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Red Scarf Girl
Red Scarf Girl – Background
“The story takes place in Shanghai, China, during the onset of Chairman Mao Ze-dong's Cultural Revolution.”
From www.harperchildrens.com
Red Scarf Girl – Background
Mao Zedong
Chairman of the Chinese Communist
Party
Red Scarf Girl – Background By 1949 Mao established
a Communist state by defeating the former ruling party, the Nationalists. In 1966, when Ji-li's story begins, Mao has just imposed the Cultural Revolution to cut people's ties to pre-Communist China.”
From www.harperchildrens.com
Communism:Major productive resources (mines,
factories, farms) are owned by the public or
the state. Wealth is divided among citizens equally or according to
individual need.
Red Scarf Girl – BackgroundThe Cultural Revolution “To lead this revolution
he enlisted help--mostly high school and college students--to implement rules and to eliminate everything that suggested a bourgeois lifestyle.”
From www.harperchildrens.com
Bourgeois – “middle class”
Red Scarf Girl – BackgroundThe Cultural Revolution “Having only grown up during the
Communist state, many young people had little understanding of China's pre-Communist past and were aggressive about enforcing these rules. These factions of young people became known as the Red Guards.”
From www.harperchildrens.com
Red Scarf Girl – BackgroundThe Cultural Revolution “The Red Guard frequently
terrorized people they felt were not good Communists, and those under suspicion often lost their positions or their memberships in the Communist Party. Many others were sent to work camps. Some were thrown in jail or even killed.”
From www.harperchildrens.com
Red Scarf Girl – BackgroundThe Cultural Revolution By 1966 there was internal strife in the
Communist Party and many policies were failing.
Mao recruited young people to engage in “continual revolution” in order to maintain control over his party and to draw attention away from governmental failures.
This time period is the focus of Red Scarf Girl.
Red Scarf Girl – BackgroundThe Cultural Revolution “Mao called on the young people in The Red
Guard to destroy the ‘four olds’: old ideas, habits, customs, and culture. The years from 1966 to 1968 were a period of almost total anarchy in China. Red Guards seized and humiliated - in some cases, beat to death - anyone allegedly linked with the way China used to be.”
From “The Mao Years” R. Keith Schoppa
Red Scarf Girl – BackgroundThe Cultural Revolution “Put destruction first, and in
the process you have construction.”
“A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another.”
Red Scarf Girl – BackgroundThe Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution was meant
to change people’s values and beliefs.
It was a systematic attack on Chinese traditions, culture, and beliefs (the olds), which people were expected to replace with new beliefs and values.
Burning of books, smashing of historical artifacts, etc.
Red Scarf Girl – BackgroundThe Cultural Revolution 'Monsters and Demons‘ was
the term used to vilify specialists, scholars, authorities and 'people who entrenched themselves in ideological and cultural positions' during the Cultural Revolution.
Teachers and intellectuals were targeted by the Red Guard.
Red Scarf Girl – BackgroundThe Cultural Revolution Why would Mao want teachers and
intellects targeted? Why would he see these groups of individuals as a threat?
Red Scarf Girl – BackgroundThe Cultural Revolution During the Cultural
Revolution, China printed an estimated 2.2 billion Mao Zedong posters--three for every citizen. Failing to display Mao prominently could brand you a counterrevolutionary.
Red Scarf Girl – BackgroundThe Cultural Revolution Quotations from Chairman
Mao Zedong was published in 1964.
Every citizen was (unofficially) required to study and memorize quotes from it to be seen as a good citizen.
Red Scarf Girl – BackgroundThe Cultural Revolution Imagine if Barack Obama
came into your house, destroyed anything that was expensive or related to traditions or memories, and then made you put posters up and carry around a book of his quotes, reciting them when asked.
How would you feel?