EXPLAINED: The red guards - The Real Truth

The Anarchists Who Thought Mao Was on Their Side

As the Cultural Revolution turns 60, here's a look back at some of the fantasies that people projected onto it—and at one moment of possible prescience.

Reason · May 16

China’s ‘nightmare’ youth revolution was lit by its neurotic authoritarian leader, Mao Zedong. What can we learn from it?

In the 1960s and 70s, the youth of the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia rebelled by protesting against the Vietnam War, trying psychedelic drugs, embracing free love and discovering the Beatles. Meanwhile, what their contemporaries in China were getting up to was just as transformative.

The Conversation · Jul 15, 2025