32 “THE DISMISSAL OF HAI RUI FROM OFFICE”
Returning to Beijing in June 1965, Mao encountered disorder. The Socialist Education campaign uncovered scandalous instances of “bourgeois degeneration” in most party organizations. In at least half of them “class enemies” had seized power. Mao loyalists had been informing him of the “threatening situation” at the local levels since late 1964, and now it had come to a head. This was inevitable since every party official able to fathom the Helmsman's mood reported up the chain of command only that information he knew Mao wanted to hear. Such was the totalitarian system Mao himself had created. By an irony of fate he became its greatest victim.
The world of terrible illusions in which he lived aroused him to real actions. Even though he was past seventy, he was quite unlike Confucius, who said, “At seventy, I follow all the desires of my heart without breaking any rules.” This was not the only way in which Mao differed from the great sage. Confucius had also said, “At sixty, my ear was attuned.”1 The Chairman was unable to do this to the end of his days.
In Beijing he had a long conversation with Jiang Qing about cultural affairs. Earlier she had already convinced him of the need to unmask as “counterrevolutionary” a play by Wu Han about a courageous and noble sixteenth-century official, Hai Rui, who had dared to speak the truth to a depraved Ming dynasty emperor. Wu Han had written this play in January 1961, and it had been playing to small audiences in China ever since. In it Hai Rui addressed these words to the emperor: “In the past you did some good things, but what are you doing now? Rectify your mistakes! Let the people live in happiness. You have committed too many mistakes, yet you believe that you are always correct and therefore reject all criticism.” Jiang Qing believed that Wu Han was drawing a parallel between the cases of Hai Rui and Peng Dehuai. The purpose of his “malicious” play was to strike at the authority of the Great Helmsman. Other Chinese theatergoers, however, saw no “criminal” intent in the play and did not consider Wu Han, a loyal follower of Mao, perfidious.
Jiang Qing had early doubts about the play, but neither Mao nor anyone else supported her initially. Even Kang Sheng was skeptical of Jiang's claim. Everyone knew that Mao was fond of Hai Rui. In Hai Rui he saw himself, “an honest and upright revolutionary” who fought against the vices of the degenerate classes. In late 1961, Mao even presented Wu Han an autographed copy of the third volume of his Selected Works.2
By 1965, however, Mao had begun seeing enemies everywhere; now Jiang Qing succeeded in arousing his suspicions about Wu Han. The scholar and playwright was also the deputy mayor of Beijing and a direct subordinate of Peng Zhen. Peng, in turn, was one of the closest associates of Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping. In the Chairman's fevered brain, all four of them—Wu Han, Peng Zhen, Liu Shaoqi, and Deng Xiaoping—were united in a single “malevolent band.”
At the very end of December 1964, Mao had vented his discontent with Liu and Deng at a Politburo Work Conference. His emotional outburst was occasioned by the fact that on the eve of the conference Deng had suggested Mao not take part in it. There was nothing unusual about this suggestion, since at the time Mao was feeling indisposed and Deng felt sorry for him. But Mao had shown up in the conference hall anyway and had spoken, as always, about class struggle. He had even said that at present the main contradiction in the countryside was the one between those in authority taking the capitalist road on one hand, and the broad masses on the other. Liu attempted to oppose this view because he had long since feared that the struggle against revisionism was exceeding all limits and that he himself might be targeted. He sensed that the Leader was turning against him. Mao became so incensed that he decided to make a scene. In a few days he arrived at the meeting with the texts of the Constitution of the PRC and of the Party Statutes and shouted at his comrades that he had here two books and they both granted him the right to express himself, one as a citizen and the other as a party member. But, according to Mao, “one of you” (Deng Xiaoping) did not allow him into this meeting, and the other (Liu Shaoqi) did not let him speak.3
Soon after this he recalled Jiang Qing's comment about Wu Han. Finally, everything fell into place. Wu Han wrote a play on orders from Peng Zhen, Liu Shaoqi, and Deng Xiaoping, who were dreaming of crushing me! he must have thought. Several years later he would tell Edgar Snow that the decision to replace Liu was made in January 1965, because Liu “had strenuously opposed” the ongoing Socialist Education campaign aimed at the removal of “those in the Party in authority” who were “taking the capitalist road.” At this time, based on what Mao had told him, Snow wrote, “a great deal of power—over propaganda work within the provincial and local party committees, and especially within the Peking [Beijing] Municipal Party Committee—had been out of his control.” Therefore, he decided “there was need for more personality cult, in order to stimulate the masses to dismantle the anti-Mao Party bureaucracy.”4
In February 1965 Mao sent Jiang Qing to Shanghai “to arrange for the publication of an article criticizing the play The Dismissal of Hai Rui from Office.”5 His faithful wife carried out her assignment with help from local party journalist Yao Wenyuan. The article went through eleven drafts that Jiang Qing and the Shanghai leftist Zhang Chunqiao had secretly delivered to Mao in Beijing by special courier.6 Only toward the end of the summer did he find “it mostly to his liking.” He delivered the final text to Jiang Qing and suggested that other leading figures on the Central Committee read it, but his wife said, “It's better to publish the article as is. In my opinion, it's just as well if Comrades Zhou Enlai and Kang Sheng are not given a chance to read it.” Jiang was afraid that if Zhou and Kang got hold of the article then Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping would also want to read it.7 They decided to proceed as Jiang suggested. The article, which appeared on November 10, 1965, in the Shanghai newspaper Wenhui bao (Literary reports), initiated a new mass movement that was soon dubbed the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.
Mao had conceived the idea of a radical revolution in the sphere of culture in December 1963 while reading a report by Jiang Qing's confederate the Shanghai leader Ke Qingshi, who painted a dire picture of the cultural situation. Mao drafted a resolution asserting that “scoundrels” in the cultural realm were propagating feudal and bourgeois rather than socialist values.8 He had earlier expressed his dismay that creative intellectuals, including party members, were avoiding class struggle. Not until early July 1964, however, did he demand that a special Five-Member Group be organized in the Central Committee to deal with cultural revolutionary affairs.9 Wishing to avoid conflict with the Chairman, the “moderates” backed this idea, and the group was headed by Peng Zhen, a supporter of Liu Shaoqi; Kang Sheng represented the hard-line Maoists. However, Mao was dissatisfied with the group. Peng and his associates tried to limit party interference in the sphere of culture by organizing academic discussions, but the Chairman was convinced that a class purge of the creative circles was imperative.
