In the early stage of the Cultural Revolution, the stated goal was to “smash the four olds”—old ideas, old culture, old customs, old habits—and replace them all with Mao Zedong Thought. Ever since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, political movements had grown ever more fierce, but the Cultural Revolution was hailed as being “without precedent in history,” an event that would touch the soul of every person alive. The denunciation meetings were just the start of the myriad humiliations to which Father and others like him were subjected.
