Former Red Guard apologises to his victims of Cultural Revolution

An ageing former Red Guard from Shandong province placed an apparently unprecedented magazine ad to apologise to his victims.

The latest edition of the liberal monthly published the ad and two related letters to the editor from Liu Boqin last week, prompting a wide discussion online.

"I was naive, easily bamboozled, and never distinguished good from bad," Liu confessed in a letter.

Liu said he beat teachers, spat on them, and terrorised some families. He also played practical jokes on his neighbours, such as throwing firecrackers into their courtyards in the dead of night.

In his letter, Liu states he is from Jinan , the provincial capital. His family, from an official background, lived in a compound belonging to the Shandong Chinese People's Political Consultative Committee. The fact that he was in junior high school in the early days of the Cultural Revolution means he is in his early 60s.

"As I grow older, I have a more profound understanding of the sins of the Cultural Revolution," he wrote. "I cannot forget what I've done wrong."

Years after that tumultuous period, which ran from 1966 to 1976, Liu has searched for those he once attacked as a Red Guard. He said that he was able to apologise to some victims and received forgiveness.