宋彬彬，1966年“文化大革命”期间，在北京师范大学女子中学事件中参与了对校长卞仲云的致命攻击，并于半个世纪后公开道歉的重要人物，于2024年9月16日逝世，享年77岁。其死讯在微信等中国社交媒体上引发了对宋彬彬2014年的泪流满面的道歉以及中共党在文化大革命造成的巨大损失问题的再次讨论。
据报道，她是由她的兄弟宋凯光在海外去世的消息。她被描述为在中国红卫兵中的一员，并且是在那个动荡十年——中国“文化大革命”的发端时期，这个始于1960年代、持续了十数年、由毛泽东发起，最终导致一百万以上生命陨落的运动。
据报道，当时宋彬彬年仅17岁，在北京师范大学女子中学就读。响应毛泽东号召的年轻人对她和其他被认为持有资产阶级价值的人士进行了反扑行动。
在1966年的8月5日，学生们袭击了50岁的卞仲云——一名有四个孩子的母亲，并且是学校的领导。她遭受踢打、用钉子上刺的棍棒殴打，倒下后被扔到垃圾车上以任其死亡。
她的去世被普遍认为是文化大革命期间首次教师遇害事件，标志着对毛泽东个人崇拜的暴烈高潮，一群人群涌至天安门广场，其中包括了超过一百万年轻的红卫兵，宋彬彬当时在天安门城楼上，站在人潮中，将红色袖带缠绕在毛主席的手臂上。这一瞬间的照片在全中国流传，并且得到了毛泽东的高度赞扬。
但不久之后，“文化大革命”的风暴转向了她的家庭。她的父亲宋任群于1968年被中共党开除，她和母亲遭软禁。直至1976年毛去世，这场风暴才平息。
在恢复精英地位后，宋彬彬前往美国，在波士顿大学获得了地球化学硕士学位，并且在麻省环境保护局工作。后来她在2003年返回中国。
长期以来，关于她在“毛泽东红卫兵”时期的事情保持沉默，这也反映了对这一时期官方的沉默态度。然而，鉴于她的前身份，她承受着压力，成为其他红卫兵开始道歉的先声。
在2014年的1月12日，宋彬彬访问自己的旧校，并表达了懊悔之情，在卞仲云雕像前鞠躬，并发表了一篇长达1500字的演讲，“我对此不幸事件应承担责任”。这引发了不同的反应。一些中国人对她表示欢迎，但其他人则认为道歉晚了、不够或需要中共党对这场事件的真正清算。
在讨论中强调宋彬彬作为红卫兵领袖所应承担的责任更大，并指出她应该在其中扮演更为重要的角色。也有观点指出，毛泽东是“恶之源”，他带来的伤害多于好。
宋彬彬的道歉并未得到所有人的认同。她的老伴王敬瑶认为，她是一个罪人，因为她的行为，并且得到了毛泽东的支持，毛泽东是邪恶的源头。他也指责毛泽东导致了这么多的不幸事件。
宋彬彬出生于1947年，是中共“八大元帅”之一宋任群和仲月琳的女儿，根据2012年发布的家谱，她是家中八个子女之一。她的父亲领导了中国在毛去世后的经济开放政策，并获得财富与影响力。
她嫁给了金建胜，在麻省担任公司总裁。他在2011年逝世。她还留下了一个儿子金晋。
宋彬彬表示，自己在这个道歉上等待了45年之久，并认为未能保护学校的领导是“一生的痛苦和遗憾”。
新闻来源：www.nytimes.com
原文地址：Song Binbin, Poster Woman for Mao’s Bloody Revolution, Dies at 77
新闻日期：2024-10-01
原文摘要：
Song Binbin, a student leader of China’s Red Guards who in 1966 was embroiled in the beating death of her high school principal, one of the most notorious killings of the Cultural Revolution — and who publicly apologized for her actions almost a half-century later — died on Sept. 16. She was 77. Her death was reported by a brother, Song Kehuang, on the Chinese app WeChat, saying she had died in the United States. He provided no other details. News of her death set off renewed debate on Chinese social media about the adequacy of Ms. Song’s tearful apology in 2014, as well as the Communist Party’s failure to acknowledge the true toll of the Cultural Revolution, the decade-long rampage that Mao Zedong unleashed in the 1960s, claiming more than one million lives, and that remains a heavily censored topic in China. A daughter of a prominent general in the People’s Liberation Army, Ms. Song was enrolled at Beijing Normal University Girls High School when she and classmates responded to Mao’s call for young people to turn against intellectuals, educators and others who supposedly held bourgeois values. On Aug. 5, 1966, students attacked Bian Zhongyun, a 50-year-old mother of four who headed the school. She was kicked and beaten with sticks spiked with nails. After passing out, she was thrown onto a garbage cart and left to die. Her death has been widely described as the first killing of a teacher during the Cultural Revolution, a violent spasm establishing Mao’s cult of personality, with masses waving his Little Red Book of his writings. In August and September 1966, nearly 1,800 people died in attacks by Red Guards, a militant youth group, and other zealots across Beijing, according to party estimates published in 1980. Two weeks after Ms. Bian’s death, more than one million young Red Guards thronged Tiananmen Square, where Ms. Song had been selected to pin a red armband around Mao’s left sleeve as they stood atop the towering Gate of Heavenly Peace. A photograph of the moment appeared across the country. Praised by Mao, Ms. Song, at 19, became a kind of celebrity in China. But the whirlwind of the Cultural Revolution soon turned on Ms. Song’s family. Her father, Song Renqiong, was purged from the Communist Party in 1968, and Ms. Song and her mother were put under house arrest. The Cultural Revolution ended only when Mao died in 1976. Ms. Song, whose family regained its prominence among China’s elite, traveled to the United States, where she earned a master’s degree in geochemistry from