All summer Mao had kept the draft article about Wu Han a secret. He did not consider publishing the article in Beijing because he did not yet want to precipitate an open conflict. He intended to strike Wu, Peng Zhen, and their behind-the-scenes supporters Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping on the sly. Liu and Deng seemed oblivious to the Great Helmsman's mood and may have considered themselves invulnerable. In late September, at the new meeting of the cultural affairs group, Peng Zhen declared, “In truth, all persons are equal, regardless of whether they are on the party Central Committee or [are] the Chairman.”10 Mao could not forgive this. He soon signaled Yao Wenyuan to publish the article. Yao condemned Wu Han's drama as a weapon in the struggle of the bourgeoisie against the dictatorship of the proletariat and the socialist revolution. In Mao's China such an accusation was the equivalent of a death sentence.
In November 1965, two days after publication of the article, Mao set out for Shanghai, the leftist fiefdom, stopping in Tianjin, Jinan, Xuzhou, Bengfu (Anhui province), and Nanjing. He was very dissatisfied with the local leaders whom he met en route. Everyone enthused over the “enormous successes” achieved during the Socialist Education movement. No one was gripped by the struggle against revisionism or worried about the danger of capitalist restoration.
Only in Shanghai was the air saturated with radicalism. Yet even there he could not slacken his efforts. The news from Beijing was alarming. Peng Zhen's first response to the article in Literary Reports was to prohibit its republication in the central press and reframe the discussion of the play as an academic matter. Wu Han replied to the Shanghai journalist's critique by pointing out a number of factual inaccuracies in the Literary Reports article. “I am not afraid of Yao Wenyuan's criticism,” Wu Han wrote, “but it seems to me that pseudo-criticism of this sort, which is decked out with false labels, is an improper form of behavior. Who [after this] will be bold enough to write anything? Who will dare to study history?”11
After reading this response, Mao could not fall asleep. Peng Zhen and the Beijing Municipal Committee, which controlled the central press, refused to surrender. The struggle was intensifying. “I could do nothing in Peking [Beijing],” Mao later recalled.12 Peng Zhen and his supporters failed to understand who was actually behind Yao Wenyuan. But Zhou Enlai intervened in the matter, informing Peng that Mao intended to publish Yao's work as a separate brochure if Beijing's mass media continued to ignore it.13 Only then, on November 29, did People's Daily reprint the malicious libel, adding its own commentary, which, in the spirit of Peng Zhen, referred to it as part of a polemic among scholars.
Now Mao celebrated. He composed heroic verses about a bird that yearns for the storm.
念奴娇·鸟儿问答
Unfurling his wings Kun Pengn77
鲲鹏展翅，
traverses ninety thousand li,n78
九万里，
lets loose a whirlwind everywhere he goes.
翻动扶摇羊角。
Gripping Heaven in his talons
背负青天朝下看，
the giant bird surveys the world below.
都是人间城郭。
The roar of cannons shakes the earth.
炮火连天，
Swirling crows blacken the sky.
弹痕遍地，
A frightened sparrow cowers in a bush,
吓倒蓬间雀。
“A holocaust! What's going on?” she cries.
怎么得了，
“I really must fly off.”
哎呀我要飞跃。
“And may I ask, where to?”
借问君去何方，
“To the Fairyland above
雀儿答道：有仙山琼阁。
where three drew up a pact last fall.n79
不见前年秋月朗，订了三家条约。
Besides, there's much to eat,
还有吃的，
Potatoes roasted with a side of beef.”n80
土豆烧熟了，再加牛肉。
“You've farted quite enough you clown,
不须放屁！
do you not know the world is turning upside down?”14
试看天地翻覆。
Indeed, in the world that Mao inhabited, heaven and earth had really changed places. He desired to turn the whole country upside down.
His mood uplifted, Mao set out from Shanghai for Hangzhou, where, on the banks of placid Xili Lake, he could finally relax. Now everything was going his way. After ten days, however, he took to the road again, unable to sit still. He thirsted for combat. In Shanghai he held another meeting of the Politburo Standing Committee, then returned to Hangzhou, where Chen Boda, Kang Sheng, and other close confidants awaited him. Then he traveled to Lushan, Canton, and Nanning before returning to Hangzhou after New Year. In early February he left for Wuhan via Changsha.15
There, in the Donghu Guest House on the shore of East Lake in Wuhan, he received four members of the Five-Member Cultural Revolution Group: Peng Zhen, Kang Sheng, Lu Dingyi, head of the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee, and Wu Lengxi, director of the Xinhua News Agency and the editor in chief of People's Daily, who brought him their “Outline Report Concerning the Current Academic Discussion.” One of the participants described the meeting:
Mao asked Peng Zhen a question, “Is Wu Han really an anti-party and anti-socialist [element]?” But before Peng Zhen could reply, Kang Sheng jumped in, saying that Wu Han's play was an “anti-party, anti-socialist venomous weed.” No one dared contradict him. “Of course, if anyone has a contrary point of view, they should express it,” Mao said in the silence that followed…… Finally, Peng Zhen spoke. He wanted to defend the document that he had brought with him.16
He said, “I think that we must proceed from the Chairman's instructions to let one hundred schools contend and one hundred flowers bloom when it comes to discussing the academic issues raised in the play.” Lu Dingyi supported Peng Zhen. Mao summed up: “You people work it out. I don't need to see it.”17
Neither Peng nor Lu nor Wu, believing that Mao approved their theses, was aware this was a trap. Right after their conversation with the Chairman, with light hearts they made their way to the antiquarian bookshops for which Wuchang and Hankou were famous.18 Several days later the Central Committee adopted and disseminated the theses classified “top secret.”
