On May 16, 1966, the Cultural Revolution was officially launched. From June 7 to July 20, Ulanhu, then the Chairman of China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, was widely criticized as an "anti-Party activist" and persecuted. He was also criticized by central leaders like Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping, whom themselves were soon persecuted in the Revolution. On August 16, Ulanhu was dismissed from his positions and was house-arrested in Beijing. In May, 1967, Teng Haiqing became the leader of the Inner Mongolia Military Region. On July 27, 1967, the northern branch of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China announced that Ulanhu had conducted five crimes, including anti-Maoism, anti-socialism, separatism, and so on. Supported by Lin Biao, Jiang Qing and Kang Sheng, Teng launched a massive purge which intended to "dig out" the "poison of Ulanhu" in Inner Mongolia. During the movement, the already-dissolved Inner Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party was claimed to have re-established itself and grown into power since 1960. Ulanhu was accused of being the leader of such party. At least hundreds of thousands of people were categorized as the members of the PRP, whom were regarded as separatists and were persecuted. During the purge, the Mongolian language was banned from publications and Mongols were accused of being “the sons and heirs of Genghis Khan”.
Lynching and massacre
Methods of torturing and killing
The methods used in lynching and killing during the purge included branding with hot irons, feeding furnace wastes, removing livers, hanging, cutting tongues and noses, piercing nails, piercing vaginas, pouring hot saline water into wounds, and more.
Death toll
According to the official complaint from the Supreme People's Procuratorate in 1980 after the Cultural Revolution, during the purge, 346,000 people were arrested, over 16,000 were persecuted to death, and over 81,000 were permanently injured and disabled. Other estimates include:
According to scholar Ba He : close to 100 thousand people were killed, 700-800 thousand were arrested and persecuted, and over a million were affected.
According to historian Song Yongyi of the California State University, Los Angeles: an unofficial source points out that the death toll was at least 40,000; 140,000 reached the point of permanent deformity, and nearly 700,000 were persecuted.
According to historian Lhamjab A. Borjigin, who were arrested and prosecuted by the Chinese government in 2019 for conducting relevant researches: at least 27,900 were killed and 346,000 were imprisoned and tortured.
After the Cultural Revolution, China's new paramount leader Deng Xiaoping came to power in 1978 and directed, together with Hu Yaobang and others, a large-scale rehabilitation of mistaken cases and false cases made during the Revolution. The Inner Mongolia incident was regarded as a "mistake" and its victims were rehabilitated by the Communist Party of China in 1979 during the "Boluan Fanzheng" period, blaming the entire purge on “the Gang of Four and the Lin Biao Clique”. Trials for the Gang of Four started in 1980. In the 1980s, there were calls for trial of Teng Haiqing, the commander of the purge, but the Central Committee of CPC thought Teng had made achievements during the wars in the past and he would not have to take responsibility for the purge. On the other hand, some of Teng's affiliates received various terms of imprisonment, with a main Mongol affiliate, Wu'er Bagan, sentenced to 15 years in prison.
