Abstract
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution is the most complicated and one of the most misinterpreted events in the history of the People’s Republic of China. Attempts to understand it have not been helped by simplistic explanations that it was a two-line struggle between socialism and revisionism, or by the original Chinese claims that everything that happened was the result of Mao Zedong’s grand strategy. As was noted at the end of the last chapter consensus had broken down in almost every policy area — although one might be able to identify two polar positions for each policy area, intervening positions were also taken up by members of the leadership. Also, it is difficult to see a consistent position taken by the same group of people on each different policy issue (this was certainly true for Mao Zedong, who, on some issues, changed his mind during the course of the Cultural Revolution). This meant that certain ‘loyal Maoists’ were unceremoniously dumped for continuing to follow yesterday’s line. There appears to have been a number of different groups fighting on various issues, the period being characterised by a series of shifting alliances within the leadership.
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References
Beijing Review (BR), no. 10 (1979).
See Peking Review (PR), no. 21 (1967), pp. 6–9.
The group functioned under the jurisdiction of the Standing Committee of the Politburo and was led by Chen Boda, Jiang Qing and Kang Sheng.
See, ‘Decision of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party Concerning the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution’ (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1966), pp. 1–13.
P. Bridgham, ‘Mao’s Cultural Revolution in 1967: The Struggle to Seize Power’ in China Quarterly (CQ), no. 34 (April–June 1968) pp. 9–10.
‘Decision of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, the State Council and the Military Affairs Committee of the Central Committee and the Cultural Revolution Group of the Central Committee, Concerning the Resolute Support of the PLA for the Revolutionary Masses of the Left’ in Chinese Communist Party Documents of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, 1966–67 (Hong Kong: Union Research Institute, 1968) p. 195.
The two were Xie Fuzhi and Wang Li. Xie became chairman of the Beijing Municipal Revolutionary Committee in 1967 and a member of the Politburo in 1969 and died in 1972. Wang was a leading member of the Central Cultural Revolution Group but was dismissed from all his posts because of his alleged connections with the ‘May 16 Corps’.
‘Order of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, the State Council and the Military Affairs Committee of the Central Committee and the Cultural Revolution Group of the Central Committee Concerning the Prohibition of the Seizure of Arms, Equipment and Other Military Supplies from the PLA’ in Chinese Communist Party Documents, p. 507.
J. Gittings, ‘Stifling the Students’ in Far Eastern Economic Review (29 August 1968), pp. 377–8.
Chen had been elected to the five-person Standing Committee of the Politburo.
For a more detailed discussion of Lin’s fall see chapter 7.
In April 1973 Deng was introduced by Zhou Enlai at a reception for Cambodian military officials as a Vice-Premier of the State Council.
F. Teiwes, Politics and Purges in China: Rectification and the Decline of Party Norms (M. E. Sharpe, 1979), p. 624.
New Year’s Day editorial in People’s Daily (Renmin Ribao RMRB), Red Flag and the Liberation Army Daily (1 January 1974).
‘Carry the Struggle to Criticise Lin Biao and Confucius through to the End’, RMRB (2 February 1974).
Zhongfa no. 21, 1974, in Issues and Studies, vol. XI, no. 1(January 1975), pp. 101–5.
Kang Sheng has been posthumously denounced as the originator of many of the theories developed by the Gang of Four.
See, for example, ‘Study Well the Theory of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat’, RMRB (9 February 1975) translated in PR, no. 7, p. 4.
For a fuller discussion of this campaign see Chapter 4.
See J. Domes, ‘The “Gang of Four” — and Hua Kuo-feng: Analysis of Political Events in 1975–76’ in CQ, no. 34 (September 1977), pp. 481–3. The following points concerning the agricultural debate are based on this analysis.
New Year’s Day editorial in RMRB, Red Flag and Liberation Army Daily (1 January 1976).
‘Reversing Correct Verdicts Goes Against the Will of the People’ in RMRB (10 March 1976) translated in PR, no. 11 (1976) p. 4.
‘Beat Back the Right Deviationist Wind to Reverse Correct Verdicts, Promote Industrial Production’ in RMRB (23 March 1976) translated in PR, no. 14 (1976), p. 4. During the Cultural Revolution Deng was criticised for using the phrase ‘It does not matter whether the cat is white or black; if it catches mice it is a good cat’.
At the time Wu De was the Mayor of Beijing, a post which he later lost and eventually, at the Fifth plenum of the Eleventh CC, he ‘resigned’ all his Party and state posts.
These documents were: On the General Programme for All Work of the Whole Party and the Whole Nation; Some Problems in Speedingup Industrial Development; and Some Questions Concerning the Work of Science and Technology.
RMRB (24 and 27 February 1976).
See, for example, RMRB (30 December 1976) and Red Flag, no. 1 (1977).
Although born in Shaanxi Hua Guofeng’s political career really advanced in Chairman Mao’s home province of Hunan. Before the Cultural Revolution Hua had gained top leadership positions in Hunan province and was one of the few provincial leaders to survive the attacks of 1966–7. Despite criticism from the ultra-left he headed the Hunan Revolutionary Committee and was elected to the Ninth Central Committee in 1969. In 1971 Hua began to be engaged in work at the centre (with the staff office of the State Council) and was appointed to the special committee to look into the alleged coup by Lin Biao. In August 1973 Hua was promoted to the Politburo and in 1974 became Minister of Public Security. Despite these gains his policy pronouncements showed a divergence with those later denounced as the Gang of Four and with those of Deng Xiaoping. This middle position presumably facilitated his choice as a compromise Acting Premier following Zhou Enlai’s death in January 1976 and the Tiananmen Riots in April 1976. Following the arrest of the Gang of Four (Wang Hongwen, Zhang Chunqiao, Jiang Qing and Yao Wenyuan), Hua became both Chairman of the Party and Premier of the State Council — a concentration of power which had not occurred even while Mao was alive.
See Issues and Studies, vol. XV, no. 2 (February 1979), p. 88.
‘Practice is the Sole Criterion for Testing Truth’ in Guangming Daily (Guangming Ribao GMRB) (11 May 1978).
See PR, no. 52 (1978), pp. 6–16.
See GMRB (26 and 28 January 1979).
This had been referred to as early as April 1979. See, for example, Lishi Yanjiu no. 4, 1979 translated in Summary of World Broadcasts: the Far East (SWB FE) 6147. At the time of this speech the octogenarian Marshal Ye Jiangying was Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress and a member of the Standing Committee of the Politburo. It is thought that it was Ye who gave the command to arrest the Gang of Four. Although he was opposed to the Gang of Four he has been unwilling to see an extension of the criticisms against them to include Mao. He appears to have acted as a moderating influence on the extent to which Mao should be publicly criticised.
SWB FE/6497.
The Times (28 July 1980).
Selected further reading
B.-J. Ahn, Chinese Politics and the Cultural Revolution: Dynamics of Policy Processes (Seattle, Wash.: University of Washington Press, 1976).
R. Baum (ed.), China in Ferment: Perspectives on the Cultural Revolution (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1971).
C. Bettleheim and M. Burton, China Since Mao (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1978).
P. Bridgham, ‘Mao’s Cultural Revolution in 1967: The Struggle to Seize Power’ in China Quarterly, no. 34, pp. 6–37.
P. Bridgham, ‘Mao’s Cultural Revolution: The Struggle to Consolidate Power’ in China Quarterly, no. 41, pp. 1–25.
B. Brugger (ed.), China: The Impact of the Cultural Revolution (London: Croom Helm, 1978).
B. Brugger (ed.), China Since the ‘Gang of Four’ (London: Croom Helm, 1980).
P. Chang, ‘Mao’s last Stand?’ in Problems of Communism, vol. XXV, no. 4.
P. Chang, Radicals and Radical Ideology in China’s Cultural Revolution (New York: Columbia University Press, 1973).
J. Chen, Inside the Cultural Revolution (New York: Macmillan Co., 1975).
L. Dittmer, ‘Bases of Power in Chinese Politics: A Theory and Analysis of the Fall of the Gang of Four’ in World Politics, vol. 31, no. 1.
J. Domes, China After the Cultural Revolution (London: C. Hurst & Co., 1977).
J. Domes (ed.), Chinese Politics After Mao (Cardiff: University College Cardiff Press, 1979).
D. S. G. Goodman, ‘China: The Politics of Succession’ in The Word Today, April 1977.
T. W. Robinson, The Cultural Revolution in China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971).
J. B. Starr, ‘From the Tenth Party Congress to the Premiership of Hua Kuo-feng’ in China Quarterly, no. 67, pp. 457–88.
R. Terrill, The Future of China (After Mao) (London: André Deutsch, 1978).
Ting Wang, ‘The Succession Problem’ in Problems of Communism, vol. 22, no. 3.
B. Womack, ‘Politics and Epistemology in China Since Mao’ in China Quarterly, no. 80, pp. 768–92.
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© 1981 Tony Saich
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Saich, T. (1981). The Cultural Revolution and its aftermath. In: China: Politics and Government. China in Focus series. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-16590-2_3
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