Glossary: Red Guards
DEFINITION:
Generally used to refer to young people--primarily students--in their teens and twenties who began in May 1966 to support the leftist intraparty struggle then emerging against Liu Shaoqi and others. They made world famous the ""little red book,"" Quotations from Chairman Mao, and were known for their use of big-character posters (q.v.) during the Cultural Revolution (q.v.). Acting under the leadership of Mao and his radical adherents, Red Guards were the ""soldiers"" and the vanguard of the Cultural Revolution. The term Red Guard was derived from the early days of the Chinese Communist Party’s armed struggle.