By 1970 Mao viewed his role more as that of the supreme elder statesman than of an activist in the policy-making process. This was probably the result as much of his declining health as of his view that a stabilizing influence should be brought to bear on a divided nation. As Mao saw it, China needed both pragmatism and revolutionary enthusiasm, each, acting as a check on the other. Factional infighting would continue unabated through the mid-1970s, although an uneasy coexistence was maintained while Mao was alive.

The turning point in the decade of the Cultural Revolution was Lin Biao’s abortive coup attempt and his subsequent death in a plane crash as he fled China in September 1971. Lin’s actions prompted anxieties not only among those opposing Mao’s radical group but also within the radical group. Mao’s wife Jiang Qing opposed Lin but Chen Boda supported him. Chen Boda was arrested in 1970 and disappeared and in 1971 Lin Biao was killed when his airplane crashed in Mongolia while he was attempting to flee the country. Lin was accused of plotting the assassination or kidnapping of Mao. Lin Biao’s closest supporters were purged systematically.

In 1972 both Mao and Zhou experienced health failures; Mao had a stroke and Zhou found he had cancer. To bring stability to the country Mao and Zhou brought Deng Xiaoping back to the Beijing government from his factory manager’s job. The radical group under Mao’s wife, Jiang Qing, was still powerful enough to oppose Deng and Zhou. From the middle of 1973 to the middle of 1974 the radicals dominated the political events. But by the middle of 1974 the concern for the economic chaos led Mao to favour Deng. In the fall of 1975 however, Jiang Qing and her group were able to convince Mao Deng would not carry on Mao’s visions for the future of China and in April of 1976 Deng was removed from office.

In 1975, Zhou Enlai, speaking before the Fourth National People’s Congress, presented the ‘Four Modernizations Plan’, which emphasized an independent economic system, and the eventual modernization of agriculture, industry and science. Also in January 1975, Deng Xiaoping’s position was solidified by his election as a vice chairman of the CCP and as a member of the Political Bureau and its Standing Committee. Deng also was installed as China’s first civilian chief of PLA General Staff Department.

The year 1976 saw the deaths of the three most senior officials in the CCP and the state apparatus: Zhou Enlai in January, Zhu De in July, and Mao Zedong in September. In April of the same year, masses of demonstrators in Tiananmen Square in Beijing memorialized Zhou Enlai and criticized Mao’s closest associates, Zhou’s opponents. In June the government announced that Mao would no longer receive foreign visitors. In July an earthquake devastated the city of Tangshan in Hebei Province. These events, added to the deaths of the three Communist leaders, contributed to a popular sense that the “mandate of heaven” had been withdrawn from the ruling party. At best the nation was in a state of serious political uncertainty.

Deng Xiaoping, the logical successor as premier, received a temporary setback after Zhou’s death, when radicals launched a major counterassault against him. In April 1976 Deng was once more removed from all his public posts, and a relative political unknown, Hua Guofeng, a Political Bureau member, vice premier, and minister of public security, was named acting premier and party first vice chairman.

Even though Mao Zedong’s role in political life had been sporadic and shallow in his later years, it was crucial. Despite Mao’s alleged lack of mental acuity, his influence in the months before his death remained such that his orders to dismiss Deng and appoint Hua Guofeng were accepted immediately by the Political Bureau. The political system had polarized in the years before Mao’s death into increasingly bitter and irreconcilable factions. While Mao was alive (and playing these factions off against each other) the contending forces were held in check. His death resolved only some of the problems inherent in the succession struggle.

The radical clique most closely associated with Mao and the Cultural Revolution became vulnerable after Mao died, as Deng had been after Zhou Enlai’s demise. In October, less than a month after Mao’s death, Jiang Qing and her three principal associates -denounced as the Gang of Four- were arrested. The ‘Gang of Four’ was formed by Mao Zedong’s wife Jiang Qing (1913-1991), the Shanghai Propaganda Department official Zhang Chunqiao (1917-1991), the literary critic Yao Wenyuan (1931) and the Shanghai security guard Wang Hongwen (1935-1992). They rose to power during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) and dominated Chinese politics during the early 1970s.

After the Gang was arrested, a huge propaganda campaign was launched to discredit them. In 1980 they were tried in court. Jiang Qing and Zhang Chunqiao, seen as the leaders, received death sentences, while Yao Wenyuan and Wang Hongwen, considered the henchmen, were given lengthy prison sentences. Of the four, only Yao, who was released in 1997.

The jubilation following the incarceration of the Gang of Four and the popularity of the new ruling triumvirate (Hua Guofeng, Ye Jianying, and Li Xiannian, a temporary alliance of necessity) were succeeded by calls for the restoration to power of Deng Xiaoping and the elimination of leftist influence throughout the political system. By July 1977, at no small risk to undercutting Hua Guofeng’s legitimacy as Mao’s successor and seeming to contradict Mao’s apparent will, the Central Committee exonerated Deng Xiaoping from responsibility for the Tiananmen Square incident. Deng admitted some shortcomings in the events of 1975, and finally, at a party Central Committee session, he resumed all the posts from which he had been removed in 1976.

The post-Mao political order was given its first vote of confidence at the Eleventh National Party Congress, held August 12-18, 1977. Hua was confirmed as party chairman, and Ye Jianying, Deng Xiaoping, Li Xiannian, and Wang Dongxing were elected vice chairmen. The congress proclaimed the formal end of the Cultural Revolution, blamed it entirely on the Gang of Four, and reiterated “the fundamental task of the party in the new historical period is to build China into a modern, powerful socialist country by the end of the twentieth century.” Many contradictions still were apparent, however, in regard to the Maoist legacy and the possibility of future cultural revolutions.

The new balance of power clearly was unsatisfactory to Deng, who sought genuine party reform and, soon after the National Party Congress, took the initiative to reorganize the bureaucracy and redirect policy. His longtime protege Hu Yaobang replaced Hua supporter Wang Dongxing as head of the CCP Organization Department. Educational reforms were instituted, and Cultural Revolution-era verdicts on literature, art, and intellectuals were overturned.

Tag: The Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) - Part II