Red Guard

American  

noun

1. a member of a Chinese Communist youth movement in the late 1960s, committed to the militant support of Mao Zedong.

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Red Guard British  

noun

1. a member of a Chinese youth movement that attempted to effect the Cultural Revolution (1965–71)

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Etymology

Origin of Red Guard

1965–70; translation of Chinese hóng wèibīng

Example Sentences

Miles Yu began life in rural China amid the madness of Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution, when Red Guard zealots roamed the country trashing and killing all vestiges of tradition and capitalism in the country.

From Washington Times • Jun. 15, 2020

Another post from 2017, “Girls Studying Abroad—Please Stay Away from These Foreign Man-Dregs,” was illustrated with several photographs of a white man in a Maoist Red Guard uniform.

From The New Yorker • Aug. 19, 2019

Ms. Yang had completed almost seven out of eight volumes of the translation when Red Guard student militants confiscated the manuscript from her home in Beijing.

From New York Times • May 26, 2016

When she was 13, the cultural revolution hit China, school was suspended and Hu travelled the country as a Red Guard, then spent eight years in a remote hospital.

From The Guardian • Mar. 12, 2016

In the middle of Chang Hong’s speech on behalf of the Red Guard Committee, I slipped unnoticed out of the auditorium and headed for Teacher Zhang’s office.

From "Red Scarf Girl: A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution" by Ji-li Jiang