Remembering China’s “Red August”

For decades, the elderly professor had been respected as an expert in his field of study. A trusted advisor to businessmen and politicians, he gave generously of his time and energy to serve his community. His ideas were highly sought after by colleagues and students alike.

But things suddenly changed. A new social viewpoint emerged, challenging old values. This long-trusted scholar fell out of favor, his old ideas now making him a pariah. No longer able to speak openly, he was threatened with violence and his family was harassed. Fired from his job and shunned by colleagues, he could only find menial work. He felt his life was ruined.

Does this sound like a tale ripped from the headlines of a newspaper in today’s United States—the “cancellation” of someone whose values became unpopular? Perhaps. But this is a story that repeated itself thousands and thousands of times—and often far more brutally—during a decade of turmoil that began 60 years ago in the People’s Republic of China.

In this summer of 2026, the U.S. is looking back at the 250th anniversary of its Declaration of Independence—a document that proclaimed its vision of a new nation founded on cherished old values. But as the U.S. falters on the world stage and China seeks a growing role of international influence, let’s remember a pivotal decade in China’s history, when a very different revolution ravaged an ancient nation and ushered in a time of chaos and violence as its leaders sought to overturn old values.

A Somber Anniversary

August 2026 marks the 60th anniversary of what came to be called “Red August”—red for the blood that flowed and for the Red Guards whose campaign of terror plunged China into nearly a decade of turmoil during the nation’s Cultural Revolution from 1966–1976. During this period, cadres of militant young vigilantes sought to purge their nation of traditional authority figures, such as teachers, professors, and others reviled as class enemies. Ten years of devastation began with a blood-soaked month in China’s capital city, Beijing.

Official numbers are difficult to establish for the entire ordeal, but in Beijing alone after the first two months (August–September), as many as 10,000 people were murdered and nearly 100,000 families were forced out of their homes—not because of any crime they had committed, but because of what their values represented to the young revolutionaries. Landlords, educators, successful farmers, and those holding on to old values feared for their lives. The violence spread quickly to Shanghai and other cities across China. “Long live Red Terror” became a feared slogan.

Today, millions outside of China know of the Cultural Revolution not through history but through popular science fiction. A popular Netflix series based on Chinese author Liu Cixin’s novel The Three-Body Problem features a Cultural Revolution “struggle session,” during which a young astrophysicist’s father is murdered while resisting young Communist cadres.

The Cultural Revolution remains a sensitive topic in that nation, where it led to the deaths of as many as eight million, though some sources put the number at fewer than a million. Even that wide variance tells us something about the nature of the conflict: It was not a military campaign fought between opposing armies, with soldiers on each side killed or wounded while civilians supported the war on their home front. Rather, it was an ongoing violent insurrection during which ordinary citizens were targeted not just for opposing the violence, but even for displaying old values that young agitators sought to destroy. The terror of the Cultural Revolution was not merely the prospect of death. It was the sure knowledge that you and your loved ones would suffer humiliation and brutal “reeducation”—and, yes, sometimes even death—if discovered.

Brutal History of the Cultural Revolution

How did the Cultural Revolution begin? Under Chairman Mao Zedong, the Chinese Communist Party established the People’s Republic of China in September 1949 and moved quickly to stifle dissent. Reeducation campaigns suppressed most opposition, but in just a few years many Party leaders began to fear stagnation—even though Mao had called for fresh thought and innovation, famously declaring in May of 1956, “Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools of thought contend.”

Mao for a while encouraged Chinese intellectuals to offer critiques to help the Party improve its efficiency and achieve better outcomes for China’s citizenry. The loosening of speech restrictions emboldened critics to follow Mao’s guidance and call for changes. But some even called for the Chinese Communist Party to give up its position of unchallenged power. By June 1957, the Party newspaper People’s Daily was warning that “right wing” forces were unjustly exploiting the new freedom. In retrospect, some suggest that the Hungarian Revolution of October–November 1956 caused Chinese leaders to feel threatened, but whatever the reason the brief period of free expression was brought to a halt.

Some suggest that Mao’s policy was meant to trick anti-communist intellectuals into exposing themselves and enabling the state to further repress their speech. Whatever his motivation, Mao ended the reform campaign and in May of 1966 unleashed his Red Guard youth to combat what he called the “four olds”—old ideas, old customs, old habits, and old culture. A brutal assault against traditional Chinese values began, as gangs of teens wearing red armbands and military fatigues roamed the streets to purge their neighborhoods of unfavored views and behaviors. In the brutal days of Red August, not only were human lives in danger—one reporter noted that even cats, considered symbols of bourgeois decadence, were found dead on the sides of roads with their front paws tied together.

