36 DEATH OF THE RED EMPEROR
Why did Mao choose Zhou Enlai? Why did he not appoint Kang Sheng or Zhang Chunqiao as his successor? Or Jiang Qing herself? It is difficult to say. Probably influenced by the funeral of the disgraced Chen Yi, Mao felt irritated toward the leftists. The old cadres who had been at his side for decades were gone. He alone remained. He was at the pinnacle of power, but now he was truly alone, having severed his ties with many comrades who had been devoted to him. Among those with whom he had started out only Zhou still had regular access to him. The others he had either brought down or alienated.
Mao did not want to blame himself. It was simpler to vent his bad mood on those who on his orders or of their own free will had entered the front ranks of the pioneers of “universal disorder.” Thus he had attacked Jiang Qing to let her know what her place would be.
But his solitude grew increasingly acute and not even the beautiful Zhang Yufeng could relieve it. Perhaps solitude was the fate of all Great Helmsmen? The postulates of socialism, including class warfare and settling accounts, were designed to inspire fear and terror by setting people against each other. Is it any wonder that Lenin, Stalin, and Mao were so isolated? How could it have been otherwise if in the mind of their type of radical revolutionaries, as Dostoevsky wrote, “[t]he spiritual world, the higher part of man's being” was “rejected altogether, dismissed with a sort of triumph, even with hatred”?1
Throughout his life in the revolution Mao manipulated the basest of human emotions. It was not brotherly love that he conveyed, but rather enmity and universal suspicion. “Down with landlords!” “Down with rich peasants!” “Down with the bourgeoisie, merchants and intellectuals!” “Down with those who are not like us!” “Down with the educated, with businesspersons, with the talented!” Down with all of them, down with them, down. Class struggle has not ended. “Dragons beget dragons, phoenixes beget phoenixes, and rats beget rats” was a common saying in Maoist China. Mao proclaimed that there was no end to struggle. “When we reach Communism will there be no struggles?” he asked, and replied, “I don't believe that. Even when we reach Communism there will still be struggles, but they will be between the new and the old, the correct and the incorrect. After tens of millennia have passed by, the incorrect will still be no good and will fail.”2 Thus the lonely and sick emperor was forced to partake of the fruits of his own tyranny.
But Mao still clutched at life and tried to control everything. There was still much to accomplish. China had not achieved world recognition. In the UN, China was represented by Taiwan, backed by the United States. Mao needed a diplomatic breakthrough in the early 1970s after the border war with the USSR. Relations between China and the Soviet Union—the erstwhile Elder Brother—turned out to be very dangerous; improving relations between the PRC and America could go a long way toward changing the balance of power in East Asia. Rapprochement with the United States and entry into the UN became another idée fixe for Mao. He took the first steps to achieve this result in the second half of 1970 when Snow arrived in China, as it turned out for the last time. As we remember, Mao always believed that Snow was a CIA agent, although he was mistaken. On this occasion, too, he resorted to this same “channel of communication.” On October 1, 1970, he invited Snow and his wife to stand beside him on the rostrum at Tiananmen Gate during the celebration of the founding of the PRC and was photographed with them. No other American had ever been accorded this honor. Mao was obviously sending a signal to Washington.
But he got no reply to his message. The White House simply did not understand. Several years later President Nixon's national security advisor Henry Kissinger wrote, “Eventually, I came to understand that Mao intended to symbolize that American relations now had his personal attention, but it was by then a purely academic insight: we had missed the point when it mattered. Excessive subtlety had produced a failure of communication.”3
Leaders in Washington still remembered Mao's words just six months earlier, in May 1970, after U.S. troops had made an incursion into Cambodia. Mao had called Nixon a “fascist” and asserted that “American imperialism kills people in foreign countries” as well as “whites and Negroes at home.” “Nixon's fascist crimes ignited the raging flames of a mass revolutionary movement in the U.S.,” he proclaimed. “The Chinese people firmly support the revolutionary struggle of the American people. I am certain that the heroic struggles of the American people will ultimately achieve victory, and that fascist rule in the U.S. will inevitably collapse.”4 But now Mao wanted Nixon to come to China. A visit by the president would serve to vastly elevate the prestige of the PRC as well as of the Chairman himself.
Until the early 1970s Chinese officials had only intermittent contact with Americans, via ambassadorial meetings in Warsaw that yielded little. After Nixon's inauguration in January 1969, however, the meetings continued on the suggestion from the PRC. Mao knew that in August 1968, right after he was nominated, Nixon had declared, “We must not forget China. We must always seek opportunities to talk with her…… We must not only watch for changes. We must seek to make changes.”5
Nixon was genuinely interested in negotiations with Mao for his own reasons. By the early 1970s, the American war in Vietnam had reached a stalemate. Nixon badly needed the Chairman's help to enable him to withdraw U.S. troops from Indochina while avoiding the appearance of defeat. He wanted Mao to lean on his Vietnamese comrades to make concessions. Thus there was a reciprocal aspiration to improve relations between the two countries. In an interview with Time magazine in early October 1970, Nixon expressed his desire to visit the PRC. “If there is anything I want to do before I die, it is to go to China,” he said. “If I don't, I want my children to.”6 In early December, Zhou Enlai sent a letter via a Pakistani intermediary inviting Washington to send a “special envoy” to Beijing “to discuss the subject of the vacation of Chinese territories called Taiwan.” The White House understood correctly that raising the question of Taiwan was of no significance; it was simply a “standard formula.” This was really a question concerning Nixon's visit. Kissinger responded, “[T]he meeting in Beijing would not be limited only to the Taiwan question.”7
Meanwhile, Mao invited Snow, who was still in Beijing, for breakfast, during which he said, in part, “between Chinese and Americans there need be no prejudices. There could be mutual respect and equality.” He expressed his respect for the people of the United States and said that he placed his hopes on them. Then he said straight out that he “would be happy to talk” with Richard Nixon.8 On December 25, People's Daily published a photograph of Mao and Snow taken on October 1 on the rostrum of Tiananmen Gate during the celebration of the founding of the PRC. A quotation from Mao Zedong was printed on the upper right-hand corner of the page: “The people of the whole world, including the American people, are our friends.”
