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GCSE History · key term
Groups of mainly young people who supported Mao during the Cultural Revolution and attacked people and institutions they considered opposed to the revolution.
Used by AQA, Edexcel and OCR
Paper 1
Armed workers who supported the revolution and provided an important part of the force used in the Bolshevik takeover of Petrograd.
Revise: The Provisional GovernmentThe Bolsheviks benefited. They could claim to have defended the revolution, imprisoned leaders were released, and Red Guards retained weapons. Their reputation and practical ability to act improved together.
Paper 3
The Bolsheviks’ armed workers, who helped defend Petrograd during the Kornilov crisis.
Revise: Provisional GovernmentBolsheviks were released from prison, and Red Guards received weapons to defend Petrograd. Bolshevik activists encouraged Kornilov’s soldiers to desert, while railway workers disrupted the movement and supply of his forces. The advance failed, and Kornilov was arrested.
Armed groups of workers who supported the Bolsheviks and helped carry out the October seizure of power.
Groups of young supporters of Mao who attacked people, institutions and traditions they regarded as enemies of the Cultural Revolution.
Groups of mainly young people mobilised during the Cultural Revolution to attack supposed enemies of Mao and the revolution.
Young supporters of Mao who attacked people, institutions and cultural objects associated with the old order during the Cultural Revolution.
Paper 1
Mass organisations, initially associated especially with young students, which supported Mao Zedong and attacked people and institutions accused of opposing his revolution.
Revise: The Red Guards & Social Impact of the Cultural RevolutionThe Red Guards were mass organisations associated especially with school and university students. They were not simply one united organisation: different groups had different backgrounds and loyalties. Mao’s slogan ‘to rebel is justified’ encouraged them to see rebellion as revolutionary duty.
Link Mao’s encouragement and free rail travel to the spread of Red Guard activity; link rivalry and weakened authority to escalating violence.
Distinguish the suppression of the Red Guards in 1968 from the final political ending of the Cultural Revolution in 1976.
Distinguish the Red Guards’ early role in attacking authority from their later suppression. The decline of the Red Guard movement did not mean that the Cultural Revolution ended in 1968.
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