During the Cultural Revolution, which group is considered radical leaders?

• A. Red Guards
• B. Four Olds
• C. Gang of Four
• D. Liu Shaoqi

Answer: (C)

This item centers on who led the most radical phase of the Cultural Revolution. The Gang of Four—Jiang Qing and three allies—emerged as the central radical leadership, driving the movement’s most extreme campaigns, coordinating with Mao and directing propaganda, purges, and mass mobilization. They shaped policy and political violence during the height of the Cultural Revolution, making them the defining radical leaders of that era.

Red Guards were a mass movement of militant students acting on fervent revolutionary slogans, not a formal leadership group. The Four Olds refers to the campaign to eradicate old culture, customs, habits, and ideas, not a leadership faction. Liu Shaoqi was a key political figure who was purged by the movement, not the leader guiding its radical direction.