荒诞者共和

Agreement and disagreement coexist among these works. The first focus of the intense disputes concerns with the converging feasibility of the high school and university Red Guard movements. That is, in what extent that the high school and university Red Guard movements could be explained by the same explanation model. Are they essentially different in origins and development so that different explanations should be developed for them respectively? Unger and Rosen’s views are similar on this issue, while Lee and Andrew share some common points (however, there are some nuances between Lee and Walder). Uger and Rosen hold the view that their explanation models could be and only be partially applied to interpret the formation of university Red Guard factionalism. On the contrary, Lee and Walder treated the Red Guard factions the same as their university counterpart. The difference between Lee and Walder is that Lee did this unconsciously while Walder appears after some consideration.
 
The second divergence among them is the explanation perspectives to the same object: Red Guard factionalism. According to Walder (2002), Lee, Unger and Rosen’s explanations are social interpretations, while his interpretation is political. They contradict with each other. What we are concerned is whether they oppose actually with each other as what Walder addressed, or they share some common points in explaining the Red Guard factions.
 
Reviews: Lee, Unger and Rosen, Walder
 
Before we continue to specify the details of the above two arguments. It is necessary to restate the main points of the four authors.
 
Lee
Lee’s book focuses mainly on the dynamics of the Cultural Revolution: the formation of two competitive groups in elite and mass level. Lee argues that the Cultural Revolution began as an elite conflict, one group of elite around Mao, represented primarily by the Cultural Revolution Small Group, emphasize the necessity of narrowing the gap between elites and masses; the other group, represented primarily by the Party organization, believed the narrow-gap policies disturb the Chinese political system and want to keep their status quo. Both elite groups mobilized sympathetic social sectors to attack their elite opponents. In turn, these segments of the populace used the opportunity to support those members of the elite which had policy preference, interests, and value most congruent with their own. Hence the mobilized mass, caring about their own narrow group interests, divided into two broad factions: the radical mass organization consisting of underprivileged social groups, aimed at the radical restructuring of the Chinese political system, while the conservative mass organization, consists of those from the better-off social groups supported the maintenance of the political status quo.
 
Lee applied his logic of the societal level to the factions among Red Guard. Lee pointed out that students were also divided into two confronting Red Guard factions: the radical and conservative. The radical Red Guard comprised of students from “not-red” family background, sought to bring about a basic change in the distribution of power in the society. Their ideology was directed against the entire establishment, and tended to concentrate their attacks on Party cadres. The conservative Red Guard, comprised the “red” background students (children of Party and military officials, working class and peasant children), fought to defend their subsistent interests in social and political system.[Remark-1]
 
Unger and Rosen
Unger and Rosen pushed Lee’s idea forward about the Red Guard factionalism. Unger attributes the conflicts and antagonism to the educational system. Unger finds that in the mid-1960s, antagonisms and grievances grew much among students of different class backgrounds due to growing competition of going to college, the shifting policies on college admission and the aggravated contest in joining the Youth League to win political credentials. This class antagonism later transformed into Red Guard factionalism in the Cultural Revolution[2].
 
Rosen drew the similar conclusion as Unger: the class origin of middle-school students tended to determine whether they joined forces with the rebel or the conservative faction. He depicts a vivid account of the rise of factionalism in Guangzhou (Canton) from both the individual and school perspective in the midst of CR. Rosen pinpoints the major factional split as that between those of cadre origin and those of middle-class (specifically intellectual) –precisely those two groups that were most affected by the pre-Cultural Revolution shifts in educational policy.
 
Rosen draw the conclusion that the GPCR was contested most fiercely by students of cadre and upper-class intellectual family origin. In other words, secondary-school students of low- and mainly middle-class origin (e.g., children of intellectuals, white-collar workers, middle peasants and former “bad-class families”) were more likely to become rebels that were those of party cadre and military origin.  It was not Maoists who formed the base of the Red Guard rebel forces in secondary schools, but rather the descendants of those social groups and strata who were dissatisfied with the educational, economic and political system[3].
 
Both Rosen and Unger treated the university as, at least partially, some different type explanation model, details see the footnotes.
 