Mao was certain that Snow would immediately transmit this invitation for Nixon to the CIA, but, of course, he did not. He did not publish the interview until April 1971, by which time it was no longer of any use to Nixon and Kissinger.9 By then an American table tennis team, responding to an invitation from the Chinese, had come to China from Nagoya, Japan, where the 31st World Table Tennis Championship had taken place. Obviously, the decision to invite these athletes had been taken at the highest levels. On April 14, the Americans, as well as table tennis champions from other countries, were received at the Great Hall of the People. Zhou Enlai said to the president of the American table tennis association, Graham B. Steenhoven, “To have friends come from afar; is this not a delight?”10 This famous quotation from Confucius, coming from the lips of the premier, did not pass unnoticed by the foreign journalists who began predicting the possible establishment of “friendly ties” between the PRC and the United States.
Soon after, on July 9, Henry Kissinger, Nixon's special representative, arrived in Beijing via Pakistan. He held three days of intensive talks with Zhou and officials in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the PRC. Mao, naturally, did not meet with Nixon's envoy and not merely for protocol reasons. At the time he had a very low opinion of the former Harvard professor. “Kissinger is a stinking scholar,” he said to Pham Van Dong, one of the leaders of North Vietnam, several months before Kissinger's visit to Beijing.11 Kissinger's visit was secret, but both sides agreed to issue a communiqué on the results of the talks. In Zhou's words, it would “shake the world.”12
And so it did. An announcement concerning Kissinger's trip was made simultaneously in both capitals on July 15. President Nixon emphasized that his national security advisor had brought him an invitation from Premier Zhou that he gladly accepted.13 The whole world held its breath.
Finally, on October 25, 1971, the United States removed all obstacles to the PRC taking its place in the UN. On February 21, 1972, the president of the United States and his wife arrived in Beijing. They were met at the airport by Zhou Enlai. Mao was impatiently awaiting Nixon in his own residence. In the three weeks leading up to Nixon's arrival he had been undergoing intensive medical treatment. By the time of the historic meeting he was feeling much better. “His lung infection was under control, and his heart irregularities had subsided,” writes his doctor. “His edema was better…… His throat was still swollen, and he had difficulty talking. His muscles had atrophied from weeks of immobility.”14 Mao was very anxious prior to the meeting, and he greedily devoured telephoned reports of the progress of the president's cortège that came constantly to his office. The medical equipment was removed from his room to the foyer, and the oxygen cylinders and anything that he might need in case of emergency were concealed either in an enormous lacquer trunk or behind large potted plants.
At 2:50 P.M., Nixon arrived at Zhongnanhai accompanied by Zhou and Kissinger. Kissinger's assistant Winston Lord (a future U.S. ambassador to China), Mao's grandniece Wang Hairong, who, at the time, was deputy chief of the Protocol Department in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the interpreter Nancy Tang entered Mao's study. Nixon and Kissinger found the room to be untidy. “Several of the books were open to various pages on the coffee table next to where he was sitting,” Nixon later noted in his diary.15 “Mao's study …… looked more the retreat of a scholar than the audience room of the all-powerful leader of the world's most populous nation,” Kissinger recalled.16 Supported by Zhang Yufeng, Mao rose to greet his guests and with difficulty took several steps toward them.17 He took Nixon's hands in his and squeezed them. “I can't talk very well,” he said.18 “Words seemed to leave his bulk as if with great reluctance,” Kissinger wrote. “They were ejected from his vocal cords in gusts, each of which seemed to require a new rallying of physical force until enough strength had been assembled to tear forth another round of pungent declaration.”19 He looked swollen, whether from dropsy or something else. In reality, he was suffering from congestive heart failure.
Nonetheless, one could sense that Mao was pleased by the meeting. He was cracking jokes nonstop and trying to create a relaxed atmosphere. At all of Nixon's attempts to turn the conversation toward business Mao waved his hand in the direction of Zhou. “These are not questions we need to discuss here. They should be broached with the premier. I discuss philosophical issues.” Nixon thrice tried to draw Mao into a discussion of the Soviet threat to China, but the Chairman deflected him each time.
Consequently, the conversation skipped from one extraneous topic to another. Mao was particularly tickled by Nixon's joke about Kissinger's “girlfriends.” The president recalled:
Mao remarked on Kissinger's cleverness in keeping his first trip to Beijing secret.
“He doesn't look like a secret agent,” I said. “He is the only man in captivity who could go to Paris twelve times and Peking [Beijing] once, and no one knew it—except possibly a couple of pretty girls.” [Zhou laughed.]
“They didn't know it,” Kissinger interjected. “I used it as a cover.”
“In Paris?” Mao asked with mock disbelief.
“Anyone who uses pretty girls as a cover must be the greatest diplomat of all time,” I said.
“So you often make use of your girls?” Mao asked.
“His girls, not mine,” I replied. “It would get me into great trouble if I used girls as a cover.”
“Especially during an election,” Chou [Zhou] remarked as Mao joined in the laughter.20
Such was their joking on “philosophical issues.” Several of the remarks, however, were serious. “Our common old friend, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, doesn't approve of this,” said Mao, sweeping his arm in a circle. “He calls us communist bandits.”21 He wondered what Nixon would answer, but the president parried: “Chiang Kai-shek calls the Chairman a bandit. What does the Chairman call Chiang Kai-shek?” In such a casual fashion was the Taiwan question set aside. The president made it clear that he would not abandon old friends for the sake of new ones.
The meeting lasted sixty-five minutes instead of the scheduled fifty. The Chairman was showing signs of fatigue, and Zhou was glancing impatiently at his watch. Nixon noted this and wrapped up the conversation. Mao stood up to see off his guests. On parting Nixon said that Mao looked good. “Appearances are deceiving,” Mao replied.22
After this Nixon held talks with Zhou, at the end of which a joint communiqué was published on February 28. In addition to setting forth the positions of the two sides on various international issues, it emphasized that “progress toward the normalization of relations between China and the United States is in the interests of all countries.”23 Subsequently, during regularly scheduled talks with the Vietnamese communists on July 12, 1972, Zhou Enlai skillfully pressed the leaders of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) to make concessions to the Americans by withdrawing their demand that Saigon's president, Nguyen Van Thieu, be removed from power.24 A wave of diplomatic recognitions of the PRC by Japan, West Germany, and many other countries followed. Official relations with the United States at the ambassadorial level took longer but were accomplished on January 1, 1979.
