Cultural Revolution Psychosis Prompted Murder, Cannibalism in a Small Chinese Town

Chinese Red Guards, high school and university students, waving copies of Chairman Mao Zedong's "Little Red Book," parade in Beijing's streets at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution on June 1966. During China's Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), under the command of Mao, Red Guards rampaged through much of the country, humiliating, torturing, and killing perceived class enemies, and pillaging cultural symbols that were deemed as not representative of the communist revolution. Jean Vincent/AFP/Getty Images

“The murder was ghastly, worse than beasts.”

These words may sound like an apt description of crimes committed by a serial killer, a la Jeffrey Dahmer, but this was a crime of a much different nature—one of a widespread political campaign that cost the lives of millions.