Quotations from Confucius Chinese Sages Series ISBN 7-80052-805-7

Before Mao chided the Red Guards for being БЂњtoo civilizedБЂ«on 23 August, there had been no vandalism against historical monuments. It was on that day, only after Mao spoke, that the first statue was broken БЂ” a Buddha in the Summer Palace in Peking. From then on, when important sites were being wrecked, official specialists were present to pick out the most valuable objects for the state, while the rest were carted off and melted down, or pulped. It was MaoБЂ™s office, the Small Group, which ordered the desecration of the home of the man whose name was synonymous with Chinese culture, Confucius. The home, in Shandong, was a rich museum, as emperors and artists had come there to pay homage, commissioning monuments and donating their art. The locals had been ordered to wreck it, but had responded by going slow. So Red Guards were dispatched from Peking. In their pledge before setting off, they said that the sage was БЂњthe enemy rival to death of Mao Tse-tung Thought.БЂ«Mao did, indeed, hate Confucius, because Confucianism enjoined that a ruler must care for his subjects, and as Mao himself put it, БЂњConfucius is humanism БЂ¦ that is to say, People-centred-ism.БЂ«In the annihilation of culture, Mme Mao played a key role as her husbandБЂ™s police chief for this field ...»