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

The theater was physically a meeting place and soup kitchen for the Red Guard and Black Panthers.

From Salon • Jan. 30, 2023

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

Before retiring, Mr. Chen was an instructor at the prestigious Tsinghua University High School, the birthplace of the first Red Guard group.

From New York Times • May 14, 2016

There were several Red Guard Committee members and key people from the propaganda group, along with several members of the Revolutionary Performance Team and the Mao Ze-dong Thought Study Group.

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