This episode draws from the excellent book Red Memory by Tania Brannigan, an oral history of the Cultural Revolution. Here we examine the role of thought, how Mao sought to stimulate public thought during the Hundred Flowers Campaign of the late 1950s to seek out enemies and how struggle sessionsStruggle Sessions Short Description (Excerpt):A form of public humiliation and torture used by the Red Guards against “class enemies.” Victims were forced to admit to various crimes before a crowd of people who would verbally and physically abuse them. Full Description:Struggle Sessions (or thamzing) were a primary weapon of terror. Intellectuals, landlords, and party officials were dragged onto stages, forced to wear dunce caps or heavy placards detailing their “crimes,” and beaten by their former students, colleagues, or neighbors until they confessed to counter-revolutionary thoughts. Critical Perspective:This practice weaponized the community against the individual. It was designed to break the psychological will of the victim and to implicate the crowd in the violence. By forcing colleagues and neighbors to participate in the abuse to prove their own revolutionary fervor, the state successfully destroyed social trust and interpersonal bonds.
Read more were a form of thought torture, making ones own self unbearable.

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