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Guangxi Massacre

The Guangxi Massacre (simplified Chinese: 广西大屠杀; traditional Chinese: 廣西大屠殺; pinyin: Guǎngxī Dàtúshā), or the Guangxi Cultural Revolution Massacre (广西文革大屠杀; 廣西文革大屠殺; Guǎngxī Wéngé Dàtúshā), was a series of events involving lynching and direct massacre in Guangxi during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976).[2][1][3][4][5][6] The official record shows an estimated death toll of 100,000 to 150,000.[1][6] Methods of slaughter included beheading, beating, live burial, stoning, drowning, boiling, and disemboweling.[1][7]

Guangxi Massacre

广西大屠杀

Guangxi, China

1967–1976

Massacre, cannibalism, politicide, lynching, rape, torture, beheading, beating, live burial, stoning, drowning, boiling, disembowelment

70,400[1]–500,000[1]
(Official: 100,000–150,000)
At least 421 persons were eaten

Five Black Categories and their families, "class enemies"

Red Guards, members and ranking cadres of the Chinese Communist Party, local Militia

Hatred and conflicts between rebel faction and conservative faction in Guangxi; different interpretation of Maoism; political hatred towards landlords and wealthy peasants instigated by the Chinese Communist Party

In certain areas including Wuxuan County and Wuming District, massive human cannibalism occurred even though no famine existed.[1][3][4][8] According to public records available, at least 137 people—perhaps hundreds more—were eaten by others and at least thousands of people participated in the cannibalism.[5][9] Other researchers have pointed out that 421 victims who could be identified by name were eaten, and there were reports of cannibalism across dozens of counties in Guangxi.[6][9][10] Although the cannibalism was sponsored by local offices of the Communist Party and militia, no direct evidence suggests that anyone in the national Communist Party leadership including Mao Zedong endorsed the cannibalism or even knew of it.[5][9][11] However, some scholars have pointed out that Wuxuan County, through internal channels, had notified the central leadership about the cannibalism in 1968.[10]


After the Cultural Revolution, people who were involved in the massacre or cannibalism received legal punishments during the "Boluan Fanzheng" period. In Wuxuan County where at least 38 people were eaten, fifteen participants were prosecuted, receiving up to 14 years in prison, while ninety-one members of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) were expelled from the party and thirty-nine non-party officials were either demoted or had a salary cut.[1][4][5][7][11]

The massacre[edit]

Stages of killings[edit]

According to Yan Lebin (晏乐斌), a member of the Ministry of Public Security who participated in the official investigations of the Guangxi Massacre after the Cultural Revolution, there were three stages of the massacre.[1]

In 1993, stated that "[t]he accounts were harrowing. Principals killed in schoolyards by students, then cooked and eaten. Government-run cafeterias displaying human bodies hanging from meat hooks and dishing them out to employees ... Documents smuggled out of China last week described atrocities of the Cultural Revolution in grotesque detail."[32]

Newsweek

In 1993, stated that "[t]he incidents reported from Guangxi were apparently the most extensive episodes of cannibalism in the world in the last century or more. They were also different from any others in that those who took part were not motivated by hunger or psychopathic illness. Instead, the actions appeared to be ideological: the cannibalism, which the documents say took place in public, was often organized by local Communist Party officials, and people apparently took part together to prove their revolutionary ardor."[5]

The New York Times

In 1996, stated, after Zheng Yi published his book that "[t]he party wants to block any deep-going analysis of the role played by the late Chairman Mao Zedong and numerous party members. Full disclosure of the truth might destroy what little legitimacy the party still clings to."[8]

The Washington Post

In 2001, stated that "Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution was an eruption of ideological fervor, mass hysteria and outright brutality that left an estimated 10 million Chinese dead and ruined the lives of millions more. Now tales of even more horrible excesses from the years between 1966 and 1976 are coming to light: allegations of cannibalism, involving hundreds of men and women who violated mankind's most powerful taboo in the name of revolutionary purity."[11]

Time

In 2013, , the official media of the Chinese Communist Party, as well as some other Chinese media reprinted an article from China Youth Daily, which stated that during the Cultural Revolution "in some places such as Guangxi, the hearts and livers of people were eaten after they were beaten to death, and, surprisingly, such cannibalism was prevalent in that region!" The article further stated, "throughout the human history of the 20th century, was there any country that had experienced the Cultural Revolution like ours? The only comparable time was Nazi Germany. However, up to this date, we do not even have a decent review or reflection on this period of history ... The society that does not reflect on the Cultural Revolution is perhaps still a tribe of cannibalism. Such a tribe, no matter how beautiful its people look and how modernized its civilization appears, is still a tribe of cannibalism without humanity."[33][34][35]

People's Net

In 2016, stated in its review of Cultural Revolution that "[t]errible stories abounded. There were tales of cannibalism in Guangxi province where 'bad elements' were publicly butchered and more than 70 victims were eaten in Wuxuan."[36]

The Irish Times

In 2016, stated in its review of Cultural Revolution that "[p]erhaps the worst affected region was the southern province of Guangxi where there were reports of mass killings and even cannibalism."[37]

The Guardian

Guangdong Massacre

Violent Struggle

Boluan Fanzheng

Chinese economic reform

Mass killings under communist regimes

List of massacres in China

Scarlet Memorial: Tales of Cannibalism in Modern China

. The Cultural Revolution: A People’s History, 1962–1976. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2016. ISBN 9781408856499.

Frank Dikötter

. Chronology of Mass Killings during the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). Online Encyclopedia of Mass Violence, 25 August 2011. ISSN 1961-9898.

Song Yongyi

. Anatomy of a Regional Civil War: Guangxi, 1967-1968 (talk at YouTube). East Asian Institute, National University of Singapore, May 2023.

Andrew G. Walder

Joseph W. Esherick (Editor), Paul G. Pickowicz (Editor), and Andrew G. Walder (Editor). The Chinese Cultural Revolution as History. , 2006. ISBN 9780804753500.

Stanford University Press

Zheng Yi. . Edited and translated by T. P. Sym. Perseus Books Group, 1998. ISBN 978-0813326160.

Scarlet Memorial: Tales of Cannibalism in Modern China

Key Ray Chong. Scarlet Memorial: Tales of Cannibalism in Modern China (review). China Review International, Vol. 4, No. 2, Fall 1997. pp. 599–602

Donald S. Sutton. Consuming Counterrevolution: The Ritual and Culture of Cannibalism in Wuxuan, Guangxi, China, May to July 1968. Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 37, No. 1 (Jan., 1995), pp. 136–172.

. The truth behind the fiction. Index on Censorship, Vol. 23, 1994. pp. 204–205.

John Gittings