Now Mao, again seized by a passion for combat, sprang into action. In mid-May, piqued at Peng Zhen, he approved a “Summary of the Army Forum on Literature and Art Work” prepared by Jiang Qing, based on a February PLA conference that Lin Biao had sanctioned.19 Unlike the theses in Peng Zhen's report, this document spoke of the “anti-party, anti-socialist black line” opposed to Mao Zedong Thought, propagated by literature and art officials since the founding of the PRC. “Such theories as ‘Write the Truth' are characteristic of this line,” the “Summary” emphasized. It called for “resolutely carrying out a great socialist revolution on the cultural front to liquidate this black line completely.”20
In mid-March, Mao held an enlarged meeting of the Politburo Standing Committee to which he invited Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, and provincial, autonomous region, and province-level municipal first party secretaries. Some Central Committee members also attended. Many were shocked by what they heard. Not only did Mao attack Peng Zhen, Wu Han, and Wu Lengxi for disseminating bourgeois culture, but he also called for unleashing class struggle in all of the universities, high schools, and primary schools throughout the whole country. “Let the students …… make a ruckus. We don't need blind faith or restraint. We need a new intelligentsia, new points of view, a new creative approach. What we need, then, is for the students to overthrow the professors.”21
A week later, in Hangzhou, Mao Zedong told his closest collaborators, including Jiang Qing and Kang Sheng, that the Beijing Municipal Committee and the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee were defending bad people and not supporting the leftists. “The situation in the Beijing Municipal Committee is well-described in the proverb, ‘A needle can't be stuck into it nor a drop of water permeate it,'?” he said. “It needs to be dissolved. As for the Propaganda Department, it is the ‘Palace of the King of Hell.' We need to overthrow the King of Hell and set the little devils free.” Again he branded Wu Han “anti-party and anti-socialist.” He also criticized Deng Tuo, the former editor in chief of People's Daily, and Liao Mosha, the former head of the United Front Work Department of the Beijing Municipal Committee, for publishing satirical feuilletons in the capital press, many of which, incidentally, were coauthored with Wu Han.22
Pressured by Mao, the Central Committee circulated Jiang Qing's “Summary.” Six days later the Chairman convened an enlarged plenum of the Standing Committee of the Politburo in Hangzhou at which he demanded that Peng Zhen's report be repudiated and the Five-Member Cultural Revolution Group be disbanded, to be replaced by a new group attached to the Politburo Standing Committee.23 Wang Renzhong, the first secretary of the Hubei Party Committee, who participated in the meeting, wrote down the Chairman's angry words in his diary: “Revisionism has surfaced not only in the cultural sphere, but also in the party, the government, and the army. Revisionism is particularly rife in the party and the army.”24
Mao had no intention of returning to Beijing now, so he asked Liu Shaoqi of all people to convene an enlarged plenum of the Politburo in Zhongnanhai to implement these decisions. “The west wind [from the ‘revisionist' Soviet Union] is blowing fallen leaves into Chang'an [the capital of ancient China, in the given situation a reference to Beijing],” he said to his associates. “If we don't sweep them up, the dust will not disappear by itself.”25 Trying to protect himself, Liu betrayed Peng; in May his loyal associate was removed from all his posts and accused of disseminating the “bourgeois” slogan of “Everybody is equal before the truth.” In late April Peng was placed under house arrest.26
Lu Dingyi was simultaneously purged, not only because he had supported Peng Zhen in Wuhan during the discussion of the April theses. In early 1966, Ye Qun, Lin Biao's wife, discovered that Lu's spouse, Yan Weibing, whom she had long considered a “comrade in arms,” actually hated her with a passion. Whether this hatred derived from envy or some other reason is unknown. (Later Lu Dingyi would assert that his wife suffered from schizophrenia.) Beginning in 1960, right after “Comrade Ye” became the head of her husband's office in the Ministry of Defense, “Comrade Yan” began to inundate her and other members of Lin Biao's family with anonymous letters. Most asserted that Ye Qun had always been dissolute and had repeatedly cuckolded Lin Biao. In letters to Lin Biao's daughter Doudou, Yan Weibing asserted that Ye Qun was not her biological mother.
Infuriated, Ye Qun and Lin Biao demanded that the responsible authorities punish the slanderer and handed over several dozen of these anonymous letters to the Ministry of Public Security, which initiated a criminal case against Lu Dingyi's wife. On April 28, 1966, she was arrested on charges of “counter-revolutionary activity.” After several days the unfortunate Lu, like Peng Zhen, was put under house arrest.27
At Mao's insistence they were lumped together in a single “anti-party” group along with Luo Ruiqing, the chief of the General Staff, and Yang Shangkun, head of the General Affairs Department of the Central Committee, who had been fired earlier for entirely unrelated reasons.28 Aggregating them was intended to demonstrate that the unfolding Cultural Revolution was aimed not only at bureaucrats in the fields of culture and propaganda, but also against other “representatives of the bourgeoisie who had infiltrated the party, the government, and the army,” in other words, against everyone who was prepared “to seize power at the first convenient opportunity and transform the dictatorship of the proletariat into a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.”
On May 16, at the enlarged Politburo meeting, Lin Biao grilled Lu Dingyi: “You and your wife conspired for a long time and slandered Comrade Ye Qun and my whole family, inundating us with anonymous letters. What were you trying to accomplish Speak!”
Everyone present turned toward Lu. Before the session had begun, each of them had found on the table in front of them a sheet of paper written in Lin's hand: “I certify that (1) when she and I got married, Ye Qun was a pure virgin, and she has remained faithful ever since; (2) Ye Qun and Wang Shiwei [a writer executed in Yan'an] had never been lovers; (3) Laohu [a son of Lin Biao] and Doudou are Ye Qun's and my own flesh and blood; and (4) Yan Weibing's counterrevolutionary letters contain nothing but rumors. Lin Biao, May 14, 1966.”29
The terrified Lu Dingyi hastened to disown his once greatly beloved wife: “Yan Weibing [indeed] wrote anonymous letters, but I knew [nothing of this]. She did not discuss them with me, did not give them to me to read, and I suspected nothing.”
“You are lying,” Lin Biao exploded, banging his fist on the table. “How could you not know what your wife was up to?”
“Is it really so unusual for husbands not to know what their wives are up to?” Lu Dingyi, perplexed, finally blurted out, barely conscious of what he was saying.
