One of my Examples of Social Insanity (1966-76).
> By the summer of 1966, Mao, Chairman of the ruling CCP, felt under siege, sure that his Politburo rivals wanted to ease him out of power after the disaster of the Great Leap Forward (1958-61). The Great Leap was supposed to bring about social and economic change through rapid industrialisation and collectivisation, but it actually created a famine that killed tens of millions. To combat his fears, Mao called on China’s youth to “bombard the headquarters” and launch a civil war against the Party which Mao headed—those in their teens and twenties became known as Red Guards. Even the Great Helmsman himself was surprised at how quickly the movement took off, with the insurgents taking over university campuses and factories—eventually bringing down senior figures such as state president Liu Shaoqi. China’s universities became sites for the public humiliation of intellectuals, derided as the “stinking ninth” category of offenders. – "The chaos still haunting China 
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Other sources:
* Frank Dikötter, *The Cultural Revolution: A People’s History, 1962-1976*
* Ji Xianlin, *The Cowshed*, "one of the most graphic accounts of the persecution of a Chinese intellectual during that turbulent era ever published"