Red Guards

Cultural  

1. Loosely organized bands of militant communists who followed Mao Zedong in attacking conservative or bourgeois elements in China during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in the 1960s.

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Example Sentences

In a recent essay, author and university professor Zhang Sheng noted that “in the past people summoned the Red Guards, now people summon the ‘little pinks’” – a popular nickname for the virtual army of online nationalists.

From BBC

Her desire for a global tabula rasa outstrips that of even the most fanatical Red Guards, who still dominate her mental landscape.

From New York Times

Millions of North Koreans between the ages of 17 and 60 are listed as Worker-Peasant Red Guards, a national civil defense organization that could be loosely compared to military reserve forces of other countries.

From Seattle Times

Saturday’s marches of the Red Guards included huge columns of motorcycles, anti-tank rockets towed by tractors and civilian-style trucks equipped with multiple rocket launchers, according to KCNA’s text reports and photos.

From Seattle Times

She held up yellowing copies of books by her husband, like “A Year in Upper Felicity: Life in a Chinese Village During the Cultural Revolution,” and “Inside the Cultural Revolution,” about the period of political tumult when Mao, fearing that his revolution was being corrupted by compromise, unleashed young Red Guards to persecute officials, academics and others.

From New York Times