It was the fifth of August 1966. In Beijing Girls’ Middle School, the birds were not singing and the hot day would witness bloodshed. Perhaps you could have heard the girls chanting the words on their posters: ‘False party leader’ and ‘Lop off her dog head’. Their voices would reek of condemnation. Of course, some students are more difficult than others. You have your timewasters and serial disrupters but an average class does not usually have students beating their teachers with sticks. No, things were far from normal that summer. These were the opening stages of the Cultural Revolution that would see children become Red Guards and turn murderously on teachers, leaders and their own parents.

It was a group of students turned Red Guards that beat their teacher that day, first with sticks, then with nailed clubs. History does not tell us who delivered the fatal blow, but the victim’s name was Bian Zhongyun.She was one of the first to die in the Red Terror that began with Mao Zedong’s May notification, but she was far from the last, with over a million killed in the decade of turmoil that followed. In the face of such a desensitising statistic, it is worth re-visiting her final photo. It is an image of her lifeless body with a rag covering her beaten face and her four children standing in a line, solemn in contemplation, their left hands reaching to their mother in unison. But the red armbands they wear, symbols of the Red Guards, reveal the painful contradiction: to survive, they had to comply with the very movement that killed her.

Having brought communism to the whole of China in 1949, with the defeat of the Nationalists, Mao sought, in 1966, to take the revolution deep into the minds of Chinese people, overturning the centuries-old, Confucian culture of respect for elders. By becoming the parental figure for a generation of radicalised youth, Mao inserted himself as the sole head of the national family. If Mao told you to bite, you would. On the 18th of August, when Mao and Vice Chairman Lin Biao declared that citizens should destroy “old ideas”, “old culture”, “old customs” and “old habits”, the young Red Guards, spurred by these words, swept through China like a powerful East wind. They went from town to town, house to house, smashing icons and burning books until the world was uniform. Mao had realised that he could capitalise on a generation reared on a diet of propaganda and make them listen to him. The Red Guards were his shock troops. As his power had waned following the disastrous Great Famine and he faced opposition within the Communist Party, this became an ideal tool with which to regain total control.

Jung Chang, author of the acclaimed Wild Swans, was a Red Guard during this period, but she was among the majority that did not engage in violence. She did, however, experience all the tribulations that young people faced in this period. Firstly, this stage of the revolution did not accept femininity. It was out with long plaits and in with khaki green jackets. It was also out with courtesy and in with aggression. After all, revolution is a serious matter. It is “an act of violence by which one class overthrows another.” Secondly, this was a time when social status became a currency. If your family had an undesirable, bourgeois background, you were labelled a ‘black’, an outcast. Your friends and extended family could not risk being in your company. This disintegration of the  community into caste-based paranoia was felt by Jung Chang’s parents when they fell under suspicion.

Here begins the tragedy at the centre of Wild Swans and it is why the book has enduring resonance. When Jung Chang’s father, Chang Shou-yu, was labelled ‘the most obstinate capitalist-roader’, the family stood by him.

Through the beatings, the mental breakdowns and the public humiliation, the family did not denounce him, as so many felt forced to do. Jung Chang’s mother, Xia De-Hong, travelled the 36-hour journey to Beijing to appeal to senior officials on two separate occasions when Chang Shou-yu was in trouble. For them, the Cultural Revolution became vindictive torment; it meant being forced to kneel on glass, being pressured to turn on each other. Chang Shou-yu cried, despite his decades of self-restraint, and was later admitted to a psychiatric ward. And this was their reward for dedicating their lives to the Communist Party.

In 1949, Chang Shou-yu, upholding his revolutionary class ideals, had made his wife walk for five miles even though she was in excruciating pain and, although they did not know it at the time, pregnant. When he realised Xia De-hong had miscarried soon after, he promised to be more considerate but his strict adherence to revolutionary ideals had almost cost his wife her life. He was the epitome of an upstanding revolutionary but, by 1967, the revolution turned against him.

Even top officials were not immune from torment. Many were sent to de facto labour camps. Chairman Mao’s paranoia reverberated through every level of society. Mao had partly launched the Cultural Revolution to rid himself of his troublesome ‘opposition’. This was also the case with Jiang Qing, Mao’s fourth wife, who jumped at the opportunity to act on her personal grievances. Her jealousy extended to Premier Zhou Enlai’s adopted daughter, Sun Weishi, who was an accomplished actress. Many years before, Jiang Qing had been given a minor role in a play, while Sun had been given the main part. Jiang Qing now had her revenge. Sun Weishi was imprisoned and tortured for months before she died. Her crime was being hated by Jiang. Even Premier Zhou, her adoptive father, could not save her.

