They were endowed with the qualities of youth- they were rebellious, fearless, eager to fight for a 'just cause', thirsty for adventure and action. They were also irresponsible, ignorant, and easy to manipulate- and prone to violence. Only they could give Mao the immense force that he needed to terrorize the society. Jung Chang
About This Quote

The Red Guards were a group of young men and women that were indoctrinated into believing that the Communist Party of China was their savior. They were willing to do anything to enforce their beliefs, including violence. The Red Guards were violently motivated, acting without thinking through the consequences of their actions. The Red Guards began to terrorize the society, beating up or killing anyone who did not follow the Communist Party's path. The Red Guards received all kinds of support from the people in power, including Mao himself.

Source: Wild Swans: Three Daughters Of China

Some Similar Quotes
  1. I don't care a damn about men who are loyal to the people who pay them, to organizations... I don't think even my country means all that much. There are many countries in our blood, aren't there, but only one person. Would the world be... - Graham Greene
  2. I can see how it might be possible for a man to look down upon the earth and be an atheist, but I cannot conceive how a man could look up into the heavens and say there is no God. - Abraham Lincoln
  3. Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing. - Robert E. Howard
  4. In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress. - Peter Stone
  5. You know what's truly weird about any financial crisis? We made it up. Currency, money, finance, they're all social inventions. When the sun comes up in the morning it's shining on the same physical landscape, all the atoms are in place. - Bruce Sterling
More Quotes By Jung Chang
  1. They were endowed with the qualities of youth- they were rebellious, fearless, eager to fight for a 'just cause', thirsty for adventure and action. They were also irresponsible, ignorant, and easy to manipulate- and prone to violence. Only they could give Mao the immense force...
  2. She was a pious Buddhist and every day in her prayers asked Buddha not ro reincarnate her as a woman. "Let me become a cat or dog, but not a woman, " was her constant murmur as she shuffled around the house, oozing apology with...
  3. Every time she went home she found herself being criticized. She was accused of being "too attached to her family, " which was condemned as a "bourgeois habit, " and had to see less and less of her own mother.
  4. My mother could see that as far as my father's relationship with the Party was concerned, she was an outsider. One day, when she ventured some critical comments about the situation and got no response from him, she said bitterly, "You are a good Communist,...
  5. Dr. Xia was working as a salaried doctor attached to another man's medicine shop, which did not give him much chance to display his skill. But he worked had, and gradually his reputation began to grow. Soon he was invited to go on his first...
Related Topics