Everyone sat rigidly, but Lin Biao lost his head entirely. “I will shoot you!” he roared. Following this Kang Sheng pronounced the verdict “Lu Dingyi is a spy.”30
Kang also accused Peng Zhen, the main figure among the “four traitors,” of espionage, asserting that Peng had maintained secret ties with Chiang Kai-shek's agents throughout the entire existence of the PRC. He also listed Peng Zhen's father-in-law as “a big traitor.”31
On May 16, the same enlarged meeting of the Politburo, acting in the name of the Central Committee, adopted the text of a special communiqué to party organizations throughout the country announcing the disbanding of the Group of Five and the establishment of a new Cultural Revolution Group directly under the Standing Committee of the Politburo. This communiqué for the first time called upon the entire party to “hold high the great banner of the proletarian cultural revolution.”
A few paragraphs of this communiqué, including that on the establishment of a new Cultural Revolution Group directly under the Standing Committee of the Politburo, were written by Mao himself. The most important was the following:
Those representatives of the bourgeoisie who have sneaked into the Party, the government, the army and various cultural circles are a bunch of counter-revolutionary revisionists. Once conditions are ripe, they will seize political power and turn the dictatorship of the proletariat into a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. Some of them we have already seen through, others we have not. Some are still trusted by us and are being trained as our successors, persons like Khrushchev, for example, who are still nestling beside us. Party committees at all levels must pay full attention to this matter.32
This communiqué invited popular involvement in the Cultural Revolution, its distinguishing characteristic. Heretofore all party purges had occurred behind tightly closed doors.33 Now the Chairman had granted the people the right to judge “revisionist party members,” including “big party tyrants.” Yet no one knew just whom the Great Helmsman had in mind when talking about persons like Khrushchev who “are being trained as our successors” and “who are still nestling beside us.”
Everyone knew that Mao's heir was Liu Shaoqi, but no one imagined him to be a traitor, except, perhaps, a few persons from the Chairman's inner circle. Kang Sheng recalled: “On May 16, 1966, Chairman Mao stressed: revisionists, reactionaries, and traitors are hiding among us and enjoying our friends' trust. At that time, many cadres did not understand what Chairman Mao really meant, thinking that the allusion was to Luo [Ruiqing] and Peng [Zhen]. But in fact, Peng Zhen had been exposed. No one dared to think of who were traitors among us.”34 “I,” Kang Sheng added, “did not sense [either] that the reference was to Liu Shaoqi, but had only a very superficial understanding of this important instruction from Chairman Mao.”35 Zhang Chunqiao, the Shanghai leftist, said the same: “When the movement began, quite a few people had a very poor understanding of—and responded very ineffectively to—the Chairman's words, in particular the passage about ‘persons like Khrushchev, for example, who are still nestling beside us.' At that time, I did not really understand this passage. I could only think of Peng Zhen and did not fully anticipate Liu Shaoqi.”36
Mao considered his thesis about “China's Khrushchev” the main point of the communiqué and quickly informed Kang Sheng and Chen Boda. He wanted his communiqué to “explode” not only the party but Chinese society as a whole.
Kang Sheng, enlightened by Mao, later explained:
The Great Cultural Revolution originated from the idea that classes and class struggle still exist in the socialist system. This idea is both theoretical and empirical. Experiences have shown that even in the Soviet Union—the homeland of Lenin—the Bolshevik party adopted revisionism. Our experiences over the past 20 years in building a proletarian dictatorship, and especially the recent incidents in Eastern Europe where bourgeois liberalism and capitalism were restored, also pose the question of how to conduct a revolution in the context of the proletarian dictatorship and under socialist conditions. To solve the problem, Chairman Mao himself initiated the Great Cultural Revolution in China.
According to Kang Sheng, the Great Helmsman initially proposed a three-year plan for the Cultural Revolution. The task of the first year (June 1966–June 1967) was “mobilization of the people,” that of the second year (June 1967–June 1968) was “to gain significant victories,” and that of the last year (until June 1969) was “to conclude the Revolution.” “As for a great revolution like this,” the faithful adherent of Mao claimed, “three years is not a long period of time.”37
At a Politburo meeting on May 18, 1966, Lin Biao delivered a major report on the Cultural Revolution. For the first time he implied criticism of Liu Shaoqi, “who has never publicized the thoughts of Mao Zedong.”38 Kang Sheng raised the question of changing the term “Mao Zedong Thought” to “Mao Zedongism.” However, Mao again rejected this change.
The country plunged into chaos, yet Mao was unconcerned. On the contrary, he himself stirred the pot. Apparently the aging Leader was energized by directing the mass movement. He staked everything on this game, feeling that he was surrounded by enemies. In order to crush the “conspirators” he again turned to the people. This time he issued the call to the inexperienced youth—students in colleges and technical institutes as well as middle schools—who were fanatically devoted to him. In mid-March 1966, he had already concluded that students should “overthrow their professors.” Now, after “unmasking” Peng Zhen and other intraparty capitalist roaders, he clearly sensed that the enthusiasm of the youthful students was higher than ever before. All he had to do was give the signal and a revolutionary conflagration would envelop the educational institutions. He received daily reports from the omniscient public security organs, the Shanghai branch of the Central Cultural Revolution Group, headed by Zhang Chunqiao, and from student activists. One student who, incidentally, was the son of a cadre, wrote: “Who could have supposed that such old party stalwarts such as Peng Zhen and Luo Ruiqing, were actually dangerous persons? Now I feel that we can trust only Chairman Mao, only the Central Committee (I am talking about the Party), we must suspect everyone and everybody, and if someone fails to carry out Chairman Mao's directives, that person must be attacked.”39 This “cannon fodder” would become his new guard. Not a single bureaucrat “taking the capitalist road” could possibly withstand their powerful pressure.
For a long time he had been pondering the need to draw young people more deeply into “a genuine socialist revolution.” He considered “class struggle” the main focus and most of the subjects taught in higher educational institutions “harmful.” Therefore, the number of classroom hours devoted to lectures should be sharply curtailed and instead of having students “listen to all kinds of rubbish,” they should spend their time actively participating in “class battles.” “The present method [of education] cripples talent, cripples the youth,” he asserted indignantly. “I do not approve of this. A stop must be put to reading so many books!” He also disliked the system of academic exams. “The current method of conducting exams [treats students] like the enemy,” he said, referring to the method of administering tests according to the rule “If I can't do it, you can write, and I will copy it from you. There's nothing terrible in that.” Some exams, he believed, should be done away with entirely. “The current system of education, of programs, methodology, methods of administering exams all need to be changed, because they cripple people,” he summed up at a meeting more than two years before the Cultural Revolution.40
He also broached this theme in a letter to Lin Biao dated May 7, 1966, nine days before the Politburo's communiqué announcing the beginning of the Cultural Revolution.41 In sum, purging educational institutions of the “capitalist roaders” and mobilizing youth to take part in “class struggle” became one of the main tasks of the newly organized Central Cultural Revolution Group. As its head, Mao appointed Chen Boda, with Jiang Qing as a deputy. Kang Sheng was an adviser to the group.
