ABSTRACT
The Cultural Revolution, with its explosions of violence and its total war against "landowners" and "rightist deviationists", seems to be a bid to divert attention—a murderous distraction that drives all China into a "psychotic state". The Red Guards are the active agents of the revolution. Earlier scholarship saw them purely as a state institution; newer research shows that they must be understood as a social movement, specifically as a youth movement. The violence of the Red Guards must be understood in the light of the known psychosocial conflicts of adolescence. The assignment of the Red Guards is to combat members of the "Grey" and, especially, the "Black" classes. Because the targeted people are assumed to disguise their motives, they must be turned over to the authorities. The first wave of Red Guard violence was directed at teachers and other learned people. Schools and universities were closed and stayed shut for years, with great harm to the Chinese economy.
