Four Olds

By the 1960s, there were hardly any religious places left in China.

The Cultural Revolution brought even greater religious and cultural catastrophe in the campaign to cast away the four olds.

Old ideas, old culture, old customs, and old habits.

For example, the first Buddhist temple in China was the White Horse Temple, built in the early Eastern Han Dynasty outside Luoyang City in Henan Province.

It is honored as the cradle of Buddhism in China and also as the founder's home.

During the campaign to cast away the four olds, the White Horse Temple, of course, could not escape looting.

The following passage comes from the book, How Many Cultural Relics Were Committed to Flames? The book says, There was a village near the temple.

The party branch secretary led peasants to smash the temple in the name of revolution.

In 1966, at the age of 72, he launched the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.

Now, the Cultural Revolution was, in one sense, exactly what it said that it was going to be, an attempt to radically and permanently transform Chinese culture to eradicate what Mao called the Four Olds.

Old customs, old culture, old habits, and old ideas.

But it was also, at the same time, a purge of the Communist Party itself.

So here's the little summary.

The Maoist regime, primarily via the Red Guards with Mao's and Lin Bao's encouragement, attacked the Four Olds.

Have you heard of the Four Olds? Strap yourself in.

See if any bells go off with this.

The four olds are old ideas, old culture, old customs, and old habits.

So basically, the very foundation of a culture is what was under attack.

So during the Cultural Revolution, especially from the red August of 1966 onward through physical destruction, symbolic erasure, public humiliation, violence, house raids and propaganda.

That is how they attacked the four olds and anybody that supported them.

Yeah.

With, with Mao, uh, when he came to p- when he, you know, came to power there was a time when he was, um, looking to destroy the four olds, right?

Mm.

Yeah.

That, that's how they, it put it.

Uh, what, what were those four olds and did he succeed in destroying it?

Oh, oh, yeah, yeah.

So you say, you know, there, there is such a, a rich history of, uh, of China that a, a, a nation, a, a, I think a strong, you know, powerful, prideful nation will look back on its history and say, "Oh, we did that and we, we were happy about that."

He was sending millions of teenagers, armed with his authority and their own certainty, into every institution in the country to find and destroy the people he had decided were his enemies.

The campaign against the four olds, old customs, old culture, old habits, old ideas, gave the Red Guards a mandate of extraordinary breadth.

Any object, practice, or person connected to pre-revolutionary culture was potentially a target.

Red Guard units raided homes searching for books, artworks, jewelry, religious objects, or any sign of bourgeois or feudal attachment.