Kang dispatched his wife to Peking University, where one of her acquaintances, Nie Yuanzi, served as secretary to the party committee of the Department of Philosophy. Kang's wife incited Nie to mobilize several students to criticize the Municipal Party Committee and the party leadership of Beida, as Chinese habitually referred to Peking University. The forty-five-year-old Nie jumped at the chance and on May 25, with six students, she posted a dazibao (big character poster) on the dining room wall. She accused several leaders of the University Work Department of the Beijing Municipal Committee as well as the rector of Beida, who was also the secretary of the Beida party committee, of “carrying out a revisionist line that was aimed against the Central Committee and Mao Zedong Thought.”42 In terms of the prevailing party norms, this was an insurrection. But Nie and her students, of course, had nothing to fear; they were backed by the Cultural Revolution Group.
As soon as he received the text of the dazibao Kang Sheng immediately printed and sent it to Mao, who was still in Hangzhou. Mao immediately praised this calumny as “the first Marxist-Leninist dazibao,” ordering Kang Sheng and Chen Boda to disseminate it via the mass media. He wrote to them: “To Comrades Kang Sheng and Boda! It is very important that this text be broadcast in its entirety by the Xinhua News Agency and published in all the nation's newspapers. Now the smashing of the reactionary stronghold that is Peking University can begin. Mao Zedong. June 1.”43 A couple of hours later, he phoned both of his confederates in Beijing to add that the dazibao was a manifesto of the Beijing Commune of the 1960s and was “even more significant than the Paris Commune.”44 By then Chen had already dispatched a so-called work team to the editorial offices of People's Daily to take over the newspaper. Mao had long expressed dissatisfaction with this paper, saying that no one should read it because it was under the influence of Liu Shaoqi, Deng Xiaoping, and Peng Zhen.45 Now, finally, it was in the hands of orthodox Maoists who also began to exercise control over the Xinhua News Agency. So Chen had no problem implementing the Leader's instructions.46
Liu, Deng, and many other Politburo leaders were nonplussed. In the Chairman's absence, they simply did not know what to do. Their consternation was increased by the fact that upon Mao's demand the Beijing garrison had been bolstered with two more divisions from the Ministry of Public Security that Lin Biao had ordered not to confront the revolutionary students.47 The armed forces wholly supported the Chairman, and the leftist youth had nothing to fear.
Meanwhile, marking time, Liu and Deng slowly reorganized the Beijing Municipal Committee and replaced the rector of Beida. These actions immediately echoed throughout the whole country. Students at many institutions of higher education followed Nie Yuanzi's example by attacking their own rectors and party committees. The universities were seized by an epidemic of dazibao and students stopped attending class.
Regaining a grip on themselves, on June 9, Liu and Deng along with Zhou, Chen Boda, Kang Sheng, and Tao Zhu, the new head of the CC Propaganda Department, left for Hangzhou to persuade Mao to return to Beijing. But Mao refused. Then they sought his permission to send party work teams to all universities throughout the country to “reestablish order,”48 a suggestion that Chen Boda, who was taking part in the conversation, opposed. Mao was noncommittal. He behaved exactly as he had in his meeting with Peng Zhen in Wuhan. “[T]hey may be sent, they may not be sent. But they should not be dispatched hastily,” he asserted inscrutably.49 As before, he simply wanted to provide his “enemies” an opportunity to emerge in the open. He acted according to the old principle “Let everything repulsive crawl completely out since if they come out only half-way, they can hide themselves again.”50 It is amazing that such experienced politicians as Liu and Deng did not see through this.
Perplexed, they returned to Beijing, where they immediately took two contradictory decisions: on one side, they “temporarily, for six months” terminated study at all schools and universities throughout the country, canceling academic exams, and on the other, they acknowledged as correct the dispatch of work teams to all the universities to “restore order.” “The CC considers that the measures adopted by the work team at Peking University with regard to the disturbances are correct and timely,” they asserted. “The same measures adopted at Beida may be applied in any organization where similar occurrences appear.”51 Soon more than ten thousand persons were included in work teams in Beijing and other districts throughout China.52
They could not have committed a greater mistake. This is precisely what Mao Zedong needed in order to accuse his “enemies” of “suppressing” the masses. He understood that no sooner would the work teams appear on campuses than the rabble-rousing leftists would stage provocations, after which clashes between the two sides would develop into bloody encounters. Anticipating this, from his lofty heights he observed the events unfolding below. “A single dazibao at Peking University ignited the conflagration of the Cultural Revolution!” he exulted.53
In the middle of June he left Hangzhou for his ancestral home, Shaoshan, but he spent only eleven days there. By the end of the month he was already back in Wuhan, where he again lodged at the Donghu Guest House on the shore of East Lake. It was there amid the peace and quiet, under the shade of the cherry trees, enjoying the cool light breeze, that he finally decided the time had come to strike a decisive blow against the “black gang of capitalist roaders who were ensconced in the leadership of the communist party.” On July 8 he revealed his rebellious thoughts in a letter to his wife in which he welcomed “chaos”:
Complete disorder under Heaven will lead to universal order. This repeats itself every seven or eight years. All sorts of vermin will crawl out into the open. They cannot help doing this, because it is determined by their class nature…… Our task now in the whole party and the whole country is to basically overthrow the rightists (it is impossible to do it completely). After seven or eight years we will again start a movement to clean out the vermin. It will be necessary to clean them out many times.54
He sent this letter to Jiang Qing in Beijing and then wanted once more to surprise the Chinese people and indeed the whole world. In his seventy-second year he decided to take one of his periodic swims in the Yangzi River.
