Guo Jian et al.,
Historical Dictionary of the Chinese Cultural
Revolution (Lanham: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2006), pp. 70-72:
DESTROY THE FOUR OLDS (po sijiu). This campaign was initiated by Red Guards in August 1966 aiming to sweep away all "old
ideas, old culture, old customs, and old habits" (hence "Four Olds")
in Chinese society. Endorsed by the Cultural Revolution faction of
the central leadership, the campaign resulted in unprecedented damage to the nation's historical landmarks, valuable artifacts, and other
material witnesses of culture and civilization and claimed thousands
of innocent lives nationwide—1,772 in the city of Beijing alone.
The phrase "old ideas, old culture, old customs, and old habits" as
a pejorative reference to all traditions—Chinese or foreign—that were
deemed nonproletarian from the viewpoint of the Culture Revolution ideology first appeared in a 1 June 1966 People's Daily editorial
entitled "Sweep Away All Cow-Demons and Snake-Spirits." Lin
Biao used the phrase in his speech at the mass rally of 18 August and
called on Red Guards to wage war against the Four Olds. As a prelude
to Lin's battle cry, an ultimatum had already been drafted by Red
Guards at Beijing No. 2 Middle School on the night of 17 August,
declaring war on barbershops, tailor shops, photo studios, and used
book stores. On the day after the mass rally, Beijing's Red Guards
took to the streets and started to smash street signs and name boards
for shops, restaurants, schools, factories, and hospitals and replace
them with new labels. Chang'an (meaning "eternal peace") Avenue in
the center of the city, for instance, was renamed East-Is-Red Avenue,
and Beijing Union Hospital, which was established by the Rockefeller
Foundation in 1921, now became Anti-Imperialism Hospital. Red
Guards made speeches, distributed pamphlets, and put out posters on
the streets that dismissed various fashions in hair and dress, stylized
photos, pointed boots, and high-heeled shoes as evidence of bourgeois
lifestyle. They would stop passers-by whose appearance was unacceptable and humiliate them by shaving their hair, cutting open their
trousers, or knocking off their shoe heels. The official endorsement
of such actions in two Peoples Daily editorials on 23 August helped
to spread the fire of the anti-Four Olds campaign across the country
and prompted Red Guards to move further to raid churches, temples,
theaters, libraries, and historic sites, causing irretrievable damage.
During the raid upon the historic Confucian Homestead, Confucian
Temple, and Confucian Cemetery, for instance, more than 1,000
tombs and stone tablets were destroyed or damaged, and more than
2,700 volumes of ancient books and 900 scrolls of calligraphy and
paintings were set afire. Across the country, countless books that were
deemed "old" were burned, especially those in school libraries.
During the campaign to destroy the Four Olds, violence against
innocent people escalated. On 23 August, a group of Beijing Red
Guards shepherded several dozen writers, artists, and government
officials from the Municipal Cultural Bureau to what used to be the
National Academy of imperial China, where a huge pile of theater
props and costumes, all deemed "old," was burning. The Red Guards
ordered their victims to kneel down around the fire and beat them
so hard with belts and theatrical props that several victims lost consciousness. Lao She, a well-known writer and one of the victims of
this notorious event, took his own life the next day. Such brutality
was widespread during the campaign, especially at the struggle
meetings that Red Guards held against their teachers, the so-called
black gang members, and the people of the "Black Five Categories." It had become commonplace for Red Guards during the months
of August and September to ransack private homes and confiscate
personal belongings of the alleged class enemies. Some homes were
raided several times by different groups of Red Guards. In Shanghai
alone, an estimated 150,000 homes were illegally searched. In the
name of sweeping away the Four Olds, the raiders took away not only
cultural artifacts that were considered "old," but also currency, bank
notes, gold and silver bars, jewelry, and other valuables. At the height
of the Destroy the Four Olds campaign, Chairman Mao Zedong continued to hold inspections of millions of Red Guards in Beijing, while
Lin Biao, standing by Mao's side at these inspections, continued to
praise the Red Guards' attack on the old ways. In late 1966 and early
1967 when Red Guard organizations became more deeply involved
in factional conflicts and power-seizure struggles, the anti-Four Olds
campaign finally lost its impetus and came to an end.