Walder
After Lee, Unger and Rosen’s theories predominated in this field for about 20 years, the doubt was thrown by Walder in 2002 to these social interpretations. Walder try to denied the social interpretation by depicting the process of the factions among Red Guard at the beginning several months of the Cultural Revolution.
 
Walder claims that student divisions are rooted in political interactions in the early phases of the conflict itself. Red Guard factions did not emerge in Beijing as expressions of opposed group interests based on preexisting social divisions, but as struggles to vindicate earlier actions and to avoid the harsh fate of political victims.
 
Walder argues that factions emerged due to political choices made by students within schools during the first two months of the Cultural Revolution. These choices were made under rapidly changing and ambiguous circumstances where one’s position in the status quo ante had no clear implication for political actions [Remark-2].[4]

High School and University: treat together or separately
 
The most obvious divergence among above researches is how to treat the high school Red Guard and their university counterparts. This issue involves with the boundary of the explanation model. It seems these explanations divide into two groups: Unger and Rosen VS. Lee and Walder.
 
Unger and Rosen noticed this problem and tried to set up another explanation to resolve the different conditions between high school and university groups. Both Unger and Rosen admit their applicable boundary of their explanation: their interpretation about the Red Guard factionalism is more convincible in explaining the Red Guard factionalism in high school than in university.
 
Unger says that the issue of class line (among high school students) had not held any great importance for most of the university students. The uniqueness of the university that differentiates it from the high school is that the competition for advanced education has been substituted by the ideological choice for the future development. On the same time, Rosen dealt with the behavior of university students in the GPCR somewhat indirectly, most often in the context of overall factional developments. Rosen admits “whereas it proved to be relatively easy to account for GPCR factional participation by middle school students on the basis of social background characteristics such as class origin, it was much more difficult to do so for university students”. Class origin was the major factor in explaining factional participation of secondary students, but it was of only some importance for university students. Unger and Rosen noticed the difference between university and high school students, and admitted the explanation boundary of their explanation.
 
But both of them also tried to integrate the university into their “social interpretation” model (Walder, 2002). Unger classifies the different groups in the university and attempts to search clues to expand his explanation to this group. When the university students split into two major camps of Red Guards, the division primarily had been between the “red” students and the “expert” student. The experts were those students, who had emphasized their studies in order to become China’s engineers, etc; whereas the so-called red students had put much of their time and attention into League and Party activities, aiming for careers as political/administrative supervisors over the experts. Good-class student took the red route more often than other students----first, because some of them had entered university with lower educational attainments; and second, because their access to a red career was made easier for them than for other students. Thus, even in the universities the lines were drawn somewhat along class line, but indirectly. Rosen concentrates on the crucial role of the ideological acceptance of Maoist’s position on the faction formation. Many of those successfully mobilized as “Rebels” by the Maoists at the Party Center appear to have been from good class backgrounds. In Guangzhou the overwhelming majority of university students who participated did so on the Rebel side. Whereas middle school students formed their various Red Guard units primarily on the basis of their response to the “class line” issue, university students were more concerned with such questions as university cadre assessment.  Unger and Rosen’s interpretation about the university Red Guard formation could not definitely explain the university group as clear as high school. Hence, the social interpretation should be confined in the high school field.
 
For Walder and Lee, it appears a little complicated. Since Lee’s works preceded Rosen and Unger’s research, he even did not notice such problems. However, Walder seems have noticed it but attempt to construct an explanation that could cover both groups. Walder studied the different response of the university and high school students toward the work team and tried to figure out the dynamics of the formation of the Red Guard factionalism among high school students and university ones by depicting the detail time events in the beginning several moths of the cultural revolution. The detail events narrative offers a well explanation for the university factions. Interaction between university and high school students pushes the theory forward. That is to say, the dynamics of Red Guard factionalism enters the research scope and substitute the static analysis about the class origin done by social interpretation group.
 
Walder’s interpretation for both university and high school factions is based on the cost of leaving many questions unclear. Walder argues that factions emerged due to political choices made by students within schools during the first two months of the Cultural Revolution. But whether such choice are random or based on their class origins remain not clear. The problem of his explanation is that: the class or origin effects could not be integrated into the model.
 
Of course, both these researches have their advantages and disadvantages. Social interpretation appears more convincible in explaining the high school factions, while the political interpretation offers a dynamics interpretation about the formation of factionalism and appears more applicable among university students. The reason why we refer it here is to point it out for the future study: treat the high school and university students separately or together.
 
