h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

'Causus belli' should probably be 'casus belli'.

I don't think this Entry goes quite far enough to give a sense of the brutality and destructiveness of the Cultural Revolution, nor indeed of the millions who died during that dark period. In Chinese-occupied Tibet the Red Guards literally ran rough shod over the Tibetan and their culture, detroying an estimated 6,000 temples and monastic institutions and causing unimaginable misery, suffering and loss of life.

The definition of 'cadre' in this Entry is not quite right: Cadres of the Chinese communist party were the main purveyors of revolutionary thought and fervour. It's misleading to describe them as military professionals. It would probably be more accurate to describe them as Mao's version of George Orwell's Thought Police in his book '1984'. Their function was to worm their way into peoples lives, into their thoughts and feelings, and force them to change.

It was the cadres who brought under scrutiny the minutia of everyday life, and made counter-revolutionary acts or attitudes, real or imagined, an offense potentially punishable by death. Those judged by the cadres to be wanting in revolutionary zeal had to publicly confess their shortcomings in 'thamzing' sessions, where one's neighbours and erstwhile friends were encouraged (read compelled) to prove the mettle of their own revolutionary spirit by abusing one in every imaginable way - pulling out hair being a popular form of expression.

The important thing to bear in mind is that everyone (ordinary people like you and me) lived in terror of being called to account by the cadres, all the time. Being noticed, arousing the slightest suspicion could result in a public beating, years in a laogai (concentration camp) or execution.

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