He entered its waters on July 16. Of course, he did not try to swim across the great river, but as he had done before he swam with its mighty current, which carried him a distance of some nine miles. The whole “swim” took just one hour and five minutes. But it made millions of Chinese immeasurably happy. The Xinhua News Agency reported: “On July 16, 1966, the Great Leader of the Chinese people Chairman Mao Zedong with a favoring wind rippling the waves took a swim in the Yangzi River. In an hour and five minutes he swam about fifteen kilometers…… The joyful news …… quickly flew all over Wuhan. The whole city was overjoyed, and the news passed from mouth to mouth. The people said, ‘Our Beloved Leader Chairman Mao Zedong is so healthy. This is the greatest happiness for the entire Chinese people. This is the greatest happiness for the revolutionary peoples of the whole world.'?”
On the day Mao chose to swim
a forest of colorful flags lined the banks of the Yangzi, large posters with slogans were hung, exultant crowds of people milled around, loudspeakers broadcast the majestic strains of The East Is Red, singing the praises of our Beloved Leader Chairman Mao Zedong…… Thunderous joyful exclamations and sirens merged into a single sound. Chairman Mao Zedong, looking healthy and radiant, stood on the deck of the motor-launch…… On the river one could see red flags held aloft, and enormous banners bearing quotations from the works of Chairman Mao, “Unity, Intensity, Seriousness, and Liveliness,” “The imperialists condescend toward us; we must take this very seriously,” “Filled with resolve, we fear no sacrifice, we shall overcome all difficulties to achieve victory.” …… Chairman Mao Zedong waved his hand at the enthusiastic masses …… [and] responding to their reception he said loudly, “Hello, comrades! Hooray, comrades!” A detachment of more than two hundred young swimmers, primary school pupils, especially drew Chairman Mao's attention. These Pioneers who were eight to fourteen years old [were swimming and holding] in their hands signs saying “Learning is good, every day we make progress!” and they sang a song, “We are the communist successor generation,” demonstrating the revolutionary enthusiasm of the Pioneers of the era of Mao Zedong…… The cutter approached the great Wuchang dike. Chairman Mao Zedong entered the water and swam. It was precisely eleven o'clock in the morning. During the summer the currents of the Yangzi are swifter. Chairman Mao swam first using one stroke and then another. He swam on his side, then on his back…… When the hands of the clock showed that one hour and five minutes had passed …… Chairman Mao Zedong climbed on board; he was hale and hearty, and showed no trace of fatigue.55
News of Mao's triumphal feat also astonished many persons abroad. But not everyone believed the propaganda that the seventy-two-year-old Mao had covered a distance of nine miles in a little over an hour. No one had publicized the fact that Mao had simply been carried along by the current.
Professional swimmers made particular sport of the leader of the CCP. The president of the International Swimming Association (FINA), William Berge Phillips, even wrote Mao Zedong a letter inviting him to take part in two competitions in Canada. “We have been told that on July 16, you swam 9 miles in the brilliant time of one hour and five minutes,” he wrote sarcastically. “This would give you the opportunity to take part in these two competitions since the record for swimming ten miles, established last year in a traditional competition in Quebec by one of the fastest swimmers in the world, Herman Willemse (Germany)n81 was 4 hours and 35 minutes.” The president further noted that in February 1966 Giulio Travaglio (Italy) established a new record on Lake El Quillén in Argentina, but even his time of 3 hours and 56 minutes was not as impressive as the result achieved by the Chairman. The time attributed to Mao indicates that on average he swam 100 yards in 24.6 seconds, whereas even today no one has yet succeeded in swimming that distance any faster than in 45.6 seconds. “Perhaps Mao Zedong would like to represent Red China at the next Olympic Games before turning professional,” the president wrote tongue-in-cheek. “But if he would like to earn some easy money, I suggest that he take part in the professional swimmers' competitions this summer and give some swimming lessons to Willemse, Travaglio, and others who obviously cannot hold a candle to him.”56
On July 18, Mao returned to Beijing and immediately showed Liu and Deng who was boss. When he returned, he temporarily settled into the former diplomatic residence Diaoyutai (Fishing pavilion) on the western edge of the city. He deliberately refused to live in Zhongnanhai, where Deng and Liu dwelled. Liu immediately rushed over, but Mao did not want to receive him. “The Chairman is resting,” Mao's secretary said to the dumbfounded Liu. In reality, Mao was talking behind closed doors to Kang Sheng and Chen Boda, who, of course, used the opportunity to depict Liu's and Deng's actions in the darkest hues. Not until the following evening was Liu able to see Mao. For Liu the meeting was rather unpleasant. Mao came down hard, asserting that his “work teams were completely unsuitable, that the former [Beijing] Municipal Committee was rotten, that the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee was rotten, that the Ministry of Higher Education likewise was rotten, and that People's Daily was good for nothing.” Liu was like an ant in a frying pan. Meanwhile, Mao pressed on, skillfully playing the role of the Great Leader whose hopes had been deceived. In eight days he convened seven conferences in which he demanded that the work teams, which “are actually acting like a brake and helping the counterrevolution,” be recalled.57 “Who suppressed student movements?” he raged. “Only the northern warlords did…… We must not restrict the masses…… Those who suppress the student movement will come to no good end!”58
Under pressure from the incensed Chairman, who accused the Politburo leadership of sabotaging the Great Cultural Revolution, Liu and Deng, with the help of Zhou Enlai and the new leaders of the Beijing Municipal Committee, convened a large-scale meeting of activists from student organizations on July 29, in the Great Hall of the People on Tiananmen Square. More than ten thousand persons were present. Liu and Deng had to try to justify their actions, which they did rather awkwardly. Liu was particularly pitiful; he acknowledged that “I …… honestly …… don't know …… how to carry out the proletarian ‘Cultural Revolution.' ”59 There was dead silence in the hall. Deng Xiaoping's daughter, who was present, began to sob.
“The childish babble” of his “enemy,” however, only inflamed Mao, who now smelled the scent of blood. While Liu was speaking, Mao stayed behind the scenes out of sight. He was also hiding while listening to Deng and to the loyal Zhou. Only when everyone had finished did he part the curtain and to everyone's surprise step to the podium. The crowd let out an ecstatic roar, “Long Live Chairman Mao! Long Live Chairman Mao!” He walked back and forth along the stage, waving his arm in greeting.60
A great performer was giving a premier performance. The disgraced Deng and Liu had no choice but to take part in the spectacle, applauding their tormentor with all their strength.