Social interpretation versus political explanation
 
Walder identified his theory political interpretation, and Rosen, Unger and Lee’s theory social interpretation. Walder depicted the formation of the Red Guard factions in the early age of the Cultural Revolution. He intently evaded any terms of social interpretation, and attempted to build a new theory about the factionalism that has no relation with social origins used by social interpretation. But several points display the weakness of Walder’s research.
 
First, the reason that different students choose different factions remains unclear. According to Walder, factions emerged due to political choices made by students within schools during the first two months t harbor his weakness in explaining the factionalisms.  For example, the crucial Red Guard group Picket Corps. In Walder’s narrative, these groups share some common characteristics:  all members are high school students from revolutionary households with impeccable credentials; they wanted to provide the Red Guard movement leadership and discipline; They rushed to the scene of Red Guard attacks on government offices or the homes of old revolutionary leaders to enforce what they considered to be proper disciplines. This is the only one point that Walder referred to the family origin in the whole paper, but just this point seems to collapse all Walder’s effort to differentiate his research from social explanation. This narrative seems support social interpretation more, that “The cadre children intrinsically tended to join the “conservative” alliance while the middle-class children were far more likely to become the “radical” Red Guards”. The strong responsibility of these members to stop the violent activities of the “rebel” just demonstrated the influence of family origins on the behavior of the Red Guard.  It supports social interpretation rather than contradicts it.
 
Political explanation emphasizes the interaction process analysis about the dynamics of the Red Guard factionalism, while social interpretation focuses on the static analysis of the social origins. Political explanation does not actually differ from their opponent. The differences are mainly in perspectives rather than the content. They share some common points.  Political interpretation offers a delicate interaction process analysis and tries to use this strategy to harbor the social origin problems faced. It supplies a good answer to the university group, while the social interpretation seems suitable for high school. Hence the best way to treat the social interpretation and political explanation is to combine both of them in research.
 
Conclusion and discussion
 
In the above we discuss two main divergences among scholars. First, how do they treat the high school and university students? Second, does the political interpretation differ from their competitor as what they claim? The high school and university differs with each other in some critical aspects and require different treating. The social interpretation demonstrates more suitable for high school factions, while the political explanation shows more credential for university parts. What we need to do in the future is to combine both parties for the further research. A possible way is introduced here: by considering the dynamics of the influence of politics level on the third party.
 
Politics Level and the Third Party
Both social interpretation and political explanation demonstrate the same weakness: the overgeneralization of their conclusion, which are firmly based on the regional data.  Lee, Unger and Rosen’s research are based on the data collected in Canton, while Walder’s main data resource comes from Beijing. Hence, problem emerges. Both of them generalize the conclusion based on regional studies, without more consideration about the inapplicable generalization of their conclusions. The disagreements between them may be because of the geographical difference of their data resource. The similarity between Lee, Unger and Rosen may be attributed to their same resource, while Walder’s different conclusion might be caused by different resource.
 
Politics level
In fact, the geographical differences do exist. First, Beijing is the political center and original source of the Cultural Revolution, while Canton is just a branch province and became the research focus site only because its resource is easier to get.   
 
Second, the population composition of Red Guard varies. The cadre, military as well as intellectual family background students composed more in Beijing than in Canton. The composition of the Red Guard definitely influenced the dynamics of the Red Guard factions. Just as Rosen described, “the Cultural Revolution was contested most fiercely at those secondary schools that containing significant numbers of students of cadre and intellectual family origin—the ‘good’ schools”. In the same way, at the regional level, Canton and Beijing do differ with each other.    
 
Third, the people’s sensitivity to politics and the political changes varies with regions. As the center of the Cultural Revolution, Beijing students were more acute to the politics. In those politics-dominant days, people could not slight their political opportunity. To avoid being political victims, people tried to respond sensitively to the politics. The more intense the politics, the more sensitivity the people had. Obviously, people in Beijing were more sensitive to the politics than other areas, such as Canton. On the same way, as the most active actors in politics, students of Beijing concerned more about politics and political opportunity.  
 