The same China that a century earlier saw a small flourishing of Western religious influence—though this was partially due to the 14-year war known as the Taiping Rebellion—descended into a catastrophic time of violence against not just China’s old culture, but practically any Western influence other than Marxism-Leninism as interpreted by Mao. For the ten years of the Cultural Revolution, the Communist Party sought to replace Confucian thought with “Mao Zedong Thought” as the linchpin of China’s moral and social order.

After Mao died in September 1976, the Cultural Revolution came to an end. But so much damage was done that to this day it remains a sensitive topic, often taboo for public discussion, now that the youth of that era are in positions of power. Indeed, there will likely be as much open reflection on the 60th anniversary of Red August outside of China as within the still--affected nation. Many today consider it significant that current Chinese President Xi Jinping’s family was devastated by the Cultural Revolution—his father was purged, and Xi was exiled to the countryside as the disfavored child of a “counter-revolutionary.” Xi’s disrupted childhood may be a key to understanding his desire to bring order to Chinese society and to see his nation wield growing influence on the world scene.

The Apostle John’s Vision of a 200-Million-Man Army

But will China succeed in gaining and maintaining a role as a world superpower? The Bible gives us vital insight into the question. Nearly 2,000 years ago, God gave the Apostle John a terrifying vision of devastating end-time events, revealing a world marveling at the power and reach of the Beast of Revelation—and of the False Prophet whose evil religious influence supports him. Revelation 13:4 reads, “So they worshiped the dragon who gave authority to the beast; and they worshiped the beast, saying ‘Who is like the beast? Who is able to make war with him?’”

John later recorded that vision in the book of Revelation. Filled with shocking and sobering images of viciously wielded power and destruction, Revelation outlines what will take place in the years leading up to Christ’s return, as a powerful resurgent empire turns its wrath against the Savior of the world. To the surprise of many, neither China nor the U.S. is shown to be a major player in the final end-time events before Christ’s return. Bible prophecy shows that the U.S. will by then be a defeated power, subjugated to a powerful European empire. And what role, if any, will China play at the end of this age?

In his vision, John saw an army of 200 million that will assemble to the east of Jerusalem. When John was given that vision, the world’s total population was below 300 million, with perhaps 60 million across the Roman Empire and a similar number in China. Now, as the population of China alone exceeds 1.3 billion, will China be part of that prophesied army? It is easy to speculate that China’s vast population will contribute to—or perhaps even dominate—that army. And, with more than 20 million Muslims among its citizens, China does have a stake in Middle East conflict.

However, we should also notice that with more than 230 million Muslims in Pakistan, nearly that many in India, and more than 500 million across the Arab and Middle East nations, an army of 200 million against Israel need not include China at all. Human reasoning may naturally see “200 million” and infer that this must involve such a huge nation as China. But it is dangerous and unwise to take current circumstances for granted and then twist the Bible to fit them. We must instead let the Bible interpret itself. That is why this Work, for decades, has warned of the rise of a resurgent militarized Germany, even while most observers took for granted the nation’s repentant and pacified post-World War II condition.

“Gathered Against Jerusalem”—but What Next?

Scripture reveals that the pivotal end-time world conflict will not focus on the U.S. or China. China might supply weapons or troops that will be part of the prophesied end-time battle against the returning Christ, but even that is not assured. Rather, at the end of this age, a prophesied “king of the South”—a confederation of Middle East nations—will push against a European “king of the North” (Daniel 11:40) and a great army will gather just 60 miles north of Jerusalem, at Mount Megiddo (Revelation 16:16). When they arrive at Jerusalem, the forces of the Antichrist will be defeated, and Christ will take His place as ruler of planet Earth.

And He will rule not as a President or a Chairman—but as a King. He will be an autocrat—a dictator—but will rule the people He serves with nothing but benevolence and pure love. Unlike today’s world leaders, who expect their constituents to serve them, Jesus Christ gave His very life to save the lives of His subjects. And He will bring about a true revolution of culture that will see peace and prosperity flourish on the earth as never before. God speed that day!