1. Xiaosheng Liang, Yi ge hongweibing de zibai (Confession of a Red Guard) (Beijing: Wenhuayishu chubanshe, 2006), 216.
2. The English translation is a slightly revised version of Ban Wang, The sublime figure of history: Aesthetics and politics in twentieth-century China (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1997), 198. Liang does not make the date clear in his account, which however matches the situation of Mao’s sixth inspection on the Red Guards on November 3, 1966.
3. For details of this inspection, see Hong Zeng, ed. Tiananmen wangshi zhuizong baogao (Accounts of the past events at Tiananmen square) (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxuan chubanshe, 2010), 402–03.
4. Many revolutionary rituals were as half-hearted as the political study sessions that Su Xiu, a dubbing actor and director, experienced at the Shanghai Film Studio during the Cultural Revolution Period. Wang sees such study sessions as an integral part of “a high tide of rituals and rites” that the Chinese engaged in “with an enthusiasm that was as blind as it was sincere, as irrational as it was earnest” (ibid., 215–16.). According to Su’s account, however, no one took these sessions seriously. They made good use of the boring time by secretly or openly playing games; Xiu Su, Wo de peiyin shengya (My dubbing career) (Shanghai: Wenhui chubanshe, 2005), 20–21. This book, especially in chapter six, discusses more examples of the rituals that simply went through motions or even invited dissidence.
5. I capitalize the word “Rightist,” because being “Rightist” or “Leftist” had its specific meaning in the revolutionary context. In Michael M. Sheng’s words, being Rightist meant “being less committed to the revolution or uncertain about one’s communist identity,” while being Leftist meant “being less tactful or having too much revolutionary zeal to be patient;” Michael M. Sheng, Battling Western imperialism: Mao, Stalin, and the United States. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1997), 12–13.