Da jia hao, tongzhimen, how are we today? You are tuned in once again to the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution podcast with your host Drew Smith broadcasting from the ancient city of X’ian. Um I'm just sitting here in my home office. Uh glad to be back. I'm terribly sorry that this episode is a little late but uh we've been a little busy.

We've been a little busy. You know, Qingming just happened, which uh - Qingming festival, the tomb sweeping festival here in China is the festival where you know where Chinese people honor their ancestors and burn offerings to give them in the afterlife. And uh well actually one fun thing is also I got to be on uh state media.

I got to be on the Shaanxi local news um for something about the yellow emperor because during the Qingming festival it's also a time to honor the yellow emperor because he is the ancestor of all of the Chinese nation. So that was pretty cool. That was pretty cool.

Um, I might uh show some clips to you guys um later on of my appearance. It was pretty cool. Um, nothing else much to report, but uh, I guess we're going to just go on ahead and get with the killing because I know a lot of you fans have been really thirsty and hungry for this episode.

So, as you guys know, we've had a couple of interviews so far on this uh on this show. We've had um a little red guard. We've had a People's Liberation Army soldier. So, shout out to them um to Uncle Zhang and to Uncle G Bing, respectively.

But today is going to be a very special interview. We have to uh thank um our anonymous source. Uh a fan of the podcast who wishes to remain anonymous um was able to secure an interview with her grandparents, who were red guards during the cultural revolution.

And I of course I've been trying to get um a red guard, an actual Hongweibing and not just a Hongxiaobing onto this show for some time now. But so many of the old folks I know, they're, you know, too shy and worried about things.

But we were able to reach a compromise and we will be giving our um guests um two pseudonyms. We'll be calling them Mr. Wang and Mrs. Wang. And we will be using uh voice actors for the uh interview so as to protect the uh names and uh voices of our guests. Um and uh that will be uh how it will go.

Um, but just some just some background. Our guests are from a city in here in Shaanxi Province about 2 hours train ride west of us. It's a city called Baoji. Um, it's a factory and railway manufacturing town. Um, it was also known for having a lot of uh amazing bronze back in the Zhou and Qin dynasties. So, it's a it's an interesting little town. I would say it's an interesting little city.

Um, and there we are going to, you know, there is where they grew up and we're going to get to hear what the cultural revolution was like from them today. So, kick back, maybe brew up some uh nice Chinese green tea or some jasmine tea. Uh get into a comfortable chair and let's go back. What we gonna do is go back, way back, back into time time.

Okay, so let's get on with the interview. Now, Mr. Wang, Mrs. Wang, great to have you on the show today. Thank you so much for coming and bringing history to life for us. It's a pleasure for me as a historian and as American communist to sit down with the two of you and listen to your stories.

Um, so let's get started. I'd like to hear maybe a bit about your life stories before the cultural revolution. Um, what years were you born? Tell me a little bit about your families, what life was like back then and what Baoji was like in the 1950s and 1960s if you can.

AS - Drew Smith

Mr - Mr Wang

Ms or Mrs - Mrs / Mrs Wang

Mr: I was born in 1945 and my parents were farmers in a small village in Henan province. We came to Baoji in 1960 because of the famine happening during the great leap forward. and I stayed in Baoji to study while my parents became factory workers in various industries.

Ms: I was born in 1948 in Liaoning Province in a village outside of Shenyang and actually during the old society my parents were rich landlords. After the revolution, they became railway workers and were sent to work in Baoji while I attended a technical secondary school there in the 1960s.

It was basically just a factory town, a railroad town at that point. Not very special. Maybe only 500,000 to 1 million people. But, you know, it used to be a very important city during the Zhou dynasty as a place for making bronze.

AS: Hm. Yes. I I know it's still a very much a manufacturing and railway town. I've only been to Baoji as a as a stopover on the highspeed rail.

Mr: Right. Right. Makes sense.

AS: Okay. So, next question. When the cultural revolution began in May 1966, uh do you remember feeling that there was something new or different happening around you? And how did you and your schoolmates react? Uh Mrs. Wang,

Ms: I was in my final year as a secondary school student at the beginning of the movement. I remember that the anti-rightist feeling in society seemed to be more serious than before. We were very concerned about the rightist taking over. We were very excited that something was being done about it.

Mr: Our respect and recognition of Chairman Mao didn't change. Our love of and admiration for Chairman Mao only deepened. However, when the first movements started, it seemed that the Baoji area had little impact, but we were affected to some extent. We did a lot more political rallies and had a lot of slogans at my school. And our city quickly established their own revolutionary committees. The Baoji Revolutionary Committee was established quite early but it was so long ago I can't remember a lot of things clearly.

AS: Okay. Um so what years were you all uh when you got involved with the Red Guard movement?

