宋宾彬，一位在 1966 年参与殴打北京师范大学女子高中校长、此事件成为文化大革命初期教师被杀之首案的学生领袖，并于五十年前公开道歉的人，在2023年9月16日离世，终年77岁。她的去世信息由哥哥宋克黄在微信平台上发布，但未提供进一步详情。
该消息引起中国社交媒体上的新一轮讨论，聚焦在其在 2014 年的悔过行为是否充分以及中共未能承认文化大革命的惨重损失，这是一场毛泽东于六十年代启动、持续十多年的暴力行动，导致超过一百万人死亡，这一话题在中国被高度屏蔽。
出生于1947年，宋宾彬是中国一位名将宋仁清的女儿。她在高一时响应了毛主委对青年学生反抗被视为资产阶级价值观的教授、教育工作者等号召。1966 年8月5日，学生们袭击了当时50岁、育有四子的校长 Bian Zhongyun，在对其进行踢打与用钉尖木棍猛击后，她失去意识并被扔在垃圾车上，最终死亡。
事件被认为是文化大革命期间教师首例死亡。数以千计的学生随后涌向天安门广场，其中包括1966年8月和9月间近1,800名北京人因红色卫兵和其他狂热分子的袭击而丧生，据党刊于 1980 年公布的数据。
事件发生两周后，超过一百万人的红卫兵云集天安门广场，在那里宋宾彬被选中给毛泽东的左袖带上佩戴一枚红臂章。这张时刻的照片传遍全国，她因此受到毛泽东表彰，成为中国的名人，年仅19岁。
但文化大革命的狂风很快转向了她的家庭，父亲宋仁清于 1968 年被中共开除党籍，母亲与她也被软禁。当毛主委于1976年去世后，这场运动才结束。
之后，宋宾彬随其家人重新崛起成为中国精英的一部分，并移居美国，在波士顿大学和麻省理工学院分别获得地质化学硕士与哲学博士学位。她改名杨宾彬，成为了美国公民，并在马萨诸塞州环境保护部工作。
2003年，她回到中国。
宋宾彬长期以来对毛主委的红卫兵时期保持沉默，这反映了那个时期的官方沉默。但她面临着作为前红卫兵领袖被要求发声的压力，随着其他同辈开始道歉。
2014年1月12日，她在旧校访问时表示忏悔，在 Bian 女士的雕像面前鞠躬，并发表了一篇千余字的演讲，“我为 Bian 校长的不幸死亡负有责任。”（Bian女士官方头衔是副校长，因其当时履行校长职务而被称为校长。）
在 Bian 女士逝世后，宋王琴的一本书《文化大革命受害者》出版，书中包括了对Bian女士死亡和宋宾彬在学校中的作用的描述。
Wang Jingyao， Bian 的丈夫，在其妻子去世后拍下了她遭受虐待的照片以及其袭击者在其公寓内悬挂的海报。其中之一威胁“砍你半”，另一则警告“拎起你的猪耳朵”。
他说：“她是坏人，因为她的所作所为。” 2014年，王先生93岁时告诉《纽约时报》，“毛主委是所有邪恶的根源。他做了那么多坏事。”
根据2012年由彭博社发布的一份家族树显示，宋宾彬生于1947年，父亲宋仁清和母亲Zhong Yuelin有八个孩子。
在2014年的道歉中，当时她大约65岁，她表示一直在期待这一刻，“未能保护学校的领导人是一生的痛苦和遗憾。”
关于她的遗属情况，包括儿子杨瑾。
新闻来源：www.nytimes.com
原文地址：Song Binbin, Poster Woman for Mao’s Bloody Upheaval, 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.
