May Sixteenth elements
May Sixteenth elements were named after the so-called May Sixteenth Army Corps, ultra-left Red Guards in Beijing during the early years of the Cultural Revolution who targeted Zhou Enlai with the backing of Jiang Qing. The name came from a May 16, 1966 notice which Mao Zedong partially wrote and edited. However, Mao was concerned with its radicalism, so in late 1967 the group was outlawed on conspiracy and anarchism charges, followed by the arrest of most Cultural Revolution Group members. A nationwide campaign was later launched to liquidate "May Sixteenth Elements", which ironically created more chaos and anarchy.
Countless innocent people were accused of being "May Sixteenth elements" and ruthlessly persecuted. According to one source, in the province of Jiangsu alone, more than 130,000 "May Sixteenth elements" were "ferreted out" and more than 6000 either died or suffered permanent injuries.
