Mao Zedong Letter To The Red Guards Essay

Document: Letter To The Red Guards Of Tsinghua University Middle School (August 1, 1966)
The author of this document is Mao Zedong, who was the Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party. This document is a letter Mao wrote to the Red Guards of Tsinghua University Middle School on August 1, 1966, with its audience indicated in the title, the Red Guards at one of the most elite middle schools in Beijing. The format of a letter means that Mao was speaking directly to the Red Guards, suggesting there was no other party bureau involved as in bureaucratic documents. It was unclear if Mao intended to compose an open letter, but the letter was included in the Long Live Mao Tse-tung Thought, a Red Guard Publication, thus indicating the letter was once distributed at a scale and

The emphasis on class struggle echoed Yao Wenyuan’s critique of Hai Rui Dismissed from Office, in which Yao accentuated class struggle as the only right way to see the past (Karl, 145-146). Class struggle caused fissures between the cultural and political elite. When the political elite gained the upper hand in June and July 1966, the political elite students at the middle school developed the “bloodline theory” that secured their higher status and excluded many students from joining the Red Guard organization (Andreas, 96-97). The Red Guards made up of political elites, however, did not fully act according to Mao’s letter that announced both intellectuals and revolutionaries as the targets of the revolution. In the same month upon receiving the letter from Mao, the Red Guards attacked the old elites and later developed their interpretation of Mao’s intentions: “attack the old elites in order to defend the Communist Party” (Andreas, 98). At this point, Mao’s letter failed to convey his message to the Red Guards at Tsinghua University Middle