Fourth, political policy executed different influence on the daily life in different regions. In the Cultural Revolution, the Central Group of Cultural Revolution often made decisions on the basis of the practice in Beijing; and also they used Beijing as the experimental site to pre-practice the policy and then propagandized to the whole country. Under such circumstance, politics influenced the daily life much more in Beijing than the other places. We called such political population composition, people’s sensitivity to politics, political policy’s influence on daily life, and political environment change rate as “Politics Level”.  Beijing had a higher politics level than Canton.
 
The third party
In both social interpretation and political explanation, we could observe the existence of the third party. In Unger’s research, the class line pushed students into four increasingly self-aware groupings with opposing interests: the cadre’s children; the middle school-class children; the worker-peasant children; and the bad-class background children. The worker-peasant children are a kind of third party. Some of them joined the rebel, other joined the conservative. It depended on the common points it shared with the other party.
 
In Walder’s research, “Mindful of the emerging realignment of student factions, members of the CCRG who were pushing for widening purges of the top leadership threw their public support to the growing minority faction. By mid-October, the college minority had become an overwhelming majority, as students defected from factions that now clearly lacked CCRG support.” shows that there existed the third party that swaged between the two parties.
 
Generally the third party is heterogeneous, contrary to the other homogeneous parties[5]. Some of them shared the common features with the rebel class, and others are more similar to the conservative groups. The members sharing the common features with rebel party tended to join the rebel, while the others joined the conservative. What is more, the most noticeable feature of the third party is that the third party tends to be influenced by environment changes, such as politics changes, more easily than the other parties. So they often wagged between two different parties. Maybe just as Walder described the basis of joining which group is to minimize the risk to be political victims.
 
Why we introduce politics level and the third party is that such consideration may resolve the geographical difference problem between Beijing and Canton. The disagreement between social interpretation and political explanation may be caused by the dynamics of different politics level and the different choice of the third party. The dynamics of Red Guard factionalism, in a great degree, was decided by the choice of third party. Under a condition when the third party preferred disproportionately with a party, the confrontation between the main two parties would be less possible to occur. Thus, by considering the influence of the politics level on the decision of the third party, we could understand the dynamics of the Red Guard movement better. Through the study of dynamics of politics level and the third party, we could test the social interpretation and political explanation in one model.
 
References
 
Hong Yung Lee. The Politics of the Chinese Cultural Revolution: A Case Study. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978. 
 
Jonathan Unger. Education under Mao: Class and Competition in Canton Schools, 1960-1980. New York: Columbia University Press, 1982.
 
Stanley Rosen. Red Guard Factionalism and the Cultural Revolution in Guangzhou. Boulder: Westview Press, 1982
 
Andrew G. Walder. “Beijing Red Guard Factionalism: Social Interpretations Reconsidered”. The Journal of Asian Studies 61, no.2 (May 2002): 437-471.
 
