Why were millions of urban Red Guards sent to rural areas in 1968?

In 1968, Mao Zedong ordered millions of urban Red Guards to be sent to the rural hinterlands primarily to restore order in China’s cities. By that time, the Red Guard movement had become characterized by intense factionalism, anarchy, and violence, which paralyzed urban life and caused a significant decline in industrial production.123

Mao, disillusioned by the Red Guards' inability to overcome their internal divisions, utilized the military to disperse these groups, effectively scattering their forces to bring stability to urban centers. This "rustication" program also aligned with broader ideological goals of the Cultural Revolution, which sought to reduce the "three major differences"—specifically the divide between urban and rural populations and between intellectual and manual labor—by requiring youths to "learn from the poor and lower-middle peasants". These measures were further accelerated by heightened national security concerns following the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968.1245