The 6th of August, 1964, Mao Zedong announced a great purge of all things old; of China's old social systems, hierarchies, history and even ideas. For this purpose, he mobilised the Red Guards in what eventually became known as the Red August, a political massacre in Beijing which claimed the lives of over 40,000 people. Throughout winter, the Red Guards publicly tortured and executed around 2 million Chinese suspected of being reactionary elements, often clashing violently with the People's Liberation Army. These events were the beginning to a planned great purge of all things alien to Maoist thought, which in Mao Zedong's inner circle (and his memoirs) became known as the Cultural Revolution. Aware of the massacre that would come if Mao was not stopped, the CCP's remaining Modernists and the PLA's high command organised a grand conspiracy to free China.
Red Guards and the Cultural Revolution
World History - Atomic Age
August 1964 to March 1965