Editor’s Note: This is the second installment in the five-part series “American Maoists: Warnings From The Cultural Revolution.”
In Part I, Xi Van Fleet and Sasha Gong — both activists, scholars, and survivors of Mao’s communist uprising — explain how extremist movements plant the seeds for revolution by slowly acculturating ordinary citizens to political violence.
In today’s installment, the authors explore something all too familiar to anyone who’s seen the American Left in action: the endless cycle of victimization, which fuels perpetual revolution.
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History is full of paradoxes. None is more striking than the revolutionary promise to rescue the downtrodden, only to end in destruction for all.
From the French Revolution to Mao’s Cultural Revolution, the pattern is familiar: revolutionaries first elevate “the victims,” granting them moral superiority. Those newly anointed victims are then encouraged to victimize their designated enemies. What begins in the name of liberation almost always degenerates into tyranny.
It is a story as old as revolution itself. The Jacobins invoked the poor and the persecuted, then set the guillotine to work on nobles, priests, and eventually their own comrades. Lenin vowed to free workers and peasants from Tsarist oppression, only to unleash the Red Terror that consumed millions, including many of his followers.
Mao empowered the youths to denounce their teachers, parents, and neighbors. In those frenzied years, almost everyone alternated between being a victim and being a victimizer, and frequently embodied both roles simultaneously. As Georges Danton, himself a leading figure of the French Revolution, devoured by the machine he helped build, lamented: “Revolution devours its own children.”
In China, we witnessed this cycle firsthand. The story of Bian Zhongyun, the first teacher beaten to death by her students in August 1966, illustrates it in all its cruelty.
Bian had been a faithful revolutionary. She joined the Communist Party in 1941 and later helped carry out land reform in a village where she was involved in the stoning to death of four landlords — including a woman who once cared for her child. She was later rewarded with the post of principal at Beijing’s most prestigious girls’ high school, which primarily served the children of CCP elites.
Yet her students, daughters of top Party leaders, killed her within hours in the first frenzy of the Cultural Revolution. They were fueled by Mao’s call to “rebel.” That month alone, thousands of teachers across China were killed. Millions more were publicly humiliated and beaten.
What became of the new victimizers? After serving as Mao’s instruments, the rebelling youths were discarded: the girls were sent into exile in China’s remote regions for grueling labor. The cycle turned anew.
This wheel of misfortune follows a grim logic. Authorities pick assumed “victims” and designate enemies. The chosen victims are given power beyond the law, while enemies are stripped of any protection. Victimhood becomes not a misfortune but a privilege. People scramble to claim it — often by victimizing others. The scope of enemies then expands endlessly. Eventually, the beast devours everything.
We would be foolish to believe this tragic dynamic cannot repeat here. In recent years, America has seen smaller but chilling echoes: the #MeToo movement, Black Lives Matter, pro-Hamas and anti-ICE protests, and so on.
Who are the victims? Those once deemed “victimizers” — men, White people, and law enforcement personnel. Though our democracy tempers the scale, the revolutionary zeal is real, and has already produced a vast number of victims.
Virginia gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger recently exhorted her supporters: “Let your rage fuel you.” Rage justifies escalation: exaggerated allegations, destruction of reputations, looting, even violence. We saw the consequences in the murder of Charlie Kirk.
The other fuel is thrill. Lenin once called revolution the “festival of the masses.” It is intoxicating to watch hierarchies topple, reputations destroyed, enemies dragged into the public square. Today, whole groups are urged to define themselves by grievances, while the list of oppressors grows without limit. Yesterday’s ally becomes today’s enemy; yesterday’s victim becomes today’s victimizer. Unfortunately, a society built on grievance politics collapses under its own contradictions.
China paid dearly: Mao’s Cultural Revolution killed tens of millions of people, including revolutionaries themselves, and brought the country to its knees. In America, Leftist ideology has condemned inner-city communities to crime, drugs, and welfare dependency that deepens poverty rather than relieves it. The paradox endures: revolutions that begin in the name of justice often end in greater injustice. Movements that elevate victims often produce mass victimization. Ideologies that promise to heal history’s wounds often end up deepening its scars.
The lesson is clear. A healthy society must recognize suffering without weaponizing it, redress injustice without creating new ones, and honor dignity rather than grievance. If we fail, the cycle will repeat — as it has so many times before. And once again, revolution will devour everyone, including those who started the revolution.
Xi Van Fleet is a survivor of Mao’s Cultural Revolution, activist, and author of “Mao’s America: A Survivor’s Warning.”
Sasha Gong is a writer, scholar, journalist, and filmmaker. A dissident in Mao’s China, she holds a PhD from Harvard University and was previously Director of the China Branch at Voice of America.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
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