Li Musen was a technician at one of Chongqing's artillery factories.
Li Musen
“I did pretty well in the conflicts,” said Li, who was 28 when the Cultural Revolution broke out. “I put my life in danger to win the position.”
“When I commanded the shelling, I wished we could kill as many as possible with each shell ... we all felt like we were guarding Mao’s revolutionary line,” Li said. “We were not afraid of bleeding or dying.”
In Li's interview it seems like Mao is the primary cause of his violence; feeling as though he were protecting Mao directly through all the killing. Another example of faith in authority and Mao's manipulation through making people think, if I am not here to defend's Mao's idea, then Mao will die.
Cao Dengju
Cao Dengju was a Chongqing high school student when he joined the red guard movement. He also decided to take part in armed conflict.
“In Mao’s words, we felt we were liberated,” Cao said. “In fact, we fell into a bigger trap and became his pawns.”
Why Cao became a Red Guard? “Freedom was scarce before the Cultural Revolution. That’s why we unleashed so much energy,” Cao said in a recent interview. “Anarchy was what we all longed for. It felt too repressed before the Cultural Revolution.”
Zheng Zhisheng
Here are some quotes from Zheng's Interview:
“I saw too many deaths. They were so poor,” he said. “I spent time with families of some of the victims. My tears barely dried.
“They were good people, and they died defending chairman Mao’s revolutionary line. What’s so precious about my life then? It was a mixture of sympathy for our people and hatred towards the other side.
“Why do terrorists blow themselves up nowadays? They were manipulated by extremist propaganda and hatred upon seeing others killed in the battlefield,” Zheng said, drawing an analogy with his mindset during the Cultural Revolution.
Zheng says it himself. Propaganda and anger were the main cause of his violence during the Red Guard Movement.
