Guangdong Cultural Revolution Massacre
The Guangdong Cultural Revolution Massacre (simplified Chinese: 广东文革屠杀; traditional Chinese: 廣東文革屠殺) was a series of massacres that took place in Guangdong Province of China during the Cultural Revolution.[1][2][3][4][5] There were 80 counties in Guangdong during the Cultural Revolution, and according to the 57 county annals which became available during the "Boluan Fanzheng" period, massacres occurred in 28 of the counties with six counties recording a death toll of over 1,000—the average death toll among all the 28 counties was 278.[1][2][5] The massacre in Yangjiang was the most serious, with over 2,600 deaths in Yangchun County alone.[2][4][6] In addition, massacres also occurred in some cities of Guangdong; in the capital city Guangzhou, for example, the massacre targeting the prisoners of Laogai resulted in the deaths of at least 187–197 people within a week of August 1967.[7]
Guangdong Cultural Revolution Massacre
广东文革屠杀
1968
July 1968 – October 1968
Counter-revolutionaries, opponents of Mao Zedong thought, members of the "Five Black Categories"
Political persecution, politicide, politically motivated violence
1,000-8,000 (Estimated)
Reprisals against class enemies, destruction of the Four Olds and Five Black Categories
Most of the Cultural Revolution massacres in Guangdong took place from July to October, 1968, and were led and organized by the provincial and local revolutionary committees.[1][2][4][5] The Guangdong massacre was among the most serious collective killings in China at the time, and was related to the Guangxi Massacre.[1][2][8][9] There were two major types of massacres in Guangdong: one type targeted members of the Five Black Categories (landlords, wealthy peasants, "bad influences/elements" and "right wingers") as well as their relatives, and the other type was related to political persecutions.[1][2] Moreover, in eastern Hainan, which was an administrative region of Guangdong Province at the time, massacres also occurred in places such as the Dan County (over 700 deaths).[4][5][10]
After the Cultural Revolution, some of the victims in the massacres were rehabilitated by the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as well as the Guangdong Provincial Committee of CCP during the Boluan Fanzheng period.[11] In January 1980, the Guangdong Revolutionary Committee was removed and the People's Government of Guangdong was re-established.[12]
Historical background[edit]
Clashes between two factions[edit]
In May 1966, the Cultural Revolution was launched. In early 1967, local governments and committee party leadership in Guangdong were paralyzed due to the power-seizure movement by the "rebel group", and the society was in chaos. On March 15, Mao deemed military control necessary in Guangdong, appointing Huang Yongsheng as the director of the Military Control Commission.[13][14] In 1967, two factions in Guangdong—the "Red Flag faction (红旗派)", which was a rebel group, and the "East Wind faction (东风派)", which was a conservative group and supported the military control—often went into large-scale violent struggles.[2][15][16]
Premier Zhou Enlai had made several attempts to mitigate the situation since April 1967, demanding in November the establishment of the "Guangdong Revolutionary Committee".[2][16] In the meantime, Huang Yongsheng also tried to negotiate with the leaders from both factions, hoping to achieve a "grand revolution union (革命大联合)".
The Guangdong Revolutionary Committee[edit]
In February 1968, the Guangdong Revolutionary Committee was established, with Huang Yongsheng being the chairman of the committee; Huang was also the commander of the Guangzhou Military Region and personally supported the East Wind faction.[17][18] However, organized defiance from the Red Flag faction persisted, and as a result the violent struggles continued while societal order did not re-establish in the following three months.[1][2] Meanwhile, in May 1968, Mao Zedong launched the "Cleansing the Class Ranks", a nationwide political purge that resulted in the persecution of at least tens of thousands in Guangzhou alone, many of whom with foreign ties were persecuted to death.[19][20]
Starting from July 1968, the Guangdong Revolutionary Committee as well as the Guangdong military took advantage of two directives from the Central Committee of Chinese Communist Party (July 3rd Public Notice and July 24th Public Notice[21]), using them as excuses for cracking down the Red Flag faction, and thereafter collective killings became prevalent in Guangdong.[2][4][16] The peak of the massacre lasted from July to October in 1968.[1][2]
During the Cultural Revolution, Guangdong recorded one of the highest numbers of "abnormal deaths" in China: