SOS Chapter 44 Red Terror

The Red Terror during "Red August" and the Guangxi Cannibalism

After gaining absolute control over the country, the CCP did not end its violence at all. During the Cultural Revolution, such violence became worse.

On August 18, 1966, Mao Zedong met with the Red Guard representatives on the tower of Tiananmen Square. Song Binbin, daughter of communist leader Song Renqiong, put a Red Guard sleeve emblem on Mao. When Mao learned of Song Binbin's name, which means gentle and polite, he said, "We need more violence." Song therefore changed her name to Song Yaowu (literally meaning "want violence.")

Violent armed attacks soon spread quickly to the whole country. The younger generation educated in communist atheism had no fears or concerns. Under the direct leadership of the CCP and guided by Mao's instructions, the Red Guards, being fanatic, ignorant, and holding themselves above the law, started beating people and ransacking homes nationwide. In many areas, all the "five black classes" (landlords, rich farmers, reactionaries, bad elements, and rightists) and their family members were eradicated according to a policy of genocide. A typical example was Daxing County near Beijing, where from August 27 to September 1 of 1966, a total of 325 people were killed in 48 brigades of 13 People's Communes. The oldest killed was 80 years old, and the youngest only 38 days. Twenty-two entire households were killed with no one left.

Beating a person to death was a common scene. On Shatan Street, a group of male Red Guards tortured an old woman with metal chains and leather belts until she could not move any more, and still a female Red Guard jumped on her body and stomped on her stomach. The old woman died at the scene. � Near Chongwenmeng, when the Red Guards searched the home of a "landlord's wife" (a lonely widow), they forced each neighbor to bring a pot of boiling water to the scene and they poured the boiling water down the old lady's collar until her body was cooked. Several days later, the old lady was found dead in the room, her body covered with maggots. � There were many different ways of killing, including beating to death with batons, cutting with sickles and strangling to death with ropes. � The way to kill babies was the most brutal: the killer stepped on one leg of a baby and pulled the other leg, tearing the baby in half. ( Investigation of Daxing Massacre by Yu Luowen) [17]

The Guangxi cannibalism was even more inhumane than the Daxing Massacre. Writer Zheng Yi, author of the book Scarlet Memorial described the cannibalism as progressing in three stages [18].

The first was the beginning stage when the terror was covert and gloomy. County annals documented a typical scene: at midnight, the killers tip-toed to find their victim and cut him open to remove his heart and liver. Because they were inexperienced and scared, they took his lung by mistake, then they had to go back again. Once they had cooked the heart and liver, some people brought liquor from home, some brought seasoning, and then all the killers ate the human organs in silence by the light of the fire in the oven.

The second stage was the peak, when the terror became open and public. During this stage, veteran killers had gained experience in how to remove hearts and livers while the victim was still alive, and they taught others, refining their techniques to perfection. For example when cutting open a living person, the killers only needed to cut a cross on the victim's belly, step on his body (if the victim was tied to a tree, the killers would bump his lower abdomen with the knee) and the heart and other organs would just fall out. The head killer was entitled to the heart, liver and genitals while others would take what was left. These grand yet dreadful scenes were adorned with flying flags and slogans.

The third stage was crazed. Cannibalism became a massive widespread movement. In Wuxuan County, like wild dogs eating corpses during an epidemic, people were madly eating other people. Often victims were first "publicly criticized," which was always followed by killing, and then cannibalism. As soon as a victim fell to the ground, dead or alive, people took out the knives they had prepared and surrounded the victim, cutting any body part they could get hold of. At this stage, ordinary citizens were all involved in the cannibalism. The hurricane of "class struggle" blew away any sense of sin and human nature from people's minds. Cannibalism spread like an epidemic and people enjoyed cannibalistic feasts. Any part of the human body was edible, including the heart, meat, liver, kidneys, elbows, feet, and tendons. Human bodies were cooked in many different ways including boiling, steaming, stir-frying, baking, frying and barbecuing � People drank liquor or wine and played games while eating human bodies. During the peak of this movement, even the cafeteria of the highest government organization, Wuxuan County Revolutionary Committee, offered human dishes.

Readers should not mistakenly think such a festival of cannibalism was purely an unorganized behavior by the people. The CCP was a totalitarian organization controlling every single cell of the society. Without the CCP's encouragement and manipulation, the cannibalism movement could not have happened at all.

A song written by the CCP in praise of itself says, "The old society [19] turned humans into ghosts, the new society turned ghosts into humans." However, these killings and cannibalistic feasts tell us that the CCP could turn a human being into a monster or a devil, because the CCP itself is crueler than any monster or devil.