Document Analysis- Fan Shen, Gang of One: Memoirs of a Red Guard Gang of One: Memoirs of a Red Guard by Fan Shen is an autobiography regarding the author's experience during his time as a Red Guard during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s. The Cultural Revolution started by Mao Zedong as a political movement to overthrow any capitalist or bourgeois elements that had infiltrated China while replacing it with communist elements (Lieberthal, 2019). The movement had been heavily criticised and even compared to the holocaust in Germany due to their similarity in how monstrous the leaders of both events were (Gao, 2008). The book highlights Shen's embarrassment and shames towards being a revolutionary whilst progressively showing his detachment towards the revolution and rebelling against the Great Leader, Chairman Mao. Shen brought up various factors on why his commitment towards the revolution slowly declined such as the cruelty towards anyone that opposes or embraces capitalism that he had observed, pity towards the victims of the Red Guard, and the lack of moral values. One of the factors that had shaken Shen's loyalty towards the Cultural Revolution was the cruelty the Red Guards used towards any opposition of the revolution. Anyone that had different opinions towards the revolution was considered a traitor, could no longer be tolerated and would also be treated harshly by the Red Guards. Shen gave an example of how the revolutionaries would host massive rallies to punish any capitalist followers, traitors or bourgeois that had been caught. General Hei, the deputy commander of the army serves as a good example as one of the many victims that endured cruelty at the hands of the revolutionaries. During the rally, General Hei was stubborn and would not bow down to the revolutionaries resulting in him getting tortured (Shen, 2004, p. 15). Later on, Shen found out about the death of General Hei, and witnessed his first ever corpse in the process (Shen, 2004, p. 17). Turning on people that had helped China before the revolution started due to their political views was common during the revolution. A similar example would be how young revolutionaries would turn on their elders or educators because of their different political views (Buckley, 2012). It was at that moment, Shen realized this revolution's dark and cruel side and began to experience terror of its brutal force. Secondly, another factor that drove Shen away from the revolution would be that he felt pity towards the victims that experienced the harsh cruelty of the Red Guards. Red guards were known for their lack of sympathy towards anyone that they deemed an enemy and it was
even promoted in one of their slogans, that anyone who opposes Chairman Mao, would have their skulls smashed into pieces (Chen & Ma, 2002). One situation that Shen that had shown pity was when one of the Red Guards, punched a man whilst continuing to slur out curse words just because he opened his house door a little too slow for