Mao was ecstatic about Nixon's visit and even began to recover more quickly. “His edema subsided, his lungs cleared, and his coughing stopped,” writes his doctor. “He had given up smoking during his illness, and his coughing and bronchitis did not return.” Of course, he was still weak, he walked slowly, his hands and feet trembled, and he sometimes drooled uncontrollably.25 Nevertheless, his mind remained clear, and his power unlimited. He continued to control the party and the state and was ready for a new battle.
Once again Jiang Qing, who now saw Zhou Enlai as her main enemy, tried to take advantage of Mao's “fighting” mood. She could not reconcile herself to Mao's designation of Zhou as his successor, and wanted the Chairman to appoint to leading positions in the leadership, including the premiership, persons who were loyal to her. Toward this end she used an old and tested method, namely, blackening the name of her enemy in the Chairman's eyes as a “counterrevolutionary” and “traitor” who was “intriguing” behind his back. She also struck a new blow against Zhou's supporters, the old party officials who had survived or had been rehabilitated following the high tide of the Cultural Revolution.
Her first step was to champion the young Shanghai radical Wang Hongwen, the leader of the Rebels, as Mao's successor. Wang was loyal to a fault, young and energetic, and also within easy reach so that Jiang could easily rule China through him. He was already a member of the Ninth Central Committee, but Jiang wanted him elevated to deputy chairman. In September 1972, she convinced Mao to assign Wang to work in the Central Committee headquarters.26 This marked the beginning of his rapid ascension. The denizens of Zhongnanhai took to calling Jiang's favorite “the Rocket.” Jiang's closest confederates—Zhang Chunqiao and Yao Wenyuan—supported all of her undertakings. Kang Sheng, already ill with terminal bladder cancer, also supported Mao's wife.
Chance favored Jiang Qing. Not long after Kang had been diagnosed with cancer, cancerous cells were detected in the premier's urine and doctors said that Zhou did not have long to live. At this point the Chairman's wife went into high gear. She could not rest even when Mao appointed Wang Hongwen as his successor on December 28.27 She wanted to finish off the enfeebled Zhou by depriving him of the premiership and awarding it to her faithful confederate Zhang Chunqiao.
There were quite a few obstacles, however, on Jiang's path. Zhou Enlai was supported by many in the party leadership, among them the powerful Marshal Ye Jianying, a longtime member of the Politburo and one of the leaders of the Military Committee. Moreover, the Chairman himself was not prepared to indulge her every whim. In the summer of 1972 Mao began seriously thinking about rehabilitating the disgraced Deng Xiaoping, someone Jiang loathed. On August 3, Deng had sent a letter to the Chairman in which as usual he engaged in self-criticism, but also asked to be given some work to do even if only technical in nature. Eleven days later, Mao drafted a resolution saying, “Comrade Deng Xiaoping committed serious mistakes, but he is different from Liu Shaoqi…… He …… won distinction.”28 Jiang could only grind her teeth.
Zhou, sensing an opportunity, went on the offensive. In early October he made two speeches in which he sharply criticized ultraleftism. He spoke generally about Lin Biao but many of his more engaged listeners knew clearly whom he had in mind. Several days later, on October 14, People's Daily, supporting Zhou's positions, published three articles opposing anarchism in which it labeled this tendency as a “counterrevolutionary weapon of fraudulent pseudo-Marxists.” Jiang and her confederates immediately turned to Mao. They succeeded in browbeating Mao so that the Great Leader had to intervene. In his wheezy voice, he proclaimed that Lin was an “ultra-Right who practiced revisionism, tried to split the Party by means of conspiracy, and betrayed the Party and the nation.”29 Now everyone was properly placed.
However, Mao did not back away from his plan to rehabilitate Deng and return him to power. On March 9, 1973, he appointed Deng as Zhou's deputy. Later Mao explained this to his colleagues on the Military Committee, “We had persons in the party who did nothing yet still managed to commit mistakes, but Deng Xiaoping made mistakes while actually doing things…… In my opinion, he appears to be soft like cotton, but he is actually sharp as a needle.”30 At this same meeting, Mao observed that Deng's actions “should be thought of as three and seven fingers.” He meant that only 30 percent had been erroneous and 70 percent successful.31
Jiang now understood that she had to act more energetically. In May 1973 the leftists succeeded in obtaining Mao's agreement to have Wang Hongwen and Wu De, the mayor of Beijing, who was also a radical, take part in the work of the Politburo. Another person granted this privilege was Hua Guofeng, the former secretary of the party committee in Mao's home county, whom the Chairman had kept in mind ever since his fiery speech glorifying the Leader and Teacher at the Seven Thousand Cadre Conference in the winter of 1962. At the outset of the Cultural Revolution Mao had elevated Hua to secretary of the Hunan Provincial Party Committee. Hua was then appointed acting chairman of the Hunan Revolutionary Committee. In 1969, at the Ninth Congress, Mao included him in the Central Committee, and in 1971 he was transferred to work in the State Council.
Jiang decided to intensify her struggle for power in anticipation of the Tenth Party Congress, scheduled to take place in late August 1973. Six weeks prior to it, on July 4, Wang Hongwen and Zhang Chunqiao paid a visit to Mao, having secured permission from Zhang Yufeng. A meek-looking but very strong woman, Zhang had by then turned into the main intermediary between the Chairman and the outside world. Even Jiang could not see her husband without Zhang's approval. The importance of Xiao Zhang (“Little Zhang,” as the residents of Zhongnanhai called her) grew especially in early 1973, when the Great Helmsman's speech became almost inarticulate. Mao wheezed terribly and periodically gasped for breath so that it was difficult to understand what he was saying. But Zhang understood him very well, which added to her political influence.
