The Mob Rule

In 1966, the Cultural Revolution broke out. Chen Yi, the foreign minister and Zhou Enlai’s right-hand man, sent a message to Jack, through Comrade Xia on a secret errand, that he would grant Jack an exit visa if he applied for one. But soon Mao’s Red Guards ran amok. Chen Yi was pushed aside. Jack, no longer protected by his family’s reputation and his own connections, was assaulted and not allowed to leave the compound of the Foreign Languages Bureau, where he worked on the English edition of the Peking Review. Yuan-tsung, however, was mobile. She went to see the Red Guards rally at Tiananmen; each of the participants held the Little Red Book, the compilation of Mao’s quotes.