Volume 7, Number 6 · October 20, 1966
A Special Feature: What Is Happening in China?
By Franz Schurmann
In May of 1966 a volcanic movement erupted in China. Starting with a series of blasts against 'anti-party and anti-socialist elements' by the Army newspaper Liberation Army Daily, it soon led to huge demonstrations in China's high schools and universities where the center of the anti-Mao conspiracy was alleged to be. University officials were fired; students mounted huge demonstrations. Classes were cancelled, and a major revision of the curriculum was announced. So disrupting were the changes that no new students were accepted for the Fall 1966 semester. As the uproar intensified, prominent Party leaders were purged one after another. In June and July the movement slowed down somewhat and the Central Committee met in its eleventh plenary session (the first plenary meeting since September 1962). But hardly had the meeting ended and a communique been issued when a new mass movement erupted. Thousands of young students swarmed into the streets and formed 'red defense guards.' Their most startling slogan was 'defend Mao Tse-tung,' implying that his power had been seriously threatened. Mao Tse-tung, who for over six months had been absent from the public scene, reappeared among the crowds and was greeted with delirious enthusiasm. The young guardsmen pinned the armband of the red defense guards on his sleeve.
Feature, 8532 words
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