Note

[1] Other similar works have been done by Richard Kraus, Susan Shirk, Gordon White, and Marc Blecher.
[2] The details as following: During the 1960s, the school-age population surged upward and the urban economy stagnated. By 1965, only a minority of high school graduates could continue their education in university, and a majority would be sent to resettle in the countryside as peasants. Faced with a steep decline in educational opportunity, city officials altered admissions and promotion policies to rationalize emerging disparities. The results were an increasingly politicized classroom and a class-biased structure of promotion. Youths from working-class homes, although politically invulnerable, were unable to pass the remaining examination hurdles, and they and their families quickly sought a “back door” for assignment to blue-collar apprenticeships. Middle-class youths who previously had escaped political attack, found them discriminated against on the basis of their “bourgeois” backgrounds. Many responded by throwing themselves even more ardently into the activities of the Communist Youth League. But even before the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution, these students could no longer use individual academic achievement and political activism to guarantee educational and occupational advancement. Only children from the “purest” families of high party officials experienced no drastic decline in opportunity.
Thus, in the spring of 1966, China’s high school students held a high potential for violence conflict once the floodgates were opened to them. The class line was pushing students into four increasingly self-aware groupings with opposing interests: the cadre’s children; the middle school-class children; the worker-peasant children; and the bad-class background children. Among them, the antagonism between the former two groups is severest: the middle-class students on the one side tended to envy their revolutionary-cadre classmates and on the other to look down on them due to the cadre youth’s poor academic showing. The revolutionary cadre students for their part found cause to look down on the others, at the same time resenting those who did well at their studies.
During the Cultural Revolution, with the explicit encouragement by members of the upper elite, the frustrations of the young which had been below the surface for decades catastrophically broke out. The Red Guard divided into two factions: the “radical” and “conservative”. The cadre children intrinsically tended to join the “conservative” alliance while the middle-class children were far more likely to become the “radical” Red Guards. “Factions were based on identities formed in the course of prior competition for advancement between two relatively successful status groups who possessed different credentials, not a struggle between haves and have-nots” (Walder, 2002)
As for the university, the issue of class line had not held any great importance for most of the university students. They had already passed successfully through the competition to enter higher education and were already largely slotted into designated careers. Even during the months of Red Terror in the high schools, therefore, the good-origin students at the colleges had not given the blood-line theory strong support. When the university students split into two major camps of Red Guards, the division primarily had been between the “red” students and the “expert” student. 
The experts were those students, who had emphasized their studies in order to become China’s engineers, etc; whereas the so-called red students had put much of their time and attention into League and Party activities, aiming for careers as political/administrative supervisors over the experts. Good-class student took the red route more often than other students----first, because some of them had entered university with lower educational attainments; and second, because their access to a red career was made easier for them than for other students. Thus, even in the universities the lines were drawn somewhat along class line, but indirectly.
In the Cultural Revolution, the red students (who either already were Party members or were Party acolytes) tended to side with the university Party committees. Many of their classmates asserted their own dedication to Mao (and their own antipathy for the controls which had been exercised over them by the red-student activist leadership) by launching attacks against these university leaders. (p.131) Their subsequent alignment as “loyalists” or “rebels” often depended upon whether the provincial Party committee had backed or opposed their attacks on the college administration at their own particular camps. Because the university students were not directly preoccupied with “class line” problems, they latched onto the issues and rhetoric that interested the Party center more quickly and more readily than the high school students. By the early winter if 1966-67 their secondary-school allies in Canton were eagerly following in their footsteps.
 
[3] Rosen’s significant innovation is that he defined the difference between high schools. “patterns of factional formation….varied in largest parts on the basis of whether a school was true elite, good, ordinary, or poor” (p.194). He divided high schools of Guangzhou into four types: “true elite”, “good”, “ordinary” and “poor”, schools within each type shared common characteristics, such as similar student bodies, promotion rates, rankings, and so forth. Each of the four categories of schools had a rather distinct student body which in turn seemed to be the most important factor determining the nature of factional formation at that category of school.
1.        True elite schools. Neither of Guangzhou’s two best schools were an important source of Rebel strength. In both schools it was the children of cadre origin who dominated the movement. Children of middle class origin, so important to the Rebel cause in many schools, were unable or unwilling to exert such influence at Huafu or Guangya. For one thing, these elite schools contained high portion of cadre and military children. So the number of middle-class children was smaller. Second, at elite schools the early Rebel-Conservative split among children of high-level cadre background in effect denied other students an opportunity to play a leading role.
2.        The good schools. The major battleground between Conservatives and Rebels. At the “good” schools, students of middle class origin were relying on academic achievement for university. In the addition, though, they generally seemed to realize the importance of political performance (biaoxian). The balance between children of cadres and those from middle class origins at the good schools intensified factional politics at these schools.
3.        Ordinary schools. The Rebel-Conservative pattern also dominated these schools. But two points must be mentioned: First, one finds that both Rebels and Conservative at these schools tended to be a step behind the movement at the better schools. Second, schools that fall into the category of “ordinary” did not produce any of the key leaders of the Rebel faction.
4.        Poor school. These are exclusively neighborhood junior high schools, having certain aspects of the situation which prevailed at the ordinary schools. But the movement at the poor school lagged even more behind the ordinary schools. Rosen attribute this to three reasons: First, students were generally more enthusiastic about the large-scale, more physical activities of the GRCR. Second, the organizational participation often was more dependent on friendship groups than on issue. Third, they had no Red Guard newspaper of their own, which further limited intra-school communication. 
The GPCR was contested most fiercely by students of cadre and upper-class intellectual family origin. In other words, secondary-school students of low- and mainly middle-class origin (e.g., children of intellectuals, white-collar workers, middle peasants and former “bad-class families”) were more likely to become rebels that were those of party cadre and military origin.  It was not Maoists who formed the base of the Red Guard rebel forces in secondary schools, but rather the descendants of those social groups and strata who were dissatisfied with the educational, economic and political system.
 
