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The Red Guards were the student vanguard of Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). In 1966, millions of Chinese middle- and high-school students answered Mao’s call to purge “revisionist” elements and “old culture” from society . Clad in green military-style jackets and bright red armbands, these youths enthusiastically proclaimed loyalty to Mao. As one former Red Guard recalled of the summer of 1966, “When we saw Mao wave his hand, we all went berserk. We shouted and screamed until we had no voices left” . Another looked back much later and confessed: “We became Red Guards [because] we all shared the…