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.

中国的红卫兵领袖宋彬彬于9月16日去世，享年77岁。她在1966年牵涉了自己所在高中的校长遭殴打致死的事件，那是文化大革命最著名的杀人事件之一，近半个世纪后，宋彬彬为自己的行为公开道歉。

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.

她的死讯由其兄长宋克荒透过微信发出，称她在美国去世。他未提供其他细节。

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.

宋彬彬去世的消息在中国的社交媒体上再次引发了她在2014年的含泪道歉是否足够，以及中共始终未能彻底清算文革的争论。上世纪60年代，毛泽东发动了长达十年的文化大革命，这场浩劫据称导致100多万人丧生。在中国，文革仍然是一个受到严格审查的话题。

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.

作为中国人民解放军一位杰出将领的女儿，宋彬彬就读于北京师范大学附属女子中学，她和同学们响应毛的号召——他呼吁年轻人反对知识分子、教育工作者和其他所谓固守资产阶级价值观的人。

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.

1966年8月5日，学生们对校长卞仲耘进行了批斗。50岁的卞仲耘是四个孩子的母亲。学生们用脚踢她，用带钉子的木棍殴打她。昏迷后，她被扔到一辆运送垃圾的手推车上，任其等死。

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.

一个普遍的说法是，卞仲耘是文革期间第一个被打死的教师。“文化大革命”这场肆虐的暴力确立了对毛的个人崇拜，人人挥舞着《毛主席语录》。

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.

根据1980年公布的党内估计，1966年8月至9月，近1800人在红卫兵和其他狂热分子在北京各处发动的批斗活动中丧生。

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.

在卞仲耘去世两周后，逾100万红卫兵涌向天安门广场，宋彬彬被选中站在高耸的天安门城楼上，在毛泽东的左袖别上了红袖章。记录下这一幕的照片传遍了全国。因受到毛的赞许，19岁的宋彬彬在中国出了名。

宋彬彬向北京一所女子中学的校长卞仲耘的半身像致敬。卞仲耘在文革期间被学生杀害。宋彬彬承认自己对她的死负有责任。

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.

但文革风暴很快就转向了宋彬彬的家人。她的父亲宋任穷在1968年被开除出党，宋彬彬和母亲被软禁在家。1976年毛去世后，文革方才落下帷幕。

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.

宋家在中国的精英阶层中重获显赫地位，宋彬彬去了美国，1983年在波士顿大学获得了地球化学硕士学位，1989年在麻省理工学院获得了博士学位。她改名宋岩，结婚，成为美国公民，并在马萨诸塞州环保局工作。

She moved back to China in 2003.

2003年，宋彬彬回到中国生活。

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.

在相当长一段时间里，宋彬彬一直回避在红卫兵时期的经历，这也反映了官方对那段历史的沉默态度。但随着少数当年的红卫兵开始道歉，鉴于其曾经风头无两的地位，她面临着发声的压力。

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.)

2014年1月12日，宋彬彬回到母校，进行了忏悔，她在卞仲耘的雕像前鞠躬，并做了1500字的发言。据《新京报》当时的报道，她说，“我对卞校长的不幸遇难是有责任的。”（卞仲耘的正式职称是副校长，但在当时她以代理校长的身份工作，因此被称为校长。）

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.

2004年，宋彬彬的校友、后来成为芝加哥大学历史学家的王友琴出版了《文革受难者》一书，书中描述了卞仲耘的遇难情形，以及宋彬彬在北师大女附中的动乱中所扮演的角色。

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.”

在描述完卞仲耘的遇难经历后，王友琴写道，“全中国的学校变成了刑讯室、监狱，甚至杀人场。大批老师被迫害致死”

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.

宋彬彬否认她直接参与了殴打；她说，事实上，她曾试图阻止其他人这么做。但她承认，她和另一名同是红卫兵领袖的同学是最早一批张贴所谓大字报声讨教师的人。

“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.

她告诉《新京报》：“北师大女附中的文革，是从1966年6月2日我参与贴出第一张大字报开始的。”

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.

她的道歉引起了不同的反响。一些中国人对她的举动表示欢迎；也有一些人则表示，这是不够的，来得太迟，或者中国需要对文革进行真正的清算。

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.

一些评论人士强调，由于宋彬彬在红卫兵中的重要地位，她应该承担更大的责任。《纽约时报》2014年援引退休文学教授崔卫平的话说：“说自己目睹了一场谋杀，之后又说自己不知道凶手是谁，这毫无意义。”

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.”

对宋彬彬的道歉不满意的包括卞仲耘的丈夫王晶垚。在妻子死后，他用照相机拍下了伤痕累累的尸体，以及批斗者闯入他们家中张贴的大字报。一个大字报写着“砸你个稀巴烂”，另一个写着“竖起你的猪耳朵听着”。

“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.”

“因为她做的那些事，她是个坏人，”王晶垚在2014年告诉时报，当时他已经93岁了。“她和其他人都受到毛泽东的支持。毛泽东是所有罪恶的根源。他干了很多坏事。”

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.

根据彭博新闻社2012年发表的一份家谱资料，宋彬彬出生于1947年，是宋任穷和钟月琳的八个子女之一。她的父亲是中共八大元老之一，在毛死后主导了国家的经济开放工作，同时获得了财富和影响力。

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.

在1989年的六四事件中，宋任穷对中国领导人邓小平持支持态度。据彭博新闻社的报道，宋任穷的六个女儿中有三个在20世纪80年代离开中国前往美国，成为美国公民。

Ms. Song married Jin Jiansheng, who was president of a Massachusetts company. He died in 2011. Her survivors include a son, Yan Jin.

宋彬彬的丈夫金建生（音）是马萨诸塞州一家公司的总裁，已于2011年去世。她仍在世的亲人包括儿子金严（音）。

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.

道歉时已经六十多岁的宋彬彬表示，她对这个机会盼了很久。

“Failure to protect the school leaders is a lifelong pain and regret,” she said.

“没有保护好校领导，是终生的伤痛和懊悔，”她说。