Kuai Dafu
Former Red Guard student leader
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Kuai Dafu (Chinese: 蒯大富, 14 September 1945 – 24 November 2025) was a political figure in the People's Republic of China. Kuai was born in Binhai, Jiangsu Province. A 1967 graduate of the Department of Engineering Chemistry at Tsinghua University, he was one of the five leaders of the Beijing Red Guard rebels during the Cultural Revolution.[1]
Kuai Dafu | |
|---|---|
| 蒯大富 | |
| Born | September 13, 1945 |
| Died | November 24, 2025 (aged 80) (unconfirmed) |
| Occupations | Student, businessman |
| Known for | Leading the Red Guards at Tsinghua University |
Political party | Chinese Communist Party |
| Movement | Cultural Revolution |
Biography
Early Years
Kuai Dafu was born on September 14, 1945, in Binhai County, Jiangsu Province. His grandfather was a veteran of the New Fourth Army, and both his parents joined the Chinese Communist Party in the 1940s. Kuai Dafu attended Binhai Batan Town Middle School. In 1963, he was admitted to the Department of Engineering Chemistry at Tsinghua University.[2]
Cultural Revolution
In September 1963, Kuai Dafu was admitted to the Department of Engineering Chemistry at Tsinghua University. In 1966, after the start of the Cultural Revolution, he began secretly contacting people at Tsinghua University, organizing student gatherings, and discussing current affairs. He posted big-character posters against the department head and university leaders. In June 1966, a work group headed by Ye Lin, then Vice Chairman of the State Planning Commission, entered Tsinghua University and took over the university's Party Committee. The work group criticized students like Kuai Dafu for their radical behavior, which sparked student discontent.[3] That same month, the *People's Daily* published an editorial, "Sweep Away All Monsters and Demons," approved by Chen Boda, which listed so-called bourgeois experts, scholars, authorities, and founders as targets for overthrow. On August 4, Kuai Dafu attended and spoke at the Beijing Municipal "Cultural Revolution Activists" conference, becoming a representative of the Tsinghua University Red Guards and a vanguard of the rebellion. He initiated the establishment of the "Jinggangshan Rebel Corps" and served as the deputy commander of the Red Guard Revolutionary Rebel Headquarters of the Capital Universities and Colleges. On December 18, Zhang Chunqiao, then deputy head of the "Central Cultural Revolution" group, met with Kuai Dafu alone at the West Gate of Zhongnanhai, listened to his report, and assigned the task of overthrowing Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping.[2]
"Down with Liu Shaoqi"
On December 25, Kuai Dafu led more than 5,000 people from Tsinghua University to Tiananmen Square for a march and held a "rally to thoroughly overthrow the bourgeois reactionary line represented by Liu and Deng."[2] After Kuai Dafu took the lead in shouting the slogan "Down with Liu Shaoqi," some universities in Beijing followed suit. However, Liu Shaoqi was not overthrown and remained in Zhongnanhai. Kuai Dafu devised a plan: he organized Red Guards to surround Zhongnanhai day and night, demanding Liu Shaoqi's removal. After intervention from the Central Committee, the Red Guards surrounding the west gate of Zhongnanhai withdrew.
On January 6, 1967, Kuai Dafu lied, claiming that Liu Shaoqi's daughter, Liu Pingping, had lost her leg in a car accident and needed amputation, thus luring Liu Shaoqi and Wang Guangmei to the hospital. Afterwards, the Central Committee sent people to rescue Liu Shaoqi and bring him back to Zhongnanhai, but Wang Guangmei was detained by Kuai Dafu and others. Kuai Dafu ordered Wang Guangmei to be kidnapped and taken to Tsinghua University, where she was subjected to a public denunciation. She was only able to return home the next day thanks to Zhou Enlai's intervention.[4]
On July 29, 1967, Kuai Dafu led a group of people to raid Xu Xiangqian's home for the third time.[5]
Organizing Violent Struggle
Active from 1966 onwards, Kuai led the Jinggangshan ("Headquarters") faction of the Red Guards at Tsinghua University, where he pursued a degree in chemical engineering.[6]: 66 This group wanted to maintain the independence of the Red Guards from the central government. Kuai, alongside Han Aijing and other student leaders, virulently resisted the "work teams" which Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping had sent to the campuses to restore order and suppress or co-opt the student movement.[7] Liu's wife Wang Guangmei participated in the work teams and personally clashed with Kuai in July 1966. However, Mao subsequently voiced support to Kuai and "made him a vanguard of the Cultural Revolution famous throughout the country."[8]
On April 10, 1967, the Jinggangshan – now supported by the central authorities and the People's Liberation Army – organised an on-campus struggle session where more than 300 alleged "revisionists" (including Wang Guangmei) were publicly humiliated.[6]: 124
Beginning in April 1968, another faction of Red Guards at Tsinghua University rapidly grew in strength, frequently clashing with the "Jinggangshan Rebel Corps" led by Kuai Dafu. From April 23 to July 27, 1968, the "Hundred-Day Armed Struggle" between the two factions of Red Guards at Tsinghua University in Beijing became the largest and longest-lasting armed conflict in the Beijing area. This conflict resulted in 18 deaths, over a thousand injuries, and direct economic losses exceeding 10 million yuan.[9]
On July 27, Mao Zedong met with the five leaders of the Red Guards and severely warned and criticized them, demanding their withdrawal from the political arena.[9]
On July 27, 1968, a work team arriving at Tsinghua University was fought off with shots and stones on orders of Kuai, killing five members and injuring many more. The next day, Kuai and other student leaders including Nie Yuanzi were harshly reprimanded for their behaviour by Mao Zedong in the Great Hall of the People. When Kuai complained that a "black hand" was trying to suppress the student movement, Mao mockingly replied that he himself was this "black hand".[7][6]: 249–251
According to Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals, the clash between Kuai and Wang Guangmei "was eventually to become part of Red Guard lore and to be immortalized in novels and on the stage, even in the West".[6]: 66
Imprisonment and later life
In December 1968, Kuai Dafu received a notice that he was assigned to work as an electrolysis worker at the Qingtongxia Aluminum Plant in Ningxia.
In 1970, after falling out of grace with Jiang Qing, Kuai was imprisoned alongside Han Aijing. He was tried and convicted to a seventeen-year prison sentence in 1983.[6]: 469 Kuai and Han went on to share a prison cell with activist Wei Jingsheng.[10]
On April 19, 1978, Kuai Dafu was arrested by the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau at a university-wide assembly of faculty and students.[2]
On March 16, 1983, the Beijing Intermediate People's Court sentenced Nie Yuanzi, Kuai Dafu, and Han Aijing for their counter-revolutionary activities in following the Lin Biao and Jiang Qing anti-Party clique. He was sentenced to 17 years imprisonment for counter-revolutionary propaganda and incitement, murder, and false accusation, and deprived of their political rights for 4 years.[11] He was subsequently imprisoned in Qincheng Prison in Beijing and Tanggemu Farm in Gonghe County, Qinghai Province. In September 1987, Kuai Dafu was released.[citation needed]
Kuai subsequently pursued a business career.[6]: 469 In 1994, he moved to Shenzhen and partnered with a Tsinghua University classmate to run an audio equipment engineering company. However, due to unequal profit sharing, Kuai decided to start his own business.[12]
Similarly to other student leaders from the Cultural Revolution, Kuai was pressured by the post-Mao governments of Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao to remain discrete about their past as Red Guards and "not to say anything that is 'sensitive'".[13]
Chinese platforms stated that Kuai Dafu had died on November 24, 2025, although this was not officially confirmed.[14]