Sheep magazine Archive 2: issues 10-17

Photograph: Li Zhensheng
A particularly infamous case in Harbin at
the end of 1968 involved the son of the
former first Party secretary of Heilongjiang.
Preceding the outbreak of the Cultural
Revolution, Ouyang Qin was the most
powerful man in the province and therefore
the number-one target of the Red Guards.
Denounced, he was spared the full wrath of
the guards when Premier Zhou Enlai, with
whom he had been friendly since the 1920s
when they both studied in France, had him
transferred to a military hospital in Beijing
for his protection in the summer of 1966.
His son, however, would be less fortunate.
Ouyang Xiang’s crime was writing an anonymous
letter to the provincial revolutionary
committee professing his father’s total
support of Mao. Deemed by Pan Fusheng a
serious counter-reolutionary case needing
to be cracked, within days Ouyang’s handwriting
was identified, and he was arrested.
On 30 November 1968, a public rally was
held in front of Harbin’s North Plaza Hotel.
Labeled a counter-revolutionary, Ouyang
Xiang was made to wear a placard around
his neck detailing his crime and the date
of his letter. When he tried to shout, ‘Long
live Chairman Mao,’ his mouth was stuffed
with a dirty glove. Several days later he was
pushed out of a third-story window of the
office building where he was being held.
The official report called his death a suicide.
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MAY DAY 2016