1 Confucius, The Analects of Confucius, 6.
2 See MacFarquhar, The Origins of the Cultural Revolution, vol. 3, 252–56, 443–47.
3 See Borisov and Titarenko, Vystupleniia Mao Tsze-duna, ranee ne publikovavshiesia v kitaiskoi pechati (Mao Zedong's Speeches Previously Unpublished in the Chinese Press), series 4, 183–86, 192–93, 206; Bo, Ruogan zhongda juece yu shijian de huigu (Recollections of Several Important Political Decisions and Their Implementation), vol. 2, 1128–31; Pang and Jin, Mao Zedong zhuan (1949–1976) (Biography of Mao Zedong [1949–1976]), vol. 2, 1366–75; Li, The Private Life of Chairman Mao, 416–17.
4 Snow, The Long Revolution, 17, 67, 169, 170.
5 O. Borisov [O. B. Rakhmanin] and M. Titarenko, eds., Vystupleniia Mao Tsze-duna, ranee ne publikovavshiesia v kitaiskoi pechati (Mao Zedong's Speeches Previously Unpublished in the Chinese Press), series 5 (Moscow: Progress, 1976), 194.
6 See Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals, Mao's Last Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006), 17.
7 Borisov and Titarenko, Vystupleniia Mao Tsze-duna, ranee ne publikovavshiesia v kitaiskoi pechati (Mao Zedong's Speeches Previously Unpublished in the Chinese Press), series 5, 154, 194–95. See also Snow, The Long Revolution, 87.
8 Borisov and Titarenko, Vystupleniia Mao Tsze-duna, ranee ne publikovavshiesia v kitaiskoi pechati (Mao Zedong's Speeches Previously Unpublished in the Chinese Press), series 5, 71.
9 See History of the Chinese Communist Party—A Chronology of Events (1919–1990) (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1991), 311.
10 Quoted from Andrew Hall Wedeman, The East Wind Subsides: Chinese Foreign Policy and the Origins of the Cultural Revolution (Washington, DC: Washington Institute Press, 1988), 176.
11 Quoted from Pang and Jin, Mao Zedong zhuan (1949–1976) (Biography of Mao Zedong [1949–1976]), vol. 2, 1399.
12 Schram, Chairman Mao Talks to the People, 270.
13 See MacFarquhar and Schoenhals, Mao's Last Revolution, 18; Wedeman, The East Wind Subsides, 223–24.
14 Mao, Oblaka v snegu (Clouds in the Snow), 99.
15 See Wu, Mao Zedong guanghui licheng dituji (Atlas of Mao Zedong's Glorious Historical Path), 122, 125. According to another source, Mao arrived in Wuchang January 5, 1966. See Pang and Jin, Mao Zedong zhuan (1949–1976) (Biography of Mao Zedong [1949–1976]), vol. 2, 1402.
16 For the text of the theses, see CCP Documents of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution 1966–1967 (Hong Kong: Union Research Institute, 1968), 7–12.
17 Quoted from Li, The Private Life of Chairman Mao, 448.
18 See MacFarquhar and Schoenhals, Mao's Last Revolution, 31.
19 Chang and Halliday believe that Lin Biao “held back about helping Mao” at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution. Chang and Halliday, Mao, 527. But their assertion is contradicted by the facts.
20 Velikaia Proletarskaia kul'turnaia revolitsiia (vazhneishie dokumenty) (The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution [Key Documents]) (Beijing: Izdatel'stvo literatury na inostrannykh iazykakh, 1970), 191–92.
21 Borisov and Titarenko, Vystupleniia Mao Tsze-duna, ranee ne publikovavshiesia v kitaiskoi pechati (Mao Zedong's Speeches Previously Unpublished in the Chinese Press), series 5, 62–63, 66, 68.
22 History of the Chinese Communist Party—A Chronology of Events, 320–21. See also Borisov and Titarenko, Vystupleniia Mao Tsze-duna, ranee ne publikovavshiesia v kitaiskoi pechati (Mao Zedong's Speeches Previously Unpublished in the Chinese Press), series 5, 69.
23 See Liao, Mao Zedong baike quanshu (Encyclopedia of Mao Zedong), vol. 6, 3212.
24 Quoted from Pang and Jin, Mao Zedong zhuan (1949–1976) (Biography of Mao Zedong [1949–1976]), vol. 2, 1408.
25 Borisov and Titarenko, Vystupleniia Mao Tsze-duna, ranee ne publikovavshiesia v kitaiskoi pechati (Mao Zedong's Speeches Previously Unpublished in the Chinese Press), series 5, 73.
26 See MacFarquhar and Schoenhals, Mao's Last Revolution, 34.
27 See Chen Qingquan and Song Guangwei, Lu Dingyi zhuan (Biography of Lu Dingyi) (Beijing: Zhonggong dangshi chubanshe, 1999), 485–502; MacFarquhar and Schoenhals, Mao's Last Revolution, 34–35; Jin Qiu, The Culture of Power: The Lin Biao Incident in the Cultural Revolution (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999), 153–54.
28 See Chen and Song, Lu Dingyi zhuan (Biography of Lu Dingyi), 496–508; Westad, “77 Conversations Between Chinese and Foreign Leaders on the Wars in Indochina,” 131.
29 According to some other sources, the statement concluded as follows: “The Chairman can testify to Ye Qun's virginity!” Quoted from MacFarquhar and Schoenhals, Mao's Last Revolution, 35. See also Chen and Song, Lu Dingyi zhuan (Biography of Lu Dingyi), 501.
30 Quoted from Chen and Song, Lu Dingyi zhuan (Biography of Lu Dingyi), 500.
31 Westad, “77 Conversations Between Chinese and Foreign Leaders on the Wars in Indochina,” 131.
32 CCP Documents of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution 1966–1967, 27, 28.
33 See Liu Guokai, A Brief Analysis of the Cultural Revolution (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1987), 16; Barbara Barnouin and Yu Changgen, Ten Years of Turbulence: The Chinese Cultural Revolution (London: Kegan Paul International, 1993), 73–74.