Because there was an element of ambiguity to Mao’s pronouncements, different interpretations emerged. Some Red Guard groups rejected the use of violence, as Mao had only hintingly encouraged it, and groups broke into different ideological factions. There were two main groups in Jung Chang’s province of Sichuan: Red Chengdu and 26th August. The former was more moderate than the latter, which was famed for torture methods such as ‘singing fountains,’ which involved splitting a live skull open until blood sprayed out.

The groups fought each other, with each group adamantly claiming to be fulfilling Mao’s true will. By 1968, fighting between these groups and others had reached a crescendo and the government recognised the need to defuse the situation. Mao had needed the young to bring about the Cultural Revolution but now they were a hindrance. So, in another momentous sweep, 17 million urban youth were suddenly dispatched like cattle into the countryside. Jung Chang was sent to a remote settlement in the Himalayan foothills called Ningnan. It is, coincidentally, a place I know well. My grandparents were sent there at the same time, never to return to the cities they came from.

By the time Jung Chang returned from Ningnan, her grandmother, Yu-fang, had died. Yu-fang had been born in an age of warlords and foot-binding and was a vestige of the vilified past. She had clung on to life and endured bed-ridden pain until her daughter, Xia De-hong, was temporarily able to leave detention. Mother and daughter embraced one final time in a state of uncertainty. What would become of the family?

Meanwhile, the Ninth Congress of 1969 brought an end to the period of active purges within the Cultural Revolution. It was also around this time that Mao’s relationship with his designated successor, Lin Biao, came to an end. Lin had acquired too much influence and for that he had to pay. Because of his perceived value to Mao, Lin could get away with actions that no-one else in the party could, but when Mao demanded that he perform a humiliating self-criticism in front of the leading members, Lin refused. Those who opposed Mao could not expect to last long. The Lin family did have an escape plan prepared, but Lin’s own daughter, Dodo, a Red Guard, ruined it. She turned on her own father, mother and brother, reporting their escape plan to the authorities. In their rush to avoid capture, the three embarked on a plane which had insufficient fuel and crashed in the Mongolian grasslands.

After the downfall of Lin, Mao could no longer control the military as effectively. After years of unrelenting carnage, Mao reluctantly rehabilitated many of those who had been purged. Xia De-hong was able to leave her camp for class enemies in November 1971 and Chang Shou-yu in May 1972. The return of old cadres such as future leader Deng Xiaoping brought a stabilising influence and coincided with a less antagonistic approach to foreign relations. The Nixon visit in 1972 allowed some western culture into the Hermit Kingdom and even eventually allowed Jung Chang to learn English. But this was not the end of the Cultural Revolution. For as long as Mao held office, the recrimination and paranoia continued.

Mao recognised his impending death. He was withdrawn, paranoid and surrounded by yes-men. To one of his most loyal, Zhou Enlai, Mao denied life-saving medical treatment because he did not want Zhou to outlive him. Jiang Qing would ultimately be his final victim. She was part of the notorious Gang of Four that tried to take power after his death. But before that Mao had encouraged the Gang of Four to criticise the direction of policy and attempt to get students to rally against their teachers again. So they were deeply unpopular, yet Mao left no provision in place to protect Jiang Qing when he died. The Gang of Four became the scapegoats for these ten years of human suffering, ten years where citizens “surrender, submit, survive and succumb”.

The Cultural Revolution ended at ten minutes past midnight on the ninth of September 1976. Mao, the rallying figure, was dead. A week of mourning followed. A nation had once adored this man. At one time, for Jung Chang,  even to set eyes on Mao was the ultimate purpose of her life. Yet the ruin he had brought to her family was absolute. The reverence was gone.

Jung Chang’s grandmother would have been saddened to learn of Chang Shou-yu’s passing. He was never rehabilitated in his lifetime and was burdened with an immense physical and emotional toll. His devotion to the Communist Party had repaid him in disillusionment; he felt he should have spent more time with his children, been a better husband, been a man who did not put Party first. He was an honourable man who believed in a regime that had tossed him aside. He died of a heart attack on the ninth of April 1975. The doctor arrived late, apathetic to this social outcast that lay dead before him.

When we remember this political upheaval, where innocent people were used as tools to inspire fear, rage and terror, we must remember the idealists that served as its foundation. The politically fanatical believed they were doing the right thing and, in China, most still do believe Mao was a good man. When I asked my grandparents what they thought of Mao, they responded with laughter. To them, that question was beyond reality. It is difficult to reconcile the scars that every survivor carries and for each personal story the visceral impact never lessens. The story of Jung Chang is the story of many. It is a story increasingly relevant in an era where ideology, hatred and paranoia spread not only by banners and beatings but with the simple click of a mouse.

Please be aware that this essay is not intended to serve as a ‘model essay’ or a template to replicate. The Foundation encourages a variety of writing styles.

Additionally, essays should be submitted without accompanying images. Any photos shown above were used purely for illustrative purposes.

The author of this essay preferred to remain anonymous.