Mr: Oh well I was about 20 or 21 years old when I joined the Red Guard movement which was in summer of 1966. I am a pure follower of chairman Mao and I supported all the decisions of the central committee and the chairman. When the central committee launched this movement, I immediately knew I had to join in this movement. Under the call of the party in my college, I joined the school's red guard organization. AD: All right. And uh Mrs. Wang,

Ms: I had a little more trouble and it was another year or so before I got involved. Remember, my family were landlords, so I was classified in a black category because of my parents and grandparents. However, I actively participated in volunteering youth labor and attended study groups of Mao Zedong’s works and eventually I was found to be ideologically reliable enough that I joined the organization with the sponsorship of Mr. Wang who I had met around that time when I enrolled at the same technical college he was studying at.

AS: Um what faction of the red guard movement in Baoji were you two part of? which factions existed in Baiji at the time. Were y'all part of any cultural events? And uh did you get into any struggle sessions or anything like that?

Ms: We were lucky. We didn't participate in the fighting. There was some fist fights and riots due to disagreements around dazibaos around that time, but overall it wasn't a big thing. There wasn't as much factionalism in Baoji as there was in other parts of Shaanxi or places like Beijing.

Mr: Yes, we mainly worked through our school or community revolutionary committees. We set up revolutionary committees in our town very quickly in 1967.We were both members of our school's revolutionary committee. The two of us mainly worked on the same red guard unit to organize study groups and dazibaos campaigns and to hold meetings to carry out a more united movement. Our school's faction was far more interested in voluntary labor, book study, social investigation, and cultural activities than any fighting. I don't even remember any struggle sessions.

AS: Interesting. So, do y'all remember if your teachers in the school were organized in their own rebel group? And if so, uh what was that like? Did the students faction and the rebel teachers faction get along?

Ms: I can't remember anything about teachers organization. However, this relationship between teachers and students rebel groups was excellent. There was no struggle sections or violence against teachers by us. It was a relationship of teachers and students. We were revolutionary comrades, friends, and common learners. We would work together and teachers educated students in labor skills and factual knowledge through personal labor. And we would attend Mao Zedong Thought study sessions to study Mao's writings and discuss central instructions from the party center.

Mr: There was uh never any attacks on teachers, at least in our school. We heard about it in other cities, but our teachers were not rightists. They were communists.

AS: Interesting. Uh, so what were some of y'all's favorite memories of being a Red Guard? What were some of y'all's saddest memories of being a Red Guard?

Mr: Well, the cultural activities in the rallies were always fun. We felt like we were being part of something new. No real sad things. My memory isn't as good as it used to be, though, so I could be forgetting a lot.

Ms: It was thrilling. We got to have so many new experiences. At that time, me, Mr. Wang, and my younger brother often went to connect with each other. One time, my brother and I went to Guangzhou to take part in the revolutionary networking with other forces. And we were together shouting slogans, taking trains around Guangdong Province, walking on foot to promote new ideas. When we were not doing sports or culture events in Guangzhou, we studied the chairman's works, studied the central instructions and carried out labor studies and other work to promote production.

AS: Uh when you say promote production and labor studies, do you mean uh there was the campaign of grasp revolution and promote production?

Ms: Yes, that's it. We volunteered to part of a to be part of a study to grasp revolution and promote production in Guanjo. It's wonderful.

AS: Awesome. Um, what was similar and what was difference between the Red Guards, the Hongweibing of that time and the Young Pioneers or Communist Youth League, the Gongqingtuan of today?

Mr: Completely different. Um, in my opinion, the biggest difference though is that a Red Guard organization is a team that truly takes action. They put Chairman Mao's theories and teachings into actions and dare to break authority, question authority, and break social conventions. And the most important thing is they have a vibrant and energetic enthusiasm like young people who can truly create the next generation. However, today's communist youth league branches seem to be able to only learn a small set of ideas and there are no actions or events that break the authority and rules.

AS: Um, now I asked about this earlier, but from what you heard um from other people in your city, what was the factional fighting like in Baoji between Red Guard organizations and how and why did it happen? How long did it go on?

Ms: It was mainly in the counties around Baoji and not Baoji city. There seemed to be a very big fight between the Red Guard organizations outside of Baoji. There is a large part of Baji called Long County in summer of 1967 until summer of 1968. The Long County Red Guard headquarters and the Long County Red Guards League launched a fight. In August 1967, this mass fight broke out after a fallout between the two factions in Industrial and Mining Headquarters. In the armed fight, both sides dispatched about 6,000 people, more than 200 vehicles and weapons such as cannons, homemade guns, and sticks.

Probably last for almost a year. I should say that there were indeed some fights in Baoji, mainly the old city around the train station. Some people even had their jaws broken or knocked each other out in fist fights, sorry, around six. In my opinion, the people on both sides of the armed struggle were good soldiers of Chairman Mao. But one side was being deceived and used mostly. However, like we said, literary struggle was the main form at that time. The majority of the time if there was a problem instead Mao's teaching came to bring an agreement between them. Chairman Mao said that civil struggles should be fought rather than armed struggle. In my opinion, many armed struggles violated Ma's instructions.