The first subject of conversation was Zhou Enlai. The leftist leaders drew the darkest picture of Zhou's activities in international relations. Mao agreed with them despite the fact that China was doing very well diplomatically. He noticed that Zhou was not “firm enough” in dealing with Americans. At the end of the conversation, Mao irritably remarked, “[Zhou] no longer discusses big issues with me; every day he drags in trivial matters. If the situation does not change revisionism will inevitably appear.” This was all that Jiang Qing's comrades in arms needed to hear. They immediately switched the conversation to what seemed to be a “philosophical” topic, telling Mao that during a search of Lin Biao's house an entire index file of quotations from Confucius had been found. Who would have imagined that the half-mad Lin Biao was attracted to ancient Chinese philosophy? Mao knew about this, but only now did he express interest in this discovery. He compared Lin to the Guomindang leaders who, like his former marshal, revered Confucius. They “worshiped Confucius and opposed the Legalist School,” he said contemptuously.32 Wang and Zhang departed completely satisfied.
Prior to their visit they and Jiang Qing had had a long talk about how to mobilize the people for an open struggle against the “new capitulationists” in the party leadership. It would be dangerous to finger the influential Zhou and Deng by name, as Mao was not yet ready to cast them aside. Therefore, they cunningly resolved to unleash a campaign of criticism ostensibly against Lin that was really directed against Zhou. The discovery in Lin Biao's home of quotations from Confucius was opportune.33 Mao's grumbling about Lin and the Nationalists both worshipping Confucius was another stroke of good fortune. Now they could easily weave a new theme into the old anti-Lin campaign, one aimed against Confucius, and direct it against the unsuspecting premier.
To understand their strategy one must recall that Confucius (551 BCE–479 BCE) lived at the end of the Zhou dynasty, a time of great social and economic crisis. Traditional social relations were rapidly disintegrating, many people were questioning the cult of ancestors, and a class of nouveaux riches had emerged that disregarded the communal clan laws and the authority of the dynasty. China was rent by civil wars. The humanist philosopher Confucius spoke in defense of the fading order, saying, “Let the lord be a lord; the subject a subject; the father a father; the son a son.”34 In this order he discerned the essence of proper rule. From his perspective, relations within the clans should remain unchanging and any attempt to destroy the balance of social forces could only exacerbate chaos. His teachings were opposed by the Legalists, the followers of Shang Yang whom Mao Zedong had once admired. They reflected the interests of the wealthy landowners and they had contempt for the moribund clan aristocracy.
Jiang Qing and her confederates extrapolated this ancient situation onto China in the early 1970s. Since Confucius defended the old society, it followed that he was “reactionary.” Since the Legalists opposed him, obviously they were “progressives” or even revolutionaries. This was from the perspective of Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought. Thus the past struggle between the Legalists and Confucius was merely an episode in the eternal struggle between revolutionaries and reactionaries. The battle between good and evil was ongoing and in China, and in the CCP in particular, there were still many “Confucians” who dreamed of turning back the clock.
Of course, Jiang and her leftist allies could apply the label of contemporary Confucian to whatever enemy they chose. Their main objective was to evoke a negative reaction among the popular masses toward Zhou Enlai, whose surname was written with the same character as the name of the “reactionary” Zhou dynasty whose interests Confucius had supposedly defended. For most Chinese in the 1970s, the Chinese character “zhou” in newspapers and magazines signified the premier in the first instance. Therefore, the constant repetition of this character in a negative context constituted a well-veiled attack against Jiang's main enemy.
The intrigues of the leftists, however, failed. Among most people their abstruse and tedious articles about the struggle between the Legalists and the Confucians evoked only boredom and apathy. The image of the beloved premier not only remained untarnished, it in fact shone even brighter as worrisome rumors about his terrible illness circulated around the country.
The Tenth Party Congress, which took place in Beijing on August 24–28, 1973, was likewise not a triumph for the leftists. Attending the sessions were 1,249 delegates representing 28 million party members. Only some of them belonged to Jiang Qing's faction. Zhou's supporters still retained a lot of influence. It was the premier whom Mao entrusted with delivering the main report. At the same time, Wang Hongwen's star was shining brightly. The Chairman seated him to his right (Zhou sat on Mao's left), and after the premier finished his speech, Wang delivered a report on the party constitution. The Congress affirmed all of the directives of the Cultural Revolution, lauded the Great Helmsman, condemned Lin Biao and deleted his name from the party constitution, and chose a new Central Committee. In the main elected organ, the Politburo, the two factions were represented in roughly equal proportions. A majority of the nine members of the Politburo Standing Committee were on Zhou's side.35 Of course, this meant nothing. One man alone still made the major decisions.
Soon after the congress, Mao again put Zhou in his place.
On the evening of November 10, Henry Kissinger, who had just been appointed the U.S. Secretary of State, arrived in Beijing for a three-and-a-half-day official visit. He was greeted by Zhou and Ye Jianying. Mao also met with him (once, on November 12), but basically followed the negotiations by means of stenographic reports. Then, after the negotiations had concluded, Mao suddenly suspected the premier of having concealed something from him, some details of his conversations with the American envoy. This accusation was concocted, since at the time Zhou had come to report to Mao (according to other information he had tried to call him), the Chairman, who was not feeling well, was asleep, and his lover cum secretary Zhang Yufeng did not want to disturb him. After waking up, Mao was very displeased and immediately suspected the premier of engaging in some intrigue. He became even more incensed when just a bit later he looked through the final stenographic reports and again noted that Zhou had been insufficiently firm in dealing with the imperialists. Kissinger had tried in every which way to win Beijing over to a military alliance against Moscow, but Zhou had not resolutely defended the PRC's independent policy.36 (In this case, the premier really was excessively diplomatic, and rather than put the exceedingly importunate Kissinger in his place, gave him to understand “that the proposal would have to be implemented in ‘a manner so that no one feels we are allies.'?”)37 Mao, via his closest collaborators, his grandniece Wang Hairong and Nancy Tang, who were serving as his intermediaries with other leaders, at once informed the members of the Politburo that in his view Zhou had entered into military collaboration with the United States, having agreed that the Americans would place China under its “nuclear umbrella.” Of course, Zhou had done nothing of the sort (he generally was unable to make decisions on his own), still Mao was terribly irritated. “Some people,” he grumbled, “want to lend us an umbrella, but we don't want it.”38 Mao was also displeased with Zhou's spinelessness regarding the Taiwan question. It seemed to Mao that the premier was ready to agree to the United States maintaining special relations with Chiang Kai-shek and company.
