Chapter 3 The Climax of Red Guard Literature and Art: Summer 1967-Autumn 1968

In 1967, with the rapid development of the "Cultural Revolution" movement, the Red Guards across the country formed an independent organizational system. They occupied the campus and mastered some funds and materials and equipment - cars, broadcasting equipment, mimeographs, etc., and began to form A political force.From the "February Countercurrent" in early 1967 to the chaos in the summer and autumn of this year.The central "Cultural Revolution" team could no longer completely control the Red Guards.Under this historical condition, the literature and art stipulated by the political and cultural pattern of the "Cultural Revolution" - Red Guard literature and art came into being.A large number of literary and artistic works of the Red Guards emerged in a short period of time.

The struggle among the factions of the Red Guards and the conflict of interests between the groups in the political movement gave these literary and artistic works different political backgrounds.Some of these political entanglements are often the motives that promote the production of certain works.Such works cannot but have a strong "artistic" color.Due to the rapid changes and development of the "Cultural Revolution" movement in 1967-1968, the ups and downs and changes in the fate of different factions and groups also caused these works to be short-lived. In the summer of 1967, Red Guard literature and art entered a climax stage.In Beijing, the "Long March" and "Red Flag" factions of the Central Academy of Drama produced three dramas respectively: "Dare to Pull the Emperor Off His Horse", "Storm at the Harbor", and "Wind and Thunder in Wuzhou".Jinggangshan, Tsinghua University produced a large-scale song and dance "Road to Jinggangshan".The "Four and Three Factions" in the Haidian District of the Middle School jointly produced a large-scale song and dance epic "Long Live the Victory of Chairman Mao's Revolutionary Line!" "The "Old Red Guards" formed a joint singing "Red Guards Group Song" and a multi-act play "Hope Is Pinned on You". In 1968, the editorial department of "Red Guard Literature and Art" edited and published "Written on the Fiery Red Battle Banner - Anthology of Red Guard Poems" by the Red Guard Congress in the Capital Universities.The Old Red Guards, on the basis of the "Poems of the Old Red Guards", appeared a political fantasy poem "To the Warriors of the Third World War".

First, let me introduce the situation among the Red Guard factions in the capital during 1967-1968.In the summer of 1967, when the full-scale civil war broke out and the situation was turbulent, the Red Guard forces in various colleges and universities in Beijing began to regroup, forming a cross-university system-the heaven faction and the earth faction.Tianpai - "Xinbei University Commune" of Peking University, "Red Flag Combat Team" of Beijing Aeronautical Academy.Local school - "Dongfanghong Commune" of the School of Geology, "Jinggangshan Commune" of Normal University, and "Jinggangshan Commune" of Tsinghua University.The contradiction between the two factions of heaven and earth is acute.

In middle schools, the various Red Guard organizations have been split and combined into three major factions: the "43 faction," the "44 faction," and the "Old Red Guard faction." The "Old Red Guards faction" is composed of a group of Red Guards who first formed the Red Guards in June 1966 at the beginning of the "Cultural Revolution". The "Cultural Revolution" movement quickly spread to veteran cadres. In November 1966, they realized that their families had become the direct targets of the movement, and some of them organized the inter-school organization "Capital Red Guard Joint Action Committee" (referred to as "Linkage") ), and shouted the slogan "Kick off the Central Cultural Revolution and start a revolution"!Slogans were posted everywhere, "Find out the backstage of the Third Division, and shoot the backstage of the Third Division!"—pointing directly at Jiang Qing, Chen Boda and others, firing the first shot against the "Cultural Revolution" movement.Jiang Qing and others ordered the destruction of the linkage stronghold, arresting its leaders and detaining them in the Ministry of Public Security.Because the old Red Guards preached the "blood theory" at the beginning of the "Cultural Revolution", carried out the ultra-left line, beat, smashed, robbed and persecuted a large number of civilians, and lost the hearts of the people, so the "repression" was immediately isolated and opposed by the whole society.

"Linkage" fought tenaciously.At that time, the members of the linkage organized a publication "Ready! ".Red cover, with "preparation" written in big characters, and the bottom is blank with no words.what to prepare?Just one big exclamation point!It was as if an invisible bomb was hanging in the air, ready to drop at any moment. The "linkage" who were detained in the Ministry of Public Security insisted on "underground activities in prison" and set up secret channels to communicate with each other.Someone even made up a ballad: "When I think of the fruit delivery back then, Aunt Jiang Qing really loved me. Pity the person who gave the fruit today, and put him in handcuffs and put him in jail."

On April 22, 1967, Zhou Enlai, Chen Boda, and Jiang Qing received representatives of the capital's Red Guards in the Great Hall of the People.At the meeting, Zhou Enlai summoned the head of the "linkage" detained in the Ministry of Public Security and announced Mao Zedong's instructions to them.Premier Zhou criticized them earnestly, and at the same time instructed "Linkage" to hang a sign in the National Cultural Palace for public activities. The leaders of the "linkage" burst into tears on the spot, and after the meeting, they were about to be released.At this point, the "linkage" has collapsed, and the old Red Guards have withdrawn from the stage of history as a political force.

Since then, the dominant Red Guard organizations in middle schools were mainly the "43 faction" and "44 faction". The "Four Three Schools" were named after Jiang Qing's speech on April 3, in which Jiang Qing criticized the earliest middle school Red Guard organization in 1966 for carrying out a bourgeois reactionary line.Jiang Qing's speech was welcomed by some middle school students who were rejected by the movement at the beginning of the "Cultural Revolution". Many members of the "Four Three School" were born in intellectual families and belonged to the radical faction during the "Cultural Revolution". On April 4, Li Zhongqi, political commissar of the Beijing Military Region, affirmed that most of the Red Guards were good at a meeting at the Workers' Stadium (Jiang Qing was present).Based on this point of view, the organization gathered a group of middle school students, called the "Fourth Sect". The "43 faction" and the "44 faction" formed a sharp confrontation in middle schools.

The two factions launched fierce debates on campus, big-character poster battles, and broadcast battles.Attacking each other, using Lu Xun's miscellaneous writing style, laughing and cursing.In some schools it has turned into mutual abuse.For example, the signature on the big-character poster of the "Fourth and Fourth School" in Beijing No. 2 Middle School - "543488 Troops", homophonic - "I am the father of the third division". The "Three Divisions", that is, the Third Headquarters of the Red Guards in colleges and universities in the capital, with Tsinghua University Jinggangshan as the main body, are the supporters and backers of the "Four Three Schools" in middle schools.

The old Red Guards supported the "Fourth Four faction" morally, but most of its members had experienced political vicissitudes, and they had no choice but to understand the "Cultural Revolution".Many people became "Xiaoyao faction" and stayed out of the "Cultural Revolution" movement.A few people started smoking, drinking, "shooting wives" (making girlfriends), reselling green military uniforms... singing "yellow songs" ("200 Foreign Folk Songs").Under such circumstances, some old Red Guards tried to cheer up and make a difference, so they devoted their energy to the literature and art movement that was relatively divorced from the movement.

The rise of the Red Guard literary movement was accompanied by the activation of large and small tabloids. During the spring and summer of 1967, Red Guard organizations in colleges and middle schools across the country published newspapers one after another.At that time, as long as a few middle school students got together and sold their watches for a few hundred yuan, they could publish a newspaper.For example: Beijing's "Middle School "Cultural Revolution" Newspaper" (the newspaper of the "Four Three Schools") that published "Theory of Birth" printed 30,000 copies at a time and sold them all out. "On Birth" (author Yu Luoke) also attracted the "Fourth Four School" tabloids to publish articles to debate it, and it also sold well.The Old Red Guard faction ran the Rheinische Zeitung and the New Xiangjiang Review.

In universities, there are "Jinggangshan" (Tsinghua Jinggangshan), "Dongfanghong" (Dongfanghong of Mining Institute), "Long March" (5.25 Red Guard Headquarters of Petroleum Institute, Beijing Commune), "Pointing to the Country" (Steel Institute Revolutionary Rebellion Commune), "Revolutionary Series" (Mao Zedong Thought Corps of China Construction Engineering College), "Shangtian" (Beijing Aeronautical Academy), "Three Reds of the National People's Congress" (Red Congress of the Capital, Three Reds of the National People's Congress), etc., there are no less than a hundred of these tabloids in total.For a while, tabloids were flying all over the streets and alleys. These tabloids published political commentaries, reviews, essays, poems, and essays.The experts who wrote big-character posters wrote articles for tabloids one after another. From 1967 to 1968, the streets of Beijing were full of tabloid newspapers, and foreign tabloid newspapers entered Beijing. For a while, dragons and snakes were mixed together, and mud and sand were mixed.These tabloids devoted a lot of space to Red Guard poetry and prose.At that time, the sales of tabloids were not a problem. Most people were willing to buy tabloids in order to understand the ever-changing sports situation and search for gossip.