Editing Cultural Revolution (section)

=== Red Guards riot ===
[[File:Beijing 1968 I.jpg|thumb|A 1968 map of Beijing showing streets and landmarks renamed during the Cultural Revolution. Andingmen Inner Street became "Great Leap Forward Road", Taijichang Street became the "Road for Eternal Revolution", Dongjiaominxiang was renamed "Anti-Imperialist Road", Beihai Park was renamed "Worker-Peasant-Soldier Park" and Jingshan Park became "Red Guard Park". Most of the Cultural Revolution-era name changes were later reversed.|alt=]]

The revolution aimed to destroy the Four Olds and establish the corresponding Four News, which ranged from changing of names and cutting of hair to ransacking homes, vandalizing cultural treasures, and desecrating temples.<ref name="Lu" />{{rp|61–64}}

The revolution aimed to eliminate [[cow demons and snake spirits]] - the class enemies who promoted bourgeois ideas, as well as those from an exploitative family background or who belonged to one of the Five Black Categories. Large numbers of people perceived to be "monsters and demons" regardless of guilt or innocence were publicly denounced, humiliated, and beaten. In their revolutionary fervor, students, especially the Red Guards, denounced their teachers, and children denounced their parents.<ref name="Lu" />{{rp|59–61}} Many died from ill-treatment or committed suicide. In 1968, youths were mobilized to go to the countryside in the [[Down to the Countryside Movement]] so they may learn from the peasantry, and the departure of millions from the cities helped end the most violent phase of the Cultural Revolution.<ref name="King">{{cite book |first= |url=https://archive.org/details/artinturmoilchin0000unse |title=Art in Turmoil: The Chinese Cultural Revolution, 1966–76 |publisher=[[University of British Columbia Press]] |year=2010 |isbn=978-0774815437 |editor-last=King |editor-first=Richard |doi=10.59962/9780774815444}}</ref>{{rp|176}}