China Cultural Revolution Obit

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https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2024/09/death-of-red-guard-bete-noir-of-cultural-revolution-sparks-reflection-on-weibo/

Song Binbin, perhaps the most infamous “Red Guard” of the Cultural Revolution, died at the age of 77 on Monday, September 16. Song, the daughter of one of the Party’s powerful “Eight Immortals,” was the leader of a Red Guard faction at her elite girls’ school in the summer of 1966, the advent of the Cultural Revolution. In early August of that year, a group of students beat the school’s vice-principal, Bian Zhongyun, to death. Less than two weeks later, Song became famous all across China after state media published a photograph of her affixing a Red Guard armband around Mao’s arm during a mass rally held in Tiananmen Square. Mao suggested that Song change her name to “Be Martial,” implicitly offering his endorsement of the violence that became a hallmark of the Cultural Revolution. In the space of two months, during the “Red August” and September of 1966, nearly 2,000 people were killed in Beijing alone.

That was crazy time in mainland China.

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