Always suspicious, now that he was sick Mao no longer trusted anyone. At Mao's request, Zhou's conduct was scrutinized in the Politburo, where Jiang and her followers did not hesitate to slander the premier. There the matter ended. Mao cooled off; his rage turned to mercy.39 In December he voiced the thought that he wanted to see Deng Xiaoping as chief of the General Staff of the PLA. (He did not officially make this decision until January 1975.)
Moreover, after the congress, Mao, with increasing frequency and insistence, criticized Jiang Qing for attempting to sow discord in the Politburo, advised her not to “blow up trifles,” and even accused her—publicly at a session of the Politburo—of cobbling together a “Gang of Four” consisting of herself, Wang Hongwen, Zhang Chunqiao, and Yao Wenyuan.40
Obviously Mao was tacking from side to side. But this was not a chaotic movement. Mao consciously did not want to yield excessive power to one faction or the other. Even in his difficult physical condition, he had not lost the capacity to control the balance of forces in the leadership, maintaining a relative balance between the rival sides. He was such a master of political maneuvering that the leaders of the different factions were compelled to seek the truth in him alone. Even an experienced politician like Kissinger, meeting with an ill Mao, sensed the powerful magnetic field of his will.41
The only factor that worked against him was time. From 1974 on he was no longer able to attend all the meetings of the Politburo. At the beginning of the year, Mao lost sight in both of his eyes due to cataracts. He could distinguish only between light and dark. But this was only a minor misfortune. Far worse was that in the summer of 1974 he began to show symptoms of Lou Gehrig's disease, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). This fatal disease, caused by sclerosis of the nerve cells of the spinal cord, initially manifests itself via weakness in the wrists or legs and then gradually spreads through the entire body. Its victims lose their ability to move, to speak, to swallow, and finally, to breathe. In Mao ALS first appeared in the progressive paralysis of his right arm and right leg, and after a while it affected his throat, larynx, tongue, and intercostal muscles. According to his doctors the Chairman had less than two years to live.42
In addition, Mao continued to suffer from congestive heart failure. Both of his lungs were badly infected, and he also developed emphysema in his left lung. His blood oxygen level was low. Mao coughed constantly and could lie down only on his left side. He could no longer swallow solid food, and Zhang Yufeng fed him chicken or beef bouillon.
Yet the Great Helmsman clung to life. His brain still worked energetically, and the world continued to pay heed to his maxims. The concept he announced in February 1974 that all of humanity was divided into three worlds produced a particularly deep impression. Mao assigned the two superpowers, the United States and the USSR, to the First World; Japan, Europe, Australia, and Canada to the Second World; and all the other countries to the Third World. Calling upon the peoples of the Third World to unite, Mao asserted that China also belonged to the Third World.43 At Mao's behest, Deng Xiaoping elaborated this concept in some detail at a session of the UN General Assembly on April 10, 1974.44
Mao's bursts of activity were not infrequent, but they could not wholly deaden his suffering. In the summer, no longer trusting in his doctors, Mao decided to cure himself. “He said that one could ‘trust the doctors' words only one-third of the time or at most half,' ” recalled Zhang Yufeng. “He believed that he could cope with the blows of his diseases by relying on his own powers of resistance that were in his own body.”45 He wanted to change his surroundings and breathe in the fresh air of the provinces. In mid-July, right after the Politburo meeting at which he had tongue-lashed Jiang Qing, Mao set out on a new trip around the country. It turned out to be his last. On July 18 he arrived in Wuhan, where he stayed until mid-October. Afterward he went to his native Changsha, where he spent the entire winter. There he even tried swimming in a pool, but could not.
In addition to the devoted Zhang, who could understand the decrepit Chairman only “by reading his lips and …… gestures,” two other women continued to help him during this period. One was his grandniece Wang Hairong, then a deputy foreign minister; the other was his English-language interpreter, Nancy Tang, who already headed one of the departments in the Foreign Ministry.46 They shuttled back and forth between Beijing and Wuhan, and then Beijing and Changsha, bringing the Chairman information from Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping, and sometimes from Jiang Qing as well. Their sympathies were entirely with Zhou and it was he whom they consulted on each of their trips even though on June 1, 1974, the premier entered the hospital. He faced a difficult operation for cancer, which had invaded his bladder, large intestine, and lungs.
Realizing that Zhou had little time left, Mao decided to appoint Deng to the post of first deputy premier. At the same time, faithful to his principle of balancing the factions, he entrusted the day-to-day running of the party to Wang Hongwen. Neither faction was satisfied. Jiang Qing felt the need to act quickly. On the evening of October 17, she convened a secret meeting of her closest confederates at which it was decided to send Wang Hongwen to Mao without informing the other members of the Politburo. Wang was to inform the Chairman that “[t]he atmosphere in Beijing now is very much like that at the Lushan Meeting [of 1970].”47 What was being suggested was that Zhou Enlai, Marshal Ye Jianying, and Deng Xiaoping were ready to go the way of Lin Biao. In such circumstances, the Gang of Four thought it impossible to award the post of first deputy premier to the “counterrevolutionary” Deng.
