant shortcomings that cast a shadow on his political achievements (Esherick, 2006). Following these events notably the failure of the leap forward program, Mao shifted focus to the young generation since he felt that they were likely to forget his failures and support him regain control of China.

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He managed to form an organization of youths from all learning institutions and labeled the Red Guards. The Red Guards formed a massive force which spread Mao's ideology to every part of the country. His revolution was strongly against capitalism and feudalism (Esherick, 2006). He organized several rallies that filled with the youth and said that the middle-class members of the society were planning to restore capitalism he urged the Red Guards to fight capitalism by all means. After these rallies, the Red Guards took charge of the revolution. The following are some of the core activities that Red Guards carried out.

Dissemination of Mao's Ideas to the Chinese People

The Red Guard compiled Mao Zedong's writings which formed his ideologies and passed them to the people. They matched in towns reading the Mao's pieces of work for everyone to get familiarized with them. For instance, in Nanning town, a group of Red Guards climbed on top of a stand of a policeman and read Mao's manifesto using speakers (Perry, 2018). In addition to reading the manifesto aloud in streets, they also printed them and posted on walls and screen for people to read. They understood that the society needed to understand what they stood for to gain its support completely. They also distributed the some of the works to the library and to news printing room to feature in journals and newspapers. Most importantly, they composed songs bearing Mao's ideologies and chanted them as the marched in streets. The Red Guard's campaign against capitalism and feudalism received a lot of support from members of the society especially the working class. The working class joined the Red Guards in chanting Mao Zedong's manifesto.

Destruction of Old Ideas Items That Represented the Ideas

The Red Guards use the ideologies of Mao Zedong as an arsenal to fight old ideas in the society. They rebuked aspects such as patriarchal ideas of the community and advocated for gender balance in all aspects of the economy. They sang the songs of Mao's land reforms ideas where He intended to demolish the idea of landlords owning tracts of land at the expense of the lower class members of the sociality. Most importantly the Red Guards target western cultures in the china. For example they visited shops in street and product products from the West. They campaigned against western cloth and hair style in barber shops (Perry, 2018). The most striking thing is the fact that shops owners helped them to destroy the products and promised not to stock them again. Further, the Red Guards walked in various schools and demanded the school to teach in line with Chairman Mao's thoughts (Esherick, 2006). They destroyed books that tolerated capitalism and feudalism in the libraries. They also destroyed products that contained decorations of kings, emperors, generals, and scholars. They wanted the products to bear the revolutionary content.

Spreading of Propaganda

Red Guards employed propaganda to paint those holding power in bad lights. The main aim here was to reduce the support that these leaders enjoyed from the people. They introduce new ideas in leadership and they believed that Mao Zedong's ideologies were a perfect fit (Perry, 2018). They spread the news that those in power were colluding with western nations to introduce capitalism. They only concentrated only on telling the masses negative aspects of capitalism.

Conclusion

In summary, Mao Zedong was an excellent political strategist who always knew how to place himself on top of things again whenever he lost grip on power. In this case, he used the young population who helped him to market his revolutionary manifesto to the masses. The Red Guards, a group of students who advocated for the revolution owned the ideologies and spread it on behave of Mao. This group of youth engaged in spreading of propaganda, destruction of old ideas and items that represented those ideas, and spreading of Mao's manifesto. The Red Guards were very instrumental in the introduction of the proletarian revolution in the Republic of China.

References

Esherick, J., Pickowicz, P., & Walder, A. G. (2006). The Chinese cultural revolution as history.

Perry, E. (2018). Proletarian power: Shanghai in the cultural revolution. Routledge.