The death toll of the Cultural Revolution: two million

This is an AI translation of an excellent article by Shu Din in Chinese. 

The estimate is from well-documented events. I believe the excessive deaths caused by the Cultural Revolution, one way or another, are many times two million. 

The following is the translation of ChatGPT:
 

On June 10, 1966, just as the Cultural Revolution was beginning, Mao Zedong said during a meeting with Ho Chi Minh:

“This time, large and small, perhaps several hundred or several thousand people will be brought down, especially in academic circles, educational circles, publishing circles, literary and artistic circles, universities, middle schools, and elementary schools.”

He identified the primary targets of the movement, but deliberately understated its scope. In reality, not several hundred or several thousand people were “brought down,” but several million.

The famous Guangdong writer Qin Mu once commented on the Cultural Revolution:

“This truly was an unprecedented catastrophe. How many millions suffered displacement and misery; how many millions died with bitterness in their hearts; how many families were torn apart; how many youths and children became hooligans and thugs; how many books were burned; how many historic sites were destroyed; how many graves of sages were dug up; how many crimes were committed in the name of revolution!”

“How many millions died with bitterness in their hearts?” Exactly how many people died during the Cultural Revolution remains uncertain. Estimates vary greatly, and no definitive count is possible. As Deng Xiaoping told Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci in 1980:

“It can never be fully calculated. People died for all sorts of reasons, and China is so vast. In any case, many people died.”

Professor R. J. Rummel, in his book China’s Bloody Century, estimated that approximately 7.73 million people died during the Cultural Revolution. This figure may be too high, but the author believes the true number exceeded two million.

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The Red Terror of 1966

Deaths during the Cultural Revolution were concentrated in several periods. The first was the “Red Terror” of 1966.

The Cultural Revolution formally began on June 1 with a People’s Daily editorial titled “Sweep Away All Monsters and Demons.” Its purpose was precisely that: to “sweep away all monsters and demons.”

Zhou Enlai explained:

“To sweep away all monsters and demons does not mean sweeping away all cadres, but sweeping away capitalist-roaders in power, unreformed landlords, rich peasants, counterrevolutionaries, bad elements, rightists, and bourgeois reactionary academic authorities.”

These were the targets of the Cultural Revolution.

The “sweeping away” began with Red Guards, largely composed of children of Communist Party officials, raiding homes. At this stage, “monsters and demons” referred mainly to the so-called “Five Black Categories”:

• landlords,
• rich peasants,
• counterrevolutionaries,
• bad elements,
• rightists,
  as well as bourgeois academic authorities and capitalists.

In Beijing alone, more than 114,000 homes were searched. From Beijing the movement quickly spread nationwide. The scale of these house raids was unprecedented.

For example:

• In Chuansha County near Shanghai, more than 7,800 households were raided.
• In Sheng County, Zhejiang, over 8,000 homes were searched.

Nationwide, the total number of homes searched in cities and villages likely approached ten million.

Accompanying these raids were beatings and killings of the so-called “monsters and demons,” especially those in the Five Black Categories.

Never before in Chinese history had so many people died in such a short time from primitive weapons like clubs and belts. To kill people against whom one held no personal grudge required ideological justification. Teenage middle-school students beat teachers, principals, neighbors, and ordinary citizens to death, inspired by Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan by Mao Zedong.

Without government support and police cooperation, teenage Red Guards could never have created terror on such a scale.

Xie Fuzhi told a meeting at the Beijing Public Security Bureau:

“The police must stand on the side of the Red Guards… provide them with information and introduce them to the situation of the Five Black Categories.”

Police stations across the country then cooperated with Red Guards, providing lists of targeted individuals so that they could be arrested, struggled against, and beaten.

Xie Fuzhi fully understood that Red Guards were arbitrarily beating people to death. He also stated:

“I do not approve of the masses beating people to death, but the masses hate bad people deeply. We cannot stop them, so we should not force the issue.”

At another meeting with provincial police chiefs, he said:

“If Red Guards beat people to death, should they be imprisoned? I think if they beat someone to death, then so be it. There’s nothing we can do about it.”