Wang carried out his assigned mission flawlessly. According to Zhang Yufeng's recollections, which Wang himself confirmed, he said to Mao, “Although the Premier is ill and hospitalized, he is busy summoning people far into the night. Almost every day someone goes to his place.”48 But Mao became enraged, and Little Zhang conveyed his words to the frightened Wang. “If you have an opinion, you should say it directly to one's face, but this way is no good. You must unite with Comrade Xiaoping.” Then Mao added, “Go back and talk things over with the premier and Comrade Jianying. Don't act together with Jiang Qing. Be on guard with her.”49
Later, in mid-November, he explained indignantly to Wang Hairong and Nancy Tang, who were visiting him, that “Jiang Qing is ambitious. She'd like to make Wang Hongwen Chairman of the Standing Committee [of the National People's Congress] and make herself Chairman of the Communist Party.”50
Possibly Jiang really did nurture such hopes at this time. But in January 1975, the Second Plenum of the Tenth Central Committee, acting on a proposal by Mao, who was still in Changsha, chose Deng Xiaoping as one of the deputy chairmen of the Central Committee and a member of the Politburo Standing Committee. At a subsequent meeting of the NPC, Deng was confirmed as first deputy premier. On April 18, Mao, who had returned to Beijing, said to Kim Il Sung, the head of North Korea who was paying him a visit,
I am 82, this year …… I don't want to talk about political affairs. You can talk with him [Mao waved his hand in the direction of Deng, who was taking part in the meeting] about them. His name is Deng Xiaoping. He knows how to fight wars, and he knows how to fight revisionism. The Red Guards attacked him, but now there's no problem. He was forced out of the office for several years, but today he's back. We need him.51
From July 1975 on, Deng, with Mao's blessing, became the leader in the Politburo. Jiang Qing and her confederates were beside themselves. But they had no intention of giving up. After their torpid campaign to criticize Lin Biao and Confucius revealed their ideological bankruptcy, they initiated several more ideological movements: to study the theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat, against empiricism, and, finally, against “capitulationism,” which was supposedly exemplified by the classical novel Water Margin. None of these ideological campaigns, however, could change the balance of power in the Politburo52 as long as the Chairman himself did not want this to happen. Thus all the efforts of the “leftists” aimed at mobilizing the masses against the intraparty “revisionists” led nowhere.
Jiang Qing had to conquer Mao. But access to Mao was limited by Zhang Yufeng, who, toward the end of 1974, was officially named by the Politburo as the Chairman's Secretary for Essential and Confidential Matters. Moreover, the inseparable Wang Hairong and Nancy Tang, supporters of Zhou, served as links between Mao and the Politburo. Jiang attempted to win over Yufeng by giving her gifts, ingratiating herself with her, and trying to strike up a friendship, but she failed. Little Zhang did not indulge her very much. Then a new young woman made her appearance in Mao's entourage, Meng Jinyun, who assumed the duties of assistant to Yufeng. Stunningly beautiful, she had no reason to love the “leftists.” She had been imprisoned from 1968 to 1973 after being slandered by the Red Guards. With Yufeng's help she came to Mao seeking rehabilitation. At one time, in the 1960s, she had danced in the PLA Air Force Song and Dance Ensemble, and had first met the Great Helmsman at one of its performances. Mao took an immediate fancy toward her and wanted to dance with her. During their dance he asked her “not to be so prim,” and after a few steps he took her off to his bedroom. Their affair did not last long, and Zhang Yufeng was not jealous. Quite the opposite—she sympathized with Meng, who was four years her junior. Afterward, Meng Jinyun worked as a nurse in Wuhan, and was then arrested.
Meeting Yufeng again at the very end of May 1975, Meng asked her help in arranging an audience with Mao. Mao was saddened to hear about the misadventures of his former lover, “rehabilitated” her, and kept her by his side. Jiang Qing was unhappy but had to reconcile herself to it.53
Suddenly, in early October, Jiang and her confederates got lucky. For some reason, the decrepit dictator decided to make his nephew Mao Yuanxin his go-between with the Politburo in place of Wang Hairong and Nancy Tang. Apparently, he simply missed him. The clever and cunning Yuanxin, however, knew how to take advantage of the situation to pressure his uncle to tilt in the direction Jiang Qing desired. He was her ardent supporter and made no attempt to conceal this.
The leftists got a second wind. Through Mao's beloved nephew, they began an intensified effort to turn the Chairman against Deng. “I am worried about the Central Committee. I'm afraid some of them will want to go back to the way things were before,” Yuanxin whispered to his uncle. “I've been paying close attention to the speeches of Comrade Xiaoping. I sense a question. He rarely mentions the accomplishments of the Cultural Revolution. He rarely criticizes Liu Shaoqi's revisionist line. This year I haven't once heard him talk about how to study theory [of the dictatorship of the proletariat], or criticize Outlaws of the Marsh [Water Margin], or criticize revisionism.”54 And further, “There are two attitudes towards the Cultural Revolution: one is to complain about it and the other is to settle accounts with it.”55
This softening up lasted for a month. Finally, Mao succumbed. He became enraged and began to be exasperated by Deng. At his request, members of the Politburo began to criticize Deng. In the country as a whole a new campaign to “criticize Deng Xiaoping and struggle against the right deviationist wind to reverse correct verdicts” began to gather steam. Deng Xiaoping was relieved of most of his duties, allowed only to open and close meetings of the Politburo and deal with foreign policy matters.
At the very height of this struggle, Zhou Enlai passed away at 9:57 A.M. on January 8, 1976. Many mourned his passing. The majority of Chinese remembered the premier as wise, honest, and humane. Very few persons in China were interested in whether he really was or not. The image of a noble leader reigned in the minds of the masses. On January 11 a funeral cortège with his ashes made its way to the cemetery of revolutionary heroes, accompanied by the lamentations and mournful cries of the inhabitants of Beijing. Everyone who braved the frost that day on the central thoroughfare of Chang'an Avenue—and there were more than a million—remembered for the rest of their lives the white and blue bus carrying the beloved Zhou to eternity.
Soon rumors floated around the city that the premier had fallen victim to the leftists who hated him. These rumors intensified in March after the Shanghai paper Literary Reports hinted that Zhou had been a “capitalist roader.” Immediately, handbills and big character posters appeared in Nanjing calling on people to protest. This quickly became known in Beijing. People began streaming into Tiananmen Square to lay flowers and wreaths in Zhou's memory at the Monument to Revolutionary Heroes. This action occurred spontaneously over a period of two weeks, and finally on April 4, on the traditional day of remembrance of the dead, the square filled to overflowing. The people were very indignant. Here and there were shouts of “Defend Premier Zhou with our lives!” “Long live the great Marxist Zhou Enlai!” “Down with all those who oppose Premier Zhou!” Many sang the “Internationale.”56
Jiang Qing and her retinue were frightened. They feared an uncontrolled mass movement. Their opponents were no less anxious. They were all unaccustomed to democracy. At an emergency session of the Politburo on the evening of April 4, they adopted a joint resolution to suppress the unsanctioned meetings. “A batch of bad people had come up with writing, some directly attacking Chairman Mao,” asserted Hua Guofeng, who on Mao's orders was serving as acting premier, “while many others attacking the Central Committee.”57 On April 5, the police attacked the demonstrators. From the Great Hall of the People on the western side of the square, Jiang observed through binoculars the assault against the crowds.
