The Origin and Spread of the Physical Attacks
The first stage—from verbal abuse to physical abuse:
On May 25, 1966, at Beijing University, Nie Yuanzi (聶元梓) and six others put up a “big-character poster” attacking the authorities of Beijing University for being “members of a black gang,” putting out a call to “firmly, thoroughly, cleanly, and totally eliminate any ox-ghosts and snake-demons.” On the evening of June 1, 1966, the Central People's Radio Station broadcast the text of this poster. The poster sent a shock wave throughout the country. Students took Beijing University as their example and started attacking the authorities of their schools with the same set of words.
The second stage—from beating to fatal torture:
On July 28, 1966, according to Mao Zedong's instructions, the Beijing Municipal Party Committee issued a “Resolution on Withdrawal of the Working Groups from Colleges and Middle Schools.” After this, student organizations, most of which called themselves “Red Guards,” filled the power vacancy created by this withdrawal. It is at this time that large-scale beatings of teachers occurred. As I reported above, all the people who were beaten to death by students died after the withdrawal of the “working groups.”
The third stage—from inside schools to outside, from Beijing to the provinces:
On August 22, 1966, the CCP Central Committee approved the Public Security Ministry’s “Regulations on Strictly Restraining from Sending out the Police to Suppress the Revolutionary Student Movement.”22 At that time in Beijing, student violence had spread from schools to the streets at large. The victims were not only the “old enemies” like the former factory and store owners and “rightists,” so labeled in 1957, but also famous artists, writers, and so on. For example, on August 24 the eminent writer Lao She (老舍) committed suicide after he and about twenty others were seriously beaten by Red Guards from middle schools.