The Maoist youth who enforced the Cultural Revolution were the ...

• A. Young Pioneers
• B. Red Army
• C. Communist Youth League
• D. Red Guards

Answer: (D)

The group were the Red Guards. They were student-led, youth volunteers mobilized by Mao Zedong to push through the Cultural Revolution’s campaigns. As enforcers, they acted on Mao’s call to purge “old ideas, old culture, old customs, and old habits” by targeting teachers, intellectuals, and party officials deemed bourgeois or counter-revolutionary. They organized mass rallies, led “struggle sessions,” and carried out campaigns that closed schools, confiscated property, and publicly humiliated opponents, often with violent excess. The other groups serve different roles in China’s youth structure (Young Pioneers for younger children, the Communist Youth League for older youths, and the Red Army as the military), but it was the Red Guards who directly carried out the Cultural Revolution’s radical campaigns on the ground.