Mao too supported the suppression of this “counterrevolutionary uprising,” which he learned of “objectively” via Yuanxin, who placed all the blame for these popular demonstrations on Deng Xiaoping. The Great Leader became resolute after hearing his nephew's report. “Bold fighting spirit. Good, good, good.” Then he issued a directive: “Remove Deng from all posts.”58 With this same order he appointed the fifty-five-year-old Hua Guofeng first deputy chairman of the Central Committee and premier of the State Council. Three weeks later, no longer able to speak, he wrote the following to his final successor: “Go slowly, do not be anxious. Keep on course. With you in charge, I am at ease.”59
Jiang and the other radicals exulted while the majority of people in Beijing grieved. As a sign of silent protest, people began to display small bottles in the windows of their homes. This was because the characters xiaoping in Deng Xiaoping's name are homonyms for the characters xiaoping, meaning “small bottle,” while the tai in the word chuangtai (windowsill) can be translated as “the top.” By placing small bottles in their windows, opponents of the Gang of Four were signifying that “Deng Xiaoping is still on top!”
Thus the campaign to criticize Deng, lacking support from the people, was doomed to failure. The majority of party cadres only went through the motions of taking part in it. Mao's last flash of political activity fizzled out.
But it is doubtful that the Great Helmsman was fully aware of his actions. He already had one foot in the grave. His terrible physical condition weighed upon his mood. Mao was constantly irritable and excitable. He had great difficulty breathing. His lungs, heart, and kidneys failed to function normally. He was perpetually bathed in sweat and greedily gulped for air. He was in constant need of oxygen. Since he always lay on his left side, he ultimately developed bedsores.
The only improvement was in his vision. On July 23, 1975, he had had a successful operation on his left eye. In order to ensure that all went smoothly, several ophthalmologists practiced on forty old men who were used as experimental subjects. Only after they had settled on the correct method did they operate, with considerable trepidation, on the Great Leader.60 Zhang Yufeng recalled, “When …… the gauze bandages were removed from the Chairman's eye, he opened his eyes and glanced around. Suddenly, excitedly pointing to one of his attendants, he correctly indicated the color and pattern of her clothing. Similarly, pointing to the wall, he said, ‘It is white.'”61
But there were no other positive changes in the progression of his illness. Some days he was so weak that, according to Zhang's reminiscences, “he found it very difficult even ‘to open his mouth when he was being fed,' and to swallow.”62 At other times, however, he felt somewhat better. He even had the courage to greet foreign guests. On April 30, 1976, for example, Mao met with Robert Muldoon, the prime minister of New Zealand. Of course, he did not discuss any serious issues with him; he only complained about his health. “My feet are bothering me,” he said. Then after a moment of silence, he added, “There is great disorder in the world.”63
On May 11, he suffered his first heart attack. Zhang Yufeng and Meng Jinyun did not leave his side. The doctors did all that they could, but it was two weeks before Mao felt a little better. On May 20, he wanted to meet with Lee Kuan Yew, the prime minister of Singapore, who was visiting China, and on May 27 with Ali Bhutto, the prime minister of Pakistan, and his wife. But after ten minutes of small talk on both occasions, he became very tired and had to terminate the conversations.n88 Nevertheless, his guests were not disappointed. “He is not a young man,” Bhutto informed the journalists. “I was not expecting to meet Tarzan.”64 Afterward, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the PRC officially announced that the Chairman would no longer meet with foreign visitors since he “is very busy now, and has a lot of work.”65
In mid-June, Mao summoned Hua Guofeng; the Gang of Four, headed by Jiang Qing; and his grandniece Wang Hairong. Lying in bed, he wheezed:
Since ancient times, it has been rare for a man to live to seventy. I am now more than eighty. In my old age I have thought often of death. In China it is said, “You can judge a man only after they close the lid of his coffin.” Although my “coffin lid” is not yet closed, it will happen soon, so it is a time to sum up. During my life I have accomplished two things. First, over the course of several decades, I fought against Chiang Kai-shek and chased him to the islands. During eight years of the war against Japan, I requested that the Japanese soldiers return home. We conquered Beijing and ultimately seized the Forbidden City. There are few people who do not acknowledge this. And there are only a few people who buzz into my ears that I should retake these islands quickly. The second thing you all know about. This is the launching of the Great Cultural Revolution. There are not many who support it, and not a few who oppose it. Both of these tasks are unfinished. This “legacy” must be handed down to the next generation. How should that be done? If it can't be done peacefully, then it must be done via shock tactics. If we really do not engage in this, then “the wind and rain will turn red with blood.” How will you deal with this? Only Heaven knows.66
Zhang Yufeng had great difficulty conveying this monologue.
On June 26, Mao had a second, more serious heart attack. He was in such a bad state that he could no longer eat on his own. He began to be fed through a tube inserted in his nostril. Four members of the Politburo, headed by Hua Guofeng, designated as a commission to oversee the doctors, took turns keeping vigil by the bed of the Leader. In early July the famous Austrian nephrologist Walter Birkmayer came to examine Mao, but he too was unable to help the Chairman.67
Mao was dying, but even in this condition he tried to hold on to power. Barely having come to, he would ask Zhang Yufeng to read him party documents, if only for a few minutes a day. On July 6 he was informed of the passing of Zhu De, his old comrade in arms. He took the news calmly.
He often watched Taiwanese and Hong Kong films with Little Zhang. They distracted him and enabled him to doze off. He did not alter this routine even after he was transferred on the night of July 27–28 to an earthquake-proof building near the Swimming Pool Pavilion in the wake of a terrible earthquake (7.8 on the Richter Scale) that completely destroyed the city of Tangshan, not far from Beijing. More than 240,000 persons died in the ruins, and more than 160,000 were injured. The shocks were so strong they were felt in Zhongnanhai. Even the bed on which Mao was lying in the Swimming Pool Pavilion shook.
The new building to which the Chairman was moved was quickly refitted and Mao's room filled with medical equipment. A room for viewing films was set up with a projector and a television. Thus Mao spent his last days watching “enemy” films and taking nourishment through a tube.