When one provincial police chief asked whether arrests could at least be made, Xie replied:

“If you arrest everyone who beats people to death, can you arrest them all? There are ninety million Red Guards nationwide. It would be good enough if they don’t storm your Public Security Bureau.”

He further instructed:

“If you detain or arrest those doing the beatings, then you yourselves will be making mistakes.”

In June, when violence had just begun spreading, Beijing Party Secretary Li Xuefeng relayed Mao’s instructions regarding fatal beatings:

“Beating is fine. If good people beat good people, it is a misunderstanding — no fight, no acquaintance. If good people beat bad people, they deserve it. If good people beat bad people, it is glorious.”

After receiving this “supreme directive,” Red Guards escalated ordinary beatings into full-scale “Red Terror.”

At the very height of the Red Guards’ killing campaign, Mao Zedong took the unprecedented step of receiving their representatives atop Tiananmen Gate. Mao did not explicitly praise the killings, nor did he openly advocate murder. Rather, he used the atmosphere of terror they created to suppress political opponents.

Thousands of people from the targeted categories were beaten to death. Later official Communist Party statistics admitted that more than 1,700 people were beaten to death in Beijing alone.

Because many provincial and municipal police chiefs still had reservations, they feared they themselves might later be held responsible for allowing students to kill people openly in the streets. On August 22, Mao Zedong personally approved a document titled:

“Strictly Forbid the Dispatch of Police to Suppress the Revolutionary Student Movement.”

It stipulated:

• “Police are not permitted, under any pretext, to interfere with or suppress the revolutionary student movement.”
• “Police are absolutely forbidden from entering schools.”
• “Except for active counterrevolutionaries, no arrests are to be made during the movement.”

As a result, police across the country effectively turned a blind eye to Red Guard violence and killings.

The “supreme directive” spread nationwide, and killing spread throughout China without exception. For example, in Guangzhou, one witness reported:

“I personally saw seven rightist friends beaten to death.”

The number of people killed during this “Red Terror” likely exceeded 100,000 nationwide.

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Mass Suicides in the Early Cultural Revolution

Even more people committed suicide.

Never before in world history had so many people, across such a vast area, ended their own lives in so many different ways. In Shaanxi Province alone, more than 2,000 Party and government officials committed suicide during the Cultural Revolution.

The writer Ba Jin recalled:

“At that time everyone seemed to have gone mad. When people saw someone jump from a tall building, they felt no sympathy. Instead they held criticism meetings, shouted slogans, and viciously attacked the dead.”

On August 2, at a mass Cultural Revolution rally in Hubei Province attended by ten thousand people, Governor Zhang Tixue declared:

“Some people worry about deaths during the movement. I think deaths don’t matter. We are not engaging in illegal struggle. We present facts and reason things out. If someone wants to die, whose fault is that? I tell them not to die, but if they insist, then they deserve it.”

Earlier in June, Mao had told his physician Li Zhisui:

“This time perhaps another thousand or so people will commit suicide. Everything is being turned upside down now. I delight in great chaos under heaven.”

Mao vastly underestimated the madness unleashed by the movement.

The author estimates that between 100,000 and 200,000 people committed suicide during the early Cultural Revolution alone — at least one hundred times Mao’s estimate of “a thousand or so.”

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Armed Factional Warfare

The armed factional conflicts of 1967–1968 represented the second major wave of abnormal deaths during the Cultural Revolution.

Nationwide armed conflict began in Xinjiang in early 1967.

In January, Mao called for the “seizure of power.” However, the military itself could not openly seize power. Rebels at a transportation regiment in Shihezi attempted to seize authority, while the existing authorities resisted and requested military assistance. Both sides exchanged gunfire, leaving more than one hundred dead or wounded. The military forces won decisively.

This became known as the “Shihezi Incident” of January 26 — the opening shot of nationwide armed struggle. Thereafter, armed factional warfare spread across China and continued until late 1968.

How many died in these conflicts?