AS: Uh when the Red Guard movement ended in summer of 1968, how did that change things for you? Uh did the People's Liberation Army come and dismantle your faction? Were you both sent down to the countryside?

Mr: Uh well, the movement ended in 1968 and afterwards we were assigned to work in a factory. We didn't have to go down to the countryside to work. We weren't sent-down youth. Uh we didn't remember anything though about the people's liberation army interacting with our faction.

Ms: After 1968 we spent the rest of the cultural revolution working in our factory and starting our family and we did not involve ourselves with such politics. We were happy with our place in life. Most people's lives were good during the second half of the culture revolution. Our city was rather quiet.

AS: Interesting. I read in the Shaanxi Provincial Archives that the death toll in the summer of 1968 in the fighting between the Red Guards and the PLA in Baoji was extremely high.

Mr: I've never heard that. Perhaps in the county surrounding Baoji. I don't remember the Red Guards fighting the army in our city.

Ms: I don't either.

AS: Uh well, when when Chairman Mao died, how did it affect the two of you? Uh where were you the moment you found out Chairman Mao died?

Ms: When Mao died, it was as if the sky had fallen. We felt scared because we knew something big was about to happen. We felt there would be a counterattack against the revolution.

Mr: We were both at work that day when we heard the news of Chairman Mal's death. We were so shocked, speechless, weeping silently. The whole factory was in despair. We had lost our great mentor, like we had lost a father. Our guiding light was gone.

AS: Yeah. Wow. That's really sad. Um, so when the gang of four were arrested, what were y'all's feelings? And how did most people in Baoji feel? After all, seeing people that were considered Ma's closest comrades suddenly denounced as an anti-party clique must have been shocking.

Mr: Oh, it it was incredible.

Ms: Shocking.

Mr: We thought that Zhang Chunqiao and Wang Hongwen would go on to do great things and help China modernize, but honestly, it was just so unheard of in China for four powerful politicians to be arrested publicly at the exact same time.

Ms: I remember we were reading the newspaper together that day and couldn't believe it. I thought the official explanation was impossible. Something was wrong. I thought maybe it was just Jiang Qing who was the culprit. I always thought she was a little too obsessed with power.

Mr: Yes, most working class people in Baoji of our generation think this was a bad thing. We thought they would achieve great things, but now Chairman Mao's cultural revolution had obviously failed. I did however meet a soldier who met Lin Biao, and that soldier said he felt that he was the main traitor within the party and not the gang of four.

AS: Wow. So, tell us about how your lives changed after the cultural revolution ended and what you did with your lives and career afterward.

Mr: Well, we continued to work as factory workers and raising kids. Uh, we didn't get involved much in politics. In the 1990s, the factory went bankrupt after being privatized and ran into the ground by the new owners. So, we were both laid off. We tried opening up a restaurant after that with some of our money, but I got into a car accident and I've been disabled since. So, our restaurant went out of business. We went on into our workers pension and have lived a quiet life in retirement ever since. We miss the era of Chairman Mao though and we still think of his quotations every day.

AS: All right. Well, what are y'all's overall feelings about this experience of the cultural revolution? What are some final thoughts you'd like to share with our listeners?

Ms: The cultural revolution in my opinion gave people the prospect of a new era to a certain extent. It can be said that this movement was not everything described. Many horrible things happened, yes, but mostly it was full of validity and significance. The Mao Zedong era is a time that we miss today very much. But we should not return to hastily launching an imperfect movement of that time. Young people should carry out socialism in the new era in a more mature way through nearly half a century of study, development and thinking to carry out a more perfect communist movement that chairman Maul hoped.

Mr: I will tell your listeners this. Although there were internal problems in the Red Guard movement, this movement still has great educational value for future generations. We should always view this movement with dialectical materialism. One divides into two. Although it had its own systematic and policy shortcomings, it was a good learning experience for the Chinese people. It is by thinking and relearning about the past and its mistakes that give us new solutions and ideas. The cultural revolution was not the end of Mao Zedong thought but the beginning. Mao Zedong thought is always developing and it is always a truth that the proletariat must win, communism must win and Marxism Leninism Mao Zedong thought must win.

Ms: Yes, long live chairman Mao.

AS: Amen to that. Long live Chairman Mao. Wow. Well, Mr. and Mrs. Wang, thank you so much for being here today. It truly was an eye-opening conversation and I'm glad that you came to set the record straight with all that you've seen and experienced and I really hope my listeners can learn from the stories of your youth and let's carry things forward in our new history of the cultural revolution.

Mr: Likewise. Thank you so much, young man.

Ms: It's been a pleasure. Thanks

AD: All right, listeners. Well, there you have it. That was our exclusive interview with two red guards. I will see you later next month at the end of next month with our next chronological episode, Blood for Blood, February through April of 1968. All right, my friends. Much love. I'm out of here. Catch you later, zai jian.