Boston University in 1983 and a Ph.D. from M.I.T. in 1989. She changed her name to Yan Song, married, became a naturalized U.S. citizen and worked for the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection. She moved back to China in 2003. For many years, Ms. Song kept quiet about her days in Mao’s Red Guard, reflecting the official silence about the period. But given her former prominence, she faced pressure to speak as a trickle of other former Red Guards began apologizing. On Jan. 12, 2014, Ms. Song visited her old school and expressed remorse, bowing before a statue of Ms. Bian and delivering a 1,500-word speech. “I am responsible for the unfortunate death of Principal Bian,” she said, according to The Beijing News. (Ms. Bian’s title was officially deputy principal, but she was referred to as the principal because she was serving in that role at the time in an acting capacity.) In 2004, Wang Youqin, a schoolmate of Ms. Song’s who later became a historian at the University of Chicago, published “Victims of the Cultural Revolution,” a book that included a description of the death of Ms. Bian and of Ms. Song’s role in the turmoil at the girls’ high school. After Ms. Bian’s death, Ms. Wang wrote, “Every school in China became a torture chamber, prison or even execution ground, and many teachers were persecuted to death.” Ms. Song denied that she had participated directly in the beating; she said, in fact, that she had tried to stop others who did. But she acknowledged that she and a fellow student were Red Guard leaders and that they were among the first to post so-called big-character posters — publicly displayed signs handwritten in a large format — denouncing teachers. “The Cultural Revolution at Beijing Normal University Girls’ High School began when I participated in posting the first big-character poster on June 2, 1966,” she told The Beijing News. Her apology prompted mixed reactions. Some Chinese welcomed her gesture; others said it was inadequate, too late or needed to be accompanied by a true reckoning from the Communist Party. Some commenters stressed that Ms. Song should bear a greater burden because of her prominence among the Red Guards. “It’s meaningless to say you witnessed a murder and then say you don’t know who the killers were,” said Cui Weiping, a retired professor of literature who writes about China’s past, as quoted by The New York Times in 2014. One person who was unsatisfied was Ms. Bian’s widower, Wang Jingyao. He had taken photos of his wife’s battered body after her death as well as of the posters that her tormentors had hung in their apartment after breaking in. One sign threatened to “hack you to pieces,” another to “hold up your pigs’ ears.” “She is a bad person, because of what she did,” Mr. Wang told The Times in 2014, when he was 93. “She and the others were supported by Mao Zedong. Mao was the source of all evil. He did so much that was bad.” Song Binbin was born in 1947, one of eight children of Song Renqiong and Zhong Yuelin, according to a family tree published by Bloomberg in 2012. Her father was one of the “eight elders” of the Communist Party who led the country’s economic opening after Mao’s death, acquiring wealth and influence. Song Renqiong supported the Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping during the violent crackdown of protesters in Tiananmen Square in 1989. Three of his six daughters left China in the 1980s for the United States and became American citizens, according to Bloomberg. Ms. Song married Jin Jiansheng, who was president of a Massachusetts company. He died in 2011. Her survivors include a son, Yan Jin. At the time of her apology, when she was in her mid-60s, Ms. Song said that she had been anticipating it for some time. “Failure to protect the school leaders is a lifelong pain and regret,” she said.