The text gives Shaanxi Province as an example:

• In Mian County, 85 people died:
  • 47 beaten to death,
  • 12 killed by accidental weapons discharge,
  • 13 killed in vehicle incidents,
  • 1 electrocuted,
  • 3 innocent civilians beaten to death.
• In Pucheng County, 34 people died, including innocent civilians.
• More than 20,000 homes across more than ten streets were burned.
• In Ankang County, factional warfare lasted an entire year:
  • over 3,300 buildings were destroyed,
  • 784 people died.

In Shanxi Province, the fiercest fighting occurred around Changzhi, one of China’s major weapons-production centers.

Local military districts and Air Force units supported opposing factions. Transportation routes were completely cut off. The Air Force established an “air corridor” to support one faction defending the city. The local military district armed tens of thousands of militia members and launched urban assaults.

During one battle for a coal mine, more than 200 defenders were killed and several hundred wounded. In another engagement, the defenders captured twelve full military companies and four additional squads.

According to later reports:

“The numbers killed and wounded on both sides were beyond counting.”

Jiang Qing once said proudly of Sichuan:

“Sichuan’s fighting became famous nationwide.”

She added:

“Chongqing was smashed to pieces, and that clarified the battle lines. Very good!”

The single deadliest armed clash occurred in Luzhou, Sichuan:

• more than 2,000 people were killed in a single battle,
• over 8,000 were permanently disabled.

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Torture and Massacres

Zhejiang Province also saw heavy casualties. In Sheng County alone, 191 people died in factional warfare.

In some areas, armed conflicts between mass organizations led to military suppression.

For example:

• In Ningxia in August 1967, forces following instructions from Kang Sheng supported one faction and authorized firearms for “self-defense.”
• In Qingtongxia, military suppression killed and wounded more than one hundred people each.
• In Zhejiang, military leaders cooperated with rebel factions to suppress Xiaoshan and Fuyang counties:
  • 27 people were killed in Xiaoshan,
  • 135 killed in Fuyang,
  • 319 permanently injured,
  • over 1,200 homes burned.

Some organizations accused of ideological deviation were annihilated outright.

For example, the “Western Yunnan Advance Force” in Yunnan was accused of plotting treason. The military surrounded and machine-gunned the group. Within twenty minutes, thousands had been massacred.

A distinctive feature of Cultural Revolution armed conflict was the torture of prisoners.

In Xiong County, Hebei, one faction supported by the military’s 38th Army used artillery against its opponents. After capturing enemy positions, prisoners were tied together with wire:

• men had wire threaded through their shoulder blades,
• women through the anus and out through the vagina.

After being paraded publicly, all were executed.

In Ankang County:

• 286 prisoners were tortured and killed,
• 20 committed suicide.

Methods included:

• stabbing with spears,
• hacking with knives,
• crushing with stones,
• shooting,
• hanging,
• forcing victims to carry explosives,
• burying prisoners alive.

One “interrogation” reportedly ended with thirteen people buried alive together.

Writer Zhao Yu later described the revenge campaigns that followed surrender in Shanxi:

“The scale of revenge and the cruelty of the methods were unprecedented. Every torture method known from ancient times was used.”

Some leaders were executed, while many others died under torture or abuse.

In Yifeng County, Jiangxi Province, one faction traveled to neighboring Shanggao County to engage in armed conflict. Four members of the faction died. Upon returning home, they held a memorial ceremony for the dead “martyrs.” During the ceremony, three innocent civilians captured from Shanggao County were publicly executed as sacrificial offerings for the dead.

The Guangzhou writer Qin Mu later described scenes he personally witnessed on the streets of Guangzhou:

“People marched carrying corpses while biting daggers in their mouths.”

At the entrances of middle schools he saw obituary notices for students killed in factional fighting, bearing phrases such as:

• “Died at age seventeen”
• “Immortal forever”

One morning, as he walked back to the newspaper office:

“All along the roadside trees hung corpses. Most had smashed skulls with blood flowing everywhere. In the short distance from Yide Road to Renmin Middle Road, I counted eight such bodies.”

During the roughly year-long period of armed factional warfare, the nationwide number of abnormal deaths likely ranged between 300,000 and 500,000.

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The “Cleansing of Class Ranks”

The campaign of 1968–1969 known as the “Cleansing of Class Ranks” (清理阶级队伍, or “Qingdui”) marked the deadliest phase of the Cultural Revolution.