Rosen still has several other refinements:
First, Rosen pointed out that some students did not participate much in CR. The nonparticipation was more feasible at “ordinary” schools, where there were relatively few offspring of either cadres or intellectuals, than at other schools. At the most prestigious institutions, too, many students kept reading their books in 1966-1967.
Second, Rosen offers maps to locate Canton’s schools in residence areas by occupation. Many conclusions can be drawn from such close attention to the CR’s geographical space. Class backgrounds seldom determined faction membership in solidly proletarian neighborhoods, where individuals’ general attitude toward authority could be more important.
Third, Far from merely repeating earlier theories on the social bases of Red Guard factionalism, Rosen states from the outset that “a fuller understanding of the GPCR must take into account the divisions within factions as well as between them” (p.6). Thus, particularly in his discussion of the Rebels in Guangzhou, Rosen disaggregate this large organization to reveal the sub factional splits that periodically threatened to tear such large units apart. For example, style='font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-style:italic'>Thus, the GPCR was contested most fiercely by students of cadre and upper-class intellectual family origin. In other words, secondary-school students of low- and mainly middle-class origin (e.g., children of intellectuals, white-collar workers, middle peasants and former “bad-class families”) were more likely to become rebels that were those of party cadre and military origin.  It was not Maoists who formed the base of the Red Guard rebel forces in secondary schools, but rather the descendants of those social groups and strata who were dissatisfied with the educational, economic and political system.
 
[4] Walder identified his analysis as “political interpretation”, and began as doubting the three basic assumption of “social interpretation”.
 
First doubt about social interpretation: work team
Social interpretations rest on the claim that work teams tended to protect the status quo of school party organizations. They together with school officials tried to divert accusations onto relative powerless bourgeois professors, to counterattack against students who denounced school officials, and to mobilize politically active students from elite red households to attack rebellious.
But Walder find that the Beijing work team did not behave in the ways posited. Almost all work teams began by attempting to establish their authority, immediately replacing the school party leadership and proceeding with the investigation of the party committee and its branches.
The work team quickly met the resistance. Why? First reason is that too many party functionaries in the school had been made to stand aside for investigation, even including the revolutionary ones. The second reason is that work team blocked the militant students’ effort to physically punish those officials and teachers who had already been made to stand aside for investigation, by which militant students’ sought to display their revolutionary credentials. Thus the work teams were challenged by a minority resentful of their assumption of power.
 
Second doubt: students’ understanding of their status implication
Social interpretation assumes that within this political context student could understand their implication of prior identities and have according political action. But Walder find that neither family heritage nor prior close ties to school authority had clear implications for actions. Students with close ties to now discredited school leaders would want to show their revolutionary zeal by distancing or even attacking them; similarly, students from favored red background would also seek to display the approved critical stance toward discredited school leaders.
 
Third doubt: relationship between students’ background and their attitude to work team
Social interpretation assumed that students from favored backgrounds would support work team. But Walder argued that while students from favored backgrounds were prominent supporters of work team, at the same point the most militant opponents of work team were from these same categories.
Then he gave a detailed account about how two major factions “conservative” and “radical” formed from August to October. The party center reversed itself in by the end of July, and the work teams were ordered to depart from schools.
 
Faction Emerge: August 1966.
The high-school Red Guard who had opposed the work teams emerged in August with a clear victory. The high school work teams were comprised by low rank of officials. Their top leaders of the national Youth League headquarters had been quickly removed from posts. And Mao praised these high school Red Guards publicly on several occasions. Those high school students who had not opposed the work teams migrated in the now-celebrated rebels.
During the same period two student factions have formed in universities: one led by students that had opposed their work team and had been victimized by it and another that had cooperated with it. But while the high-school Red Guards who had opposed the work teams were triumphant, their counterparts in the universities became suppressed minority. Several reasons:
First, university work teams were led by high national officials, who were still in power at that time. Second, the new official document was ambiguous. It vindicated students who opposed the work teams, but did not condemn the students who had cooperated with them. Third, the work team cooperative group had the support of the overwhelming majority of students, and the clear support of the officials in charge of the CR within the ministries.
The leadership of continuing revolution in university would be hold by the forthcoming elected Cultural Revolution Committees. Since the preparatory committees left by work team were dominated by the more cooperative Red Guards, the group opposed work team faced the prospect that despite their heroic fight against the work team, they would be denied leadership over the Cultural Revolution in their schools. Amidst escalating campus confrontation, minority factions began to attack the ministries that harbored former members of work team.
 