34 Westad, “77 Conversations Between Chinese and Foreign Leaders on the Wars in Indochina,” 132.
35 Quoted from MacFarquhar and Schoenhals, Mao's Last Revolution, 48.
36 Quoted from ibid.
37 Westad, “77 Conversations Between Chinese and Foreign Leaders on the Wars in Indochina,” 130–31.
38 Ibid., 132.
39 Quoted from Pang and Jin, Mao Zedong zhuan (1949–1976) (Biography of Mao Zedong [1949–1976]), vol. 2, 1413.
40 Borisov and Titarenko, Vystupleniia Mao Tsze-duna, ranee ne publikovavshiesia v kitais-koi pechati (Mao Zedong's Speeches Previously Unpublished in the Chinese Press), series 4, 94, 95, 97, 98, 103.
41 Ibid., series 5, 74–75.
42 Nie Yuanzi et al., “Song Shuo, Lu Ping, Peng Peiyuan zai wenhua gemingzhong jiujing gan shenma” (What Are Song Shuo, Lu Ping, and Peng Peiyuan Really Doing with Respect to the Cultural Revolution), Renmin ribao (People's daily), June 2, 1966.
43 Quoted from Pang and Jin, Mao Zedong zhuan (1949–1976) (Biography of Mao Zedong [1949–1976]), vol. 2, 1414, and MacFarquhar and Schoenhals, Mao's Last Revolution, 58.
44 Quoted from MacFarquhar and Schoenhals, Mao's Last Revolution, 58.
45 Borisov and Titarenko, Vystupleniia Mao Tsze-duna, ranee ne publikovavshiesia v kitaiskoi pechati (Mao Zedong's Speeches Previously Unpublished in the Chinese Press), series 4, 105.
46 See Chao Feng, ed., “Wenhua da geming” cidian (Dictionary of the “Great Cultural Revolution”) (Taibei: Taiwan donghua shuju gufen youxian gongsi, 1993), 429, 436–37; History of the Chinese Communist Party—A Chronology of Events, 325. See also Borisov and Titarenko, Vystupleniia Mao Tsze-duna, ranee ne publikovavshiesia v kitaiskoi pechati (Mao Zedong's Speeches Previously Unpublished in the Chinese Press), series 5, 154.
47 See MacFarquhar and Schoenhals, Mao's Last Revolution, 42–51, 62.
48 The new Beijing Municipal Party Committee had already sent a party work team to Peking University on June 2. It was approved by Liu and Deng. The next day, the enlarged meeting of the Politburo Standing Committee decided to send the work teams to all other Beijing schools. They numbered 7,239 party cadres. See Liu and Chen, Liu Shaoqi nianpu, 1898–1969 (Chronological Biography of Liu Shaoqi, 1898–1969), vol. 2, 640; MacFarquhar and Schoenhals, Mao's Last Revolution, 65, 66.
49 Quoted from Barnouin and Yu, Ten Years of Turbulence, 75; Lowell Dittmer, Liu Shao-ch'i and the Chinese Revolution: The Politics of Mass Criticism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974), 81. See also Liu and Chen, Liu Shaoqi nianpu, 1898–1969 (Chronological Biography of Liu Shaoqi, 1898–1969), vol. 2, 641.
50 Borisov and Titarenko, Vystupleniia Mao Tsze-duna, ranee ne publikovavshiesia v kitaiskoi pechati (Mao Zedong's Speeches Previously Unpublished in the Chinese Press), series 4, 114.
51 Quoted from Pang and Jin, Mao Zedong zhuan (1949–1976) (Biography of Mao Zedong [1949–1976]), vol. 2, 1415.
52 See M. I. Sladkovskii, ed., Informatsionnyi biulleten': Seriia A: “Kulturnaia revoliutsiia” v Kitae: Dokumenty i materialy (perevod s kitaiskogo), Vypusk 7, Vystupleniia Zhou Enlaia v period “kul'turnoi revoliutsii” (Information Bulletin: Series A: The “Cultural Revolution” in China: Documents and Materials Translated from Chinese, 7th Installment, Zhou Enlai's Speeches During the “Cultural Revolution” (Moscow: IDV AN SSSR, 1971), 6.
53 Quoted from Pang and Jin, Mao Zedong zhuan (1949–1976) (Biography of Mao Zedong [1949–1976]), vol. 2, 1417.
54 O. Borisov [O. B. Rakhmanin] and M. Titarenko, eds., Vystupleniia Mao Tsze-duna, ranee ne publikovavshiesia v kitaiskoi pechati (Mao Zedong's Speeches Previously Unpublished in the Chinese Press), series 6 (Moscow: Nauka, 1976), 212–14.
55 Dosie k lichnomu delu Mao Tszeduna (Dossier to the Personal File of Mao Zedong), RGASPI, collection 495, inventory 225, file 71, vol. 4, sheets 88–90, 93.
56 Ibid., 86–87.
57 Borisov and Titarenko, Vystupleniia Mao Tsze-duna, ranee ne publikovavshiesia v kitais-koi pechati (Mao Zedong's Speeches Previously Unpublished in the Chinese Press), series 5, 84, 85.
58 Quoted from MacFarquhar and Schoenhals, Mao's Last Revolution, 84.
59 Liu Shaoqi, Liu Shaoqi zishu (Autobiographical Notes of Liu Shaoqi) (Beijing: Jiefangjun wenyi chubanshe, 2002), 177.
60 See Deng Rong, Deng Xiaoping and the Cultural Revolution: A Daughter Recalls the Critical Years, trans. Sidney Shapiro (New York: Random House, 2005), 18–19; Li, The Private Life of Chairman Mao, 469–70.
n77 Kun Peng (the roc) is a gigantic bird referred to in Chapter One of Zhuangzi.
n78 Li is a traditional Chinese unit of distance, an equivalent of 1,640.42 feet.
n79 Mao is referring to the treaty banning nuclear testing in the atmosphere, outer space, and under water signed in Moscow by the U.S., USSR, and Great Britain on August 5, 1963.
n80 Mao is mocking Khrushchev’s description in April 1964 that communism is a plateful of goulash for everybody.
n81 This was mistaken. Herman Willemse was actually from Holland.