This campaign, directed jointly by Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, represented the climax of the effort to “sweep away all monsters and demons.”

Across China’s more than 2,000 counties, an average of roughly 100 people per county died during the campaign.

Examples included:

• In Bin County, Heilongjiang:
  • 143 people beaten to death,
  • 32 permanently crippled.
• In Chuansha County near Shanghai:
  • 5,063 people publicly struggled against,
  • 236 died abnormally.
• In Baoshan County, Shanghai:
  • 1,702 officially approved struggle targets,
  • 334 abnormal deaths.

Even sparsely populated counties suffered heavy casualties.

In Aihui County on the Soviet border, with a population of only several tens of thousands:

• more than 1,500 people were detained,
• 65 died abnormally.

At the commune level, deaths were often counted in the dozens.

Examples:

• In Xinsi People’s Commune, Fengxian County, Shanghai:
  • 91 people subjected to struggle sessions,
  • 48 formally criticized,
  • 11 persecuted to death.
• In Changping Commune, Fusui County, Guangxi:
  • 23 abnormal deaths.
• In Yanji County, Jilin:
  authorities launched campaigns to uncover “underground Kuomintang agents” and “Korean spies.”

The slogan became:

“Spies emerge under the cudgel.”

In one production brigade of only 110 households:

• 44 people were struggled against,
• 41 were killed or injured.

---

Torture During the Cleansing Campaign

Revolutionary Committees at every level directed the campaign.

In Tai’an County, Liaoning Province, methods included:

• rubber whips,
• clubs,
• iron hooks,
• forced stress positions,
• kneeling on broken bowls,
• hanging signs around victims’ necks.

Officials described the methods openly:

“Every kind of torture imaginable was used.”

Authorities claimed to have uncovered:

• 1,288 “class enemies,”
  leading to:
• 135 deaths,
• many permanent disabilities,
• 43 imprisonments.

In Lingyuan County, Liaoning, a completely fabricated “Kuomintang Anti-Communist National Salvation Corps” case implicated 913 people:

• 25 died,
• 51 were permanently injured.

Following Mao’s instruction that:

“Dictatorship must be exercised by the masses,”

local governments established “Mass Dictatorship Command Headquarters.”

In Wannian County, Jiangxi, torture methods reportedly included:

• binding and suspension,
• beatings,
• electric shocks,
• branding with hot irons,
• pouring boiling water on victims,
• forcing people to eat excrement,
• exposing victims to extreme heat while wrapped in heavy clothing.

One female doctor accused of being an “active counterrevolutionary” was tortured by:

• electric shocks applied to her nipples,
• boiling water poured into her vagina.

She collapsed unconscious on the spot.

Police statistics later recorded:

• 214 people beaten or persecuted to death in the county.

In Xiangning County, Shanxi Province:

• more than 1,200 cadres and civilians were beaten and struggled against,
• 26 killed,
• more than 50 injured or crippled.

Middle-school students were arrested and tortured:

• 3 died,
• more than 10 were maimed.

---

Military Leadership of the Campaign

Military officers who controlled provincial Party, government, and military structures became the chief commanders of the campaign.

For example:

• In the Daqing Oilfield Revolutionary Committee in Heilongjiang, led by General Zhu Chuanyu:
  • suicides and deaths increased sharply,
  • 15 suicides occurred from January to April,
  • 36 more from May to June,
  • 7 people beaten to death.

Workers themselves had not originally been intended as targets of the Cultural Revolution. However, Mao’s statement that:

“The Cultural Revolution is a continuation of the struggle between the Communist Party and the Kuomintang”

led to suspicion falling on older workers employed before 1949.

At Beijing’s Erqi Locomotive Factory — one of Mao’s personally designated “model units” — more than:

• 900 of 1,400 veteran workers hired before 1949 were investigated,
• 14 committed suicide.

At the Yumen Oilfield in Gansu:

• 9 cadres and 8 workers were persecuted to death,
• hundreds were beaten into disability or mental illness.

