Song Bolin was born into a party cadre family–his father was a high-ranking official in the People's Liberation Army. Song attended Tsinghua University High School during the Cultural Revolution and was a core member of the school’s Red Guards group.
In August 1966, when Mao Zedong met with the Red Guards on Tiananmen Square, Song was one of the first students to meet Mao. Song kept a diary covering the period before and at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution. His diary, especially the part about the Red Guards at Tsinghua University High School was considered to be of great historical value, and Yu Ruxin, a Cultural Revolution researcher, compiled Song’s diary into a book entitled Rise and Fall of the Red Guards: A Handbook of the Old Red Guards at Tsinghua High School.
In August 1966, when Mao Zedong met with the Red Guards on Tiananmen Square, Song was one of the first students to meet Mao. Song kept a diary covering the period before and at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution. His diary, especially the part about the Red Guards at Tsinghua University High School was considered to be of great historical value, and Yu Ruxin, a Cultural Revolution researcher, compiled Song’s diary into a book entitled Rise and Fall of the Red Guards: A Handbook of the Old Red Guards at Tsinghua High School.