Factions Realigned: September-October 1966
The elite high-school Red Guards who had spearheaded the opposition to work teams became the primary factional opponents of their college counterparts.
The triumphant high school Red Guard multiplied in number and grew rapidly in size, spilled outside campus and began extremely violence. Some of the first high-school Red Guards, including early rebels who had antagonized the work teams, were critical of these developments. They formed the “Picket Corps”. Several characteristics: all members are high school students from revolutionary households with impeccable credentials; they wanted to provide the Red Guard movement leadership and discipline.  So they took action to reign in the growing excesses and anarchy of the movement.
The picket corps was formed at precisely the time that college minority factions were beginning to attack the ministries. These two factions collided badly.
Thus, elite high-school Red Guards who had spearheaded the opposition to work teams became the primary factional opponents of their college counterparts. The different orientation these two groups adopted put them, both had initially similar social and political backgrounds and with identical political orientation in July, on the split.
Mindful of the emerging realignment of student factions, members of the CCRG who were pushing for widening purges of the top leadership threw their public support to the growing minority faction. By mid-October, the college minority had become an overwhelming majority, as students defected from factions that now clearly lacked CCRG support.
The college minority, now joined in victory by new high school Red Guard groups that declared their opposition to the Picket Corps, now referred to themselves as the rebel faction (zaofan pai); their opponents were vilified as conservatives (baoshou pai).
The political processes implied by social interpretations were not the ones that actually led to the formation of factions, and the membership of factions did not vary in the predicted ways as factions first formed.
 
[5]  Unger points out that both the “Rebel” faction and “Conservative” were able to draw adherent cross class lines. There are at least two kinds of “crossover”: working-class youth and revolutionary cadre children in “Rebel” faction.
         First, working-class youth in “Rebel” group:
Many of the working-class youths had never gotten along well with the revolutionary-cadre students. They had been aware that the revolutionary-cadre students felt superior to them on the basis of “class.”
The blood-line theory had given most of them access to the initial Red Guards and they had gone along with the rigid class-based hierarchy, however, they had resented being placed at the very bottom of the pure-blood organization.
Those working-class youths who had done reasonably well academically now saw little reason not to swing over to the side of their middle-class schoolmates. They had little cause to oppose the renewed emphasis upon performance and were not particularly averse to attacking the Party’s “revolutionary cadres.”
Frequently they were joined by working-class schoolmates whose good-class origins had been denied by the initial Red Guards. During the Red Terror, at least some of the workers’ children whose grandfathers had not been industrial workers had been given insulting non-red-class labels by the ultra-class-purist cadre sons and daughters.
Second, local cadre children in “Rebel” group:
Some of the children of the local civilian Party cadres had resented the superior status assumed by the military-cadre youths.  Some of the local cadres’ youths now began to swing over strategically to the Rebel side, especially if they had been able to keep up academically and if their own parents were not under threat from the rebel Red Guard.
Rosen pointed out that even within the cadre class; they are not homogeneous as expected. The students with central cadre and those with local cadre showed different behavior and orientation toward the faction.

 [Remark-1](The Red and non-red family did not coincide with the social stratification, that the red group consists of those students from the cadre and the power family background, while the non-red group composes of those from the poor family back ground. It is a complicated classification. The students with intelligent family background was treated as the non-red, ……) 
 [Remark-2]“Picket Corps”. Several characteristics: all members are high school students from revolutionary households with impeccable credentials; they wanted to provide the Red Guard movement leadership and discipline” seems discredit Walder’s this argument. The “Picket Corps” showed great responsibility for stopping the violent activity, which originated from their family background.