At Jiaoping Coal Mine in Shaanxi:

• authorities fabricated a “Counterrevolutionary National Salvation Army” case,
• more than 500 innocent people were implicated,
• 8 committed suicide.

At the Shijiazhuang Railway Bureau:

• 1,645 workers and cadres were persecuted,
• 48 died,
• 128 were permanently injured.

---

Intellectuals as Major Targets

Intellectual institutions became primary targets of the campaign.

At Hunan University:

• more than 300 people were arrested, detained, or publicly struggled against,
• 18 committed suicide,
• 6 died from long-term abuse,
• 16 were wrongly sentenced.

At the Shanghai branch of the Chinese Academy of Sciences:

• more than 600 researchers were falsely accused of espionage,
• over 200 placed under isolation investigation,
• 2 beaten to death,
• 10 permanently disabled,
• 4 committed suicide.

One of the dead was female scientist Lei Hongshu, who had returned from the United States after 1949.

Another nine attempted suicide but survived.

The author estimates that more than 500,000 people died during the “Cleansing of Class Ranks.”

The Zhao Jianmin Case

On January 21, 1968, Kang Sheng baselessly accused Zhao Jianmin, Secretary of the Yunnan Provincial Party Committee, of being a Kuomintang spy and traitor. He ordered Xie Fuzhi to arrest Zhao on the spot.

A massive political purge followed across Yunnan Province. Authorities launched investigations into alleged members of the so-called:

“Kuomintang Yunnan Special Agent Network directed by Zhao Jianmin.”

As a result:

• 1.38 million people were implicated,
• more than 17,000 were beaten or persecuted to death,
• over 61,000 were permanently disabled.

In the Kunming region alone:

• 1,473 people were killed,
• 9,661 crippled.

Yunnan also developed a system called “drawing the line”:
people who had supported the “wrong side” during factional struggles were permanently classified as enemies.

According to accounts:

“For a time, execution notices covered the streets of Kunming. Some people were beaten to death on the spot, and then notices were posted afterward.”

Statistics compiled in 1975 stated:

• 300,000 people suffered torture, imprisonment, or investigation,
• 37,000 died unnatural deaths.

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The Li Chuli Case in Eastern Hebei

Li Chuli, former deputy minister of the Central Organization Department, had once led Communist operations in eastern Hebei during the anti-Japanese war.

After Li himself was denounced as a traitor during the Cultural Revolution, the entire eastern Hebei Party organization was reclassified as a “Kuomintang organization.”

This became another major political case:

• more than 80,000 people were implicated,
• over 3,000 died unnatural deaths.

---

Persecution in China’s Nuclear Weapons Program

At Factory 221 and associated uranium mining regions — facilities belonging to China’s nuclear weapons research establishment — purge campaigns were directed by officials from the National Defense Science Commission.

Authorities declared:

“Without killing people, the situation cannot be opened up.”

More than 40 prison sites were established within the complex, detaining over 4,000 people.

Among experts, professors, and engineers transferred there after strict political screening:

• 90% were labeled “spies” or “counterrevolutionaries.”

As a result:

• 59 people were beaten or driven to death,
• more than 300 injured or crippled,
• nearly 100 adults and children driven insane.

Among the dead was Wang Zhigang, vice president of the Ninth Research Academy.

---

The Inner Mongolia “Inner Party” Purge

In February 1968, Jiang Qing, together with Chen Boda and Yao Wenyuan, publicly denounced Tianjin Writers’ Association chairman Fang Ji as:

“A spokesman in literature and art for the Liu–Deng counterrevolutionary headquarters.”

Two days later:

• Tianjin Party Secretary Wang Kangzhi committed suicide,
• Fang Ji was imprisoned.

After Jiang Qing accused Tianjin’s Public Security Bureau of collaborating with Fang Ji to:

“exercise dictatorship over us,”

the bureau itself became a target.

More than:

• 1,200 police officers were investigated.

According to Fang Ji:

“The so-called investigations involved indiscriminate torture. The variety and cruelty of punishments were horrifying beyond description.”

Among Tianjin police personnel:

• 44 were persecuted or tortured to death,
  including police chief Jiang Feng.