On September 2, he suffered a third heart attack. This was the most serious one. The doctors were no longer able to battle to save his life, but his powerful will to live would not let go. Mao constantly asked his doctors how serious was his condition.68 They tried to console him, but they no longer held out any hope.
Just after 8 P.M. on September 8, his face began to turn noticeably blue. In another few minutes, he lost feeling in his extremities, and he became groggy. The doctors tried to pump out the fluid through his nose, but there was no response. By 9:16 P.M. his tachycardia increased, and a half hour later his blood pressure fell perilously. At 10:15 P.M. he slipped into a coma. Soon afterward his pupils dilated widely, and he no longer responded to light. At 12:04 A.M. on September 9 he began to have convulsions. Two minutes later he stopped breathing on his own. At ten minutes after midnight, Mao's heart ceased beating. The great dictator, revolutionary, and tyrant had died in his eighty-third year.
1 Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, trans. Constance Garnett (New York: Modern Library, 1996), 350, 353.
2 Borisov and Titarenko, Vystupleniia Mao Tsze-duna, ranee ne publikovavshiesia v kitaiskoi pechati (Mao Zedong's Speeches Previously Unpublished in the Chinese Press), series 6, 280. See also notes of Mao's conversation with Pol Pot, the leader of the Khmer Rouge, June 21, 1975, in Westad, “77 Conversations Between Chinese and Foreign Leaders on the Wars in Indochina,” 191.
3 Henry A. Kissinger, White House Years (Boston: Little, Brown, 1979), 699.
4 Borisov and Titarenko, Vystupleniia Mao Tsze-duna, ranee ne publikovavshiesia v kitaiskoi pechati (Mao Zedong's Speeches Previously Unpublished in the Chinese Press), series 6, 270.
5 Quoted from Kissinger, White House Years, 164.
6 Richard Nixon, RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1978), 546.
7 Kissinger, White House Years, 700–702.
8 Snow, The Long Revolution, 171, 172. See also Mao, Mao Zedong wenji (Works of Mao Zedong), vol. 8, 436–37.
9 Edgar Snow, “A Conversation with Mao Tse-tung,” Life, April 30, 1971, 46–48.
10 Quoted from Li and Ma, Zhou Enlai nianpu (1949–1976) (Chronological Biography of Zhou Enlai [1949–1976]), vol. 2, 451. See also The Analects of Confucius, 3; Kissinger, White House Years, 708–10; Li, The Private Life of Chairman Mao, 558; Liao, Mao Zedong baike quanshu (Encyclopedia of Mao Zedong), vol. 1, 36.
11 Westad, “77 Conversations Between Chinese and Foreign Leaders on the Wars in Indochina,” 175.
12 Kissinger, White House Years, 163, 755.
13 Nixon, RN, 544.
14 Li, The Private Life of Chairman Mao, 563.
15 Nixon, RN, 560.
16 Kissinger, White House Years, 1058.
17 See Zhang Yufeng, “Neskol'ko shtrikhov k kartine poslednikh let zhizni Mao Tszeduna, Chzhou Enlaia” (Some Brushstrokes Toward a Picture of the Last Years of Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai), in Yu. N. Galenovich, ed., Smert' Mao Tszeduna (The Death of Mao Zedong) (Moscow: Izd-vo “Izograf,” 2005), 89.
18 Quoted from Nixon, RN, 560.
19 Kissinger, The White House Years, 1059.
20 Nixon, RN, 561–62. See also William Burr, ed., The Kissinger Transcripts: The Top Secret Talks with Beijing and Moscow (New York: New Press, 1998), 60.
21 Ibid.
22 Nixon, RN, 561–64; Burr, The Kissinger Transcripts, 65.
23 Quoted from Kissinger, White House Years, 1492.
24 See Westad, “77 Conversations Between Chinese and Foreign Leaders on the Wars in Indochina,” 179–82.
25 Li, The Private Life of Chairman Mao, 566, 569.
26 See Liao, Mao Zedong baike quanshu (Encyclopedia of Mao Zedong), vol. 6, 3249.
27 See Barnouin and Yu, Ten Years of Turbulence, 249.
28 Quoted from Deng, Deng Xiaoping and the Cultural Revolution, 209.
29 Quoted from History of the Chinese Communist Party—A Chronology of Events, 358.
30 Borisov and Titarenko, Vystupleniia Mao Tsze-duna, ranee ne publikovavshiesia v kitaiskoi pechati (Mao Zedong's Speeches Previously Unpublished in the Chinese Press), series 6, 283.
31 Vremia novostei (News hour), August 23, 2004.
32 Quoted from History of the Chinese Communist Party—A Chronology of Events, 360.
33 Jin, The Culture of Power, 78.
34 The Analects of Confucius, 57.
35 See Zhongguo gongchandang di shici quanguo daibiaodahui wenjian huibian (Collection of Documents from the Tenth Congress of the Chinese Communist Party) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1973); The Tenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China (Documents) (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1973); Lichnoe delo Mao Tszeduna (Personal File of Mao Zedong), RGASPI, collection 495, inventory 225, file 71, vol. 6, sheets 257–60.
36 See Burr, The Kissinger Transcripts, 166–216; Li and Ma, Zhou Enlai nianpu (1949–1976) (Chronological Biography of Zhou Enlai [1949–1976]), vol. 3, 632–34; Gao Wenqian, Zhou Enlai. The Last Perfect Revolutionary. A Biography, trans. Peter Rand and Lawrence R. Sullivan (New York: PublicAffairs, 2007), 239–42.
37 Burr, The Kissinger Transcripts, 205.
38 Quoted from Gao, Zhou Enlai, 241.
39 Deng, Deng Xiaoping and the Cultural Revolution, 255–56.
40 See Liao, Mao Zedong baike quanshu (Encyclopedia of Mao Zedong), vol. 6, 3253.
41 Kissinger, White House Years, 1058.
42 Li, The Private Life of Chairman Mao, 581–82.
43 See Mao, Mao Zedong on Diplomacy, 454. This concept had been maturing in his mind since the fall of 1963. See ibid., 387–88.
44 See History of the Chinese Communist Party—A Chronology of Events, 363.
45