Word: revolutionism
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Twenty years ago, as a 13-year-old student revolutionary, Xueliang Ding proclaimed the tenets of Mao Tsetung to youth rallies in China. Now, as a section leader, he will relate the events of China's Cultural Revolution to Harvard students.
Xueliang, who joined the Red Guard in 1966, is a teaching fellow for two Core courses--Foreign Cultures 26, "Industrial East Asia," this fall and Foreign Cultures 48, "The Cultural Revolution," this spring.
Xueliang entered the Red Guard after two years of junior high school in 1966. "I had no experience with political activities; but at that time we were convinced by Communist party propaganda that the Cultural Revolution would determine the fate of the party, the nation, the people, and everything we...
Armed violence increased among Guard members asthe Cultural Revolution progressed, and the youthstole weapons from the state army, Xueliang said,adding that when he was caught taking threehandguns from an army unit, the soldiers gave himone gun "for encouragement."
"I came to realize that lofty aspirations areone thing, but political processes are another,"Xueliang said. "The fundamental lesson of theCultural Revolution, found by myself and too manyothers, was that corruption, bureaucracy,lawlessness, and injustice didn't disappear fromChinese life; instead, they became stronger. Thepurpose of the Cultural Revolution stood...