---

The “Inner Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party” Campaign

The “Inner Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party” had originally been founded in 1924 to pursue Mongolian autonomy.

Although it had effectively ceased functioning decades earlier, during the Cultural Revolution authorities revived accusations that it still existed as a separatist conspiracy.

After Inner Mongolia leader Ulanhu was denounced, Kang Sheng ordered a massive purge.

Across Inner Mongolia:

• 346,000 people were investigated, struggled against, or imprisoned,
• roughly three-quarters were ethnic Mongolians.

As a result:

• more than 87,000 people were permanently disabled through torture,
• 16,222 people were persecuted to death.

(Some accounts claimed over 100,000 deaths, though the author notes uncertainty regarding that higher figure.)

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“One Strike, Three Antis”

In 1970, authorities launched the campaign known as:

“One Strike, Three Antis.”

Officially it meant:

• striking against active counterrevolutionary sabotage,
• opposing corruption,
• opposing speculation and profiteering,
• opposing extravagance and waste.

In reality, according to the author, the campaign focused almost entirely on political repression rather than economic issues.

It became the final major suppression campaign directed against rival factions left unresolved after earlier purges.

In Shanghai:

• students who had previously criticized radical leader Zhang Chunqiao were hunted down,
• more than 120 students from six universities were arrested or imprisoned,
• 5 committed suicide,
• 3 were driven insane.

Conductor Lu Hong'en of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra was sentenced to death for allegedly writing on a copy of Quotations from Chairman Mao.

Before execution:

• his throat was slit to prevent him from shouting political slogans.

Later, China’s Supreme Court reported to the Party leadership:

“Wrongful death sentences during the 1970 ‘One Strike, Three Antis’ campaign were especially severe.”

Examples included:

• Ningxia:
  • 70 wrongful executions,
  • 68 occurring in 1970.
• Tianjin:
  • 28 wrongful executions,
  • 22 occurring in 1970.

---

Continued Mass Deaths

The brutality of “One Strike, Three Antis” was only slightly less severe than the earlier “Cleansing of Class Ranks.”

In Zhenxiong County, Yunnan:

• 107 abnormal deaths occurred during combined purge campaigns.

In Nanhui County, Shanghai:

• more than 3,000 people were investigated or struggled against,
• 62 died abnormal deaths.

In Baoshan County:

• over 5,000 people were classified as politically problematic,
• 41 were driven to suicide.

This period marked the final large wave of suicides during the Cultural Revolution.

For example, in Guide County, Qinghai:

• 14 people committed suicide during the campaign,
• all were later officially rehabilitated.

Executions During “One Strike, Three Antis”

In Ankang County, Shaanxi Province, a peasant named Yi Daojun lived in a dark, cramped house where there was no suitable place to display the officially required portrait of Mao Zedong.

One day, after hearing children shout:

“Long live Chairman Mao!”

Yi casually remarked:

“How could anyone live ten thousand years?”

For this statement he was labeled an “active counterrevolutionary.”

The county Revolutionary Committee sentenced him to death, and he was executed in June 1970.

The same county also executed:

• Deputy County Magistrate Lei Yunqi,
• County Political Consultative Conference member Zhang Kaiyin,

both of whom had surrendered to the Communists in 1949 and later served the new government.

During the campaign in Ankang County:

• 254 people were arrested,
• 17 executed,
• 12 sentenced to prison,
• 25 officially labeled “counterrevolutionaries,”
• 20 committed suicide.

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Public Execution Rallies

One day in August 1970, nearly 100,000 people filled a stadium and surrounding streets in Yinchuan, capital of Ningxia Province, to witness a public sentencing rally against alleged “active counterrevolutionaries.”

Among those sentenced was an underground student organization called:

“Communist Self-Study University.”

Its members were mostly young students.

One female member had already electrocuted herself during imprisonment.

Of the remaining twelve defendants:

• three were sentenced to immediate execution.

One executed student, Wu Shuzhang, was only twenty-two years old.

His major offense had been writing the words:

“Bullshit”

beside the famous quotation in Quotations from Chairman Mao:

“One sentence from Chairman Mao is worth ten thousand.”

