THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION
The Cultural Revolution Dawns
Jealous of his successors, Mao and his coterie launched a comeback. They were in the delicate position of needing to retain Communist Party authority while overthrowing its hierarchy. Their manoeuvre was a brilliant flanking attack which, in effect, founded a parallel powerbase, outwith government control: a de facto coup which left the government nominally intact.
The initial causus belli which launched the cultural revolution was a play. Mao was fond of Chinese theatre. In early 1960, Beijing Deputy Mayor Wu Han published a historical drama, 'Hai Rui Dismissed From Office about a virtuous official who is dismissed by a corrupt emperor. While Mao initially praised the play, his wife Jiang Qing, herself a failed actress, and her protégé, Shanghai newspaper editor Yao Wenyuan, published an article decrying the play as 'poisonous weeds', claiming that it portrayed Mao himself as the corrupt emperor. Various recriminations and denunciations followed from Jiang's clique, who formed a 'Group of Five in Charge of Cultural Revolution'.
Meantime, Mao was also active. He formed the Social Education Movement to weed out 'reactionary' and 'bourgeois' elements from the Party. Within the central Party, he also began to openly attack Liu and Deng and formed an alliance with their rival, Lin Biao. A cult of personality was deliberately created around Mao, with declarations such as:
'Chairman Mao is a genius, everything the Chairman says is greatly true; one of the Chairman's words will override the meaning of ten thousands of ours'.
From within the party hierarchy, the children of officials were put to work in support of their beloved Chairman, rooting out the families of officials who were believed to be loyal to the status quo. In this they were aided by well-established party mechanisms for denunciation and 'self-criticism' which were already widely used to fuel petty jealousies and settle scores. In 1966, the first units of Red Guards were formed, teenage volunteers summoned by Mao to defend Chinese socialism from 'evil forces'.
The Red Guards Advance
The Red Guards provided Mao with a powerful vigilante force which could be turned at a whim against whoever was out of favour. The targets for attacks were those who would naturally see through Mao's folly and machinations; the established party officials, intellectuals... and teachers, who often suffered brutal, physical attacks.
The teenagers of 1960s China became known as 'The Lost Generation'. In place of schooling, Red Guards were encouraged to travel long distances across China to places of pilgrimage associated with Mao, such as his birthplace, and especially to Beijing where they might hope to get a glimpse of their Chairman at one of the many mass parades and rallies in Tiananmen Square. The transport system was in chaos as it struggled to convey these pilgrims. Agricultural resources were diverted towards providing free meals at accommodation sites run by volunteers. In all towns and cities, crowds of frenzied youths could be seen, dressed in 'peasant like' garb of Peoples' Army cast-offs, holding aloft their Little Red Books6 in uniform postures as they yelled its slogans.
Red Guards were whipped up into a frenzy of zealotry and excess. If no intellectuals could be found to purge, they might turn on random households for carelessly discarding a copy of The Peoples' Daily showing Mao's picture, or on each other for not owning a second set of his complete works. Beatings were commonplace. Miscreants might be paraded naked through the town, made to kneel on broken glass or forced for several hours to adopt the 'jetliner' posture - kneeling and bent forward with the arms swept back. It was a time of intense suspicion and paranoia when every move was under scrutiny and positions might be reversed at any minute.
It was also a time of lawlessness and cultural destruction. The police lost all authority. Temples, mosques and churches were looted and destroyed, as were many of China's other glorious and ancient monuments and works of art. Even flowers were declared to be bourgeois. Gardens were destroyed and even grass; a typical Red Guard punishment involved pulling out lawns on one's hands and knees.
The Revolution Intensifies: "Imperialism and all reactionaries are paper tigers!"
By 1966, the Red Guards were the leading force in China. Mao was able to start purges against his political enemies, who were declared to be 'counterrevolutionaries' and 'capitalist roaders'. Liu Shaoqui was sent to a detention camp where he died of starvation. Deng Xiaping was sent to work in an engine factory. Countless officials and petty-officials were imprisoned or sent into forced labour. Many committed suicide or suffered mental breakdowns.
Then, in 1967, the heat was turned up a notch further. Lin Biao and Jiang Qing launched the 'January Storm', in which many prominent Shanghai municipal government leaders were heavily criticised and purged. Purges spread to other areas, and in Beijing rivalries began to show between competing political factions. Mao declared that the only way to avoid purge was to engage in some sort of 'political activity'.
