Battle song of the Red Guards (1967)

In 1966-67 Red Guards from the Central Conservatory of Music’s middle school published their own Cultural Revolution ‘battle song’:

“Listen! The dynamic melody and rhythm of the “Red Guards’ Battle Song” resounds across our great socialist motherland!

Listen! This song bursts forth as group after group of daring Red Guards, wearing shining Chairman Mao badges and carrying red quotation books, pour into the streets to destroy the “four olds” of the exploiting classes and promote the “four news”* of the proletariat!

Hear the Red Guards sing it as they board trains for every part of the country to spread the flames of revolutionary rebellion far and wide!

Hear the Red Guards sing it as they charge forward in the battle to “fight self, repudiate revisionism”, mercilessly attacking the “self” in their own minds and raining annihilating blows on the handful of Party capitalist roaders in authority!

“The Red Guards’ Battle Song”, a revolutionary marching song of the proletariat, was born in the life-and-death struggle between the proletarian and bourgeois headquarters, between the socialist and capitalist roads, between the proletarian revolutionary line and the bourgeois reactionary line…

Red Guards’ Battle Song

We are Chairman Mao’s Red Guards,
We steel our red hearts in great winds and waves.
We arm ourselves with Mao Zedong Thought
To sweep away all pests.

We are Chairman Mao’s Red Guards,
Absolutely firm in our proletarian stand,
Marching on the revolutionary road of our forbears,
We shoulder the heavy task of our age.

We are Chairman Mao’s Red Guards,
Vanguards of the cultural revolution.
We unite with the masses and together plunge into the battle
To wipe out all monsters and demons.

Refrain:
Dare to criticise and repudiate, dare to struggle,
Never stop making revolutionary rebellion.
We will smash the old world
And keep our revolutionary state red for ten thousand generations!”