---

Executions of Intellectuals

On March 22, in Lanzhou, capital of Gansu Province, a massive sentencing rally concluded with more than twenty death-row prisoners loaded onto trucks and paraded through the streets before execution.

One of those executed was Professor Zhang Shiliang of the History Department at Gansu Normal University.

His crime:
during an academic discussion he had criticized Mao’s historical theory that:

“Some classes triumph, some classes are eliminated — this is history, this is the history of civilization for thousands of years.”

Zhang argued that the formulation was incomplete and oversimplified.

For this he was condemned and executed.

---

On February 17, in Nanchang, capital of Jiangxi Province, twenty-two-year-old Wu Xiaofei was executed at another public sentencing rally.

His crimes included writing essays stating that:

• the Cultural Revolution was

  “an abnormal political event,”

• ordinary people gained

  “not the slightest benefit politically or economically,”

• Lin Biao had promoted a cult of personality around Mao,

• Jiang Qing was

  “the root cause of anarchism during the Cultural Revolution,”

• and the persecution of Liu Shaoqi had been

  “unreasonable and utterly without humanity.”

---

Mass Political Executions

After the central government temporarily delegated approval authority for death sentences to provincial governments, local authorities used the opportunity to execute large numbers of political prisoners.

In Hunan Province:

• authorities in Changsha reportedly held two major execution rallies,
• each executing nearly one hundred prisoners,
• more than half of them political offenders.

At one point authorities announced that another sixty counterrevolutionaries would be executed the following day.

However, the next morning radio broadcasts suddenly announced cancellation of the rally.

The central government had realized local authorities were carrying out too many executions and abruptly reclaimed centralized control over death-sentence approvals.

As a result, many prisoners in Changsha had their death sentences reduced to fifteen-year prison terms.

---

The Case of Guan Penghua

Most victims were ordinary civilians.

In October 1970, Guangzhou Military Region commander Ding Sheng learned that a female medical officer named Guan Penghua had continued criticizing Lin Biao while in prison.

Ding personally supported her death sentence.

Before her execution:

• a bamboo tube was forced into her mouth,
• wire bound it behind her head,
  to prevent her from shouting slogans before being shot.

The author comments that this was “slightly more civilized” than the mutilation inflicted on dissident Zhang Zhixin in northern China, whose throat was cut before execution.

---

Prison Conditions

In the Huainan Prison in Anhui Province:

• cells only about ten feet long held fourteen or fifteen prisoners,
• each inmate had less than eight inches of space.

According to testimony:

“Whenever executions were to occur, bells rang at four in the morning. Loudspeakers blasted revolutionary model operas. Then executioners entered like demons and pointed at prisoners:

‘You!’

‘You!’

‘You!!!’

Terrified cries filled the prison, followed by rows of gunshots.”

---

Combined Purge Campaigns

Because the campaigns of:

• “Cleansing of Class Ranks,”
• “One Strike, Three Antis,”
• and the purge of alleged “May 16 elements”

occurred continuously one after another, Jiangsu Province later released only combined statistics.

According to official summaries:

“Hundreds of thousands of innocent cadres and citizens were falsely labeled traitors, spies, counterrevolutionaries, and ‘May 16 elements.’ Thousands upon thousands were injured, crippled, or killed.”

The author estimates that deaths during this final phase likely totaled between 150,000 and 200,000.

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Conclusion

The events described above represent only several major episodes of abnormal deaths during the ten years of the Cultural Revolution.

Overall mortality was extremely high.

Examples included:

• In Beijing:
  • more than 9,800 people died from wrongful imprisonment and persecution.
• In Shanghai:
  • over 240,000 people were formally investigated,
  • more than 10,000 died from torture or suicide,
  • even more were driven insane or crippled.

At the county level across China:

• among more than 2,000 counties,
• average deaths per county likely ranged between 500 and 1,000.

For example:

• Ankang County in Shaanxi recorded:
  • 1,300 abnormal deaths during the Cultural Revolution.

Official statistics later acknowledged:

“More than one hundred million people suffered false accusations, persecution, or implication in unjust cases.”

The author concludes that estimating more than two million abnormal deaths during the Cultural Revolution would not be excessive.