Yet as the same time, splits developed amongst the Red Guards. Mao had created a monster which became increasingly difficult to direct or control. Fairly early on, the Guards had themselves distinguished between the 'loyalists' - children from good party families loyal to the established leadership of Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping, and 'blacks' whose families were suspected of less than perfect political histories. As purges intensified, loyalties were further divided as 'radicals' emerged, loyal to Jiang Qing. With Jiang's endorsement, the rebels started to accept members from 'bad' backgrounds. But such was the anarchist fervour that the rebels themselves split into pro-Jiang and anti-Jiang factions, some of the latter even denouncing Mao as a 'red capitalist'.
The monster had to be tamed. In 1968, Mao instituted the 'Down to the Countryside' movement. For the next decade, young intellectuals would be dispersed into rural areas to gain 're-education' by working alongside peasants. This disruption to normal life essentially neutralised the possibility of an opposition emerging as the political classes were, in effect, sent into internal exile. Over this period, many intellectuals died from malnutrition, disease or from simple over-work. The Red Guards were disbanded in 1969.
The Rise and Fall of Lin Biao
As the disruption receded, Mao consolidated his power. Previously he had been held in check by premier Zhou Enlai. But now a Party Congress7 anointed Lin Biao as Mao's chosen successor. A new Politburo8 was formed, still with Zhou in a weaker position, but packed with and led by Mao loyalists, Lin Biao, Chen Boda, and Kang Sheng, all of whom had risen during the Cultural Revolution.
However, political tensions were still present. The post of President had been abolished with Liu Shaoqi's purge. A split emerged first between Lin, who aimed to make Mao president and himself Vice-President, and Chen, who Mao suspected of wanting the presidency for himself. As Mao denounced Chen, Lin was the clear winner. But Mao became suspicious of the ambitious Lin, who repeatedly asked for further promotion. He also feared for his safety, given that Lin as Vice-President would gain supreme power after the President's death.
Lin was angered by Mao's refusal to advance him. As his power waned, he decided to act by using his military power9 to stage a putsch against Mao. However, assassination attempts against Mao failed. Members of the coup were arrested or escaped to Hong Kong. On 13 September, 1971, Lin and his family were killed when, attempting to flee to the Soviet Union, their plane crashed in Mongolia.
The End of the Revolution: Down with The Gang of Four
By now, Mao's invincibility had been dented, and he was aging physically. Under Zhou Enlai's influence, Deng Xiaping was brought back from exile. A Maoist faction, later to be named 'The Gang of Four'10 led by Jiang Qing continued their machinations. Nevertheless, as Zhou Enlai became gravely ill, Deng was appointed in charge of daily government business as Zhou's deputy. A semblance of normality was maintained. With Mao out of the picture, rumours of his death occasionally surfaced, and these would be countered by filmed publicity stunts showing a vigorous Mao swimming the Yangtze-Kiang river.
In 1976, all was overturned. Premier Zhou Enlai died of bladder cancer on 8 January. His eulogy - a very important event for Communist Party members, amounting to an official political verdict - was delivered by Deng Xiaoping. Mao demoted Deng following criticism by the Gang of Four, but did not appoint one of their members to replace Zhou, preferring the relatively unknown Hua Guofeng. In the following months, protests emerged against the Gang of Four. On 5 April, two million people gathered in Beijing's Tiananmen Square and were dispersed on the Gang's orders11.
Then, on 9 September, 1976, Mao Tse-Tung died, possibly from Motor Neurone Disease. Before dying he was said to have written a message to Hua Guofeng saying 'With you in charge, I am at ease.' Although this was thought by some to mean that the inexperienced Hua would pose no barrier to the Gang of Four, nevertheless under the influence of Deng and the military leaders, the Gang was arrested. The Cultural Revolution was at an end.
Mao's legacy: '70% good, 30% bad'
Hua denounced the Gang of Four. Deng rose increasingly to power, becoming the prominent figure in Chinese government until the early 1990s and instituting many economic reforms. Nevertheless, the Communist Party recognised the importance of stability and unity. Mao had been the leading government figure, and to denigrate him would be to admit the Party's failure. Mao remains a revered figure, entombed in prominent position on Tiananmen Square. The official verdict on him remains that he was '70% good, 30% bad' - a phrase first used to describe The Great Leap Forward which killed twenty million for no significant gain.
Debate remains over whether Mao can be held entirely responsible for the full excesses of the Cultural Revolution, stoked as it was by other members of his coterie. However, the whole aim was to deliver supreme power to Mao in the face of rivalry and opposition. In the course of this, individual lives were adversely affected across the whole of Chinese society. The upheaval also stunted China's industrial and economic growth, and the mindsets of paranoia and rigid compliance it engendered continue to infect parts of the Chinese body politic. Perhaps the greatest legacy of the Cultural Revolution is as an object lesson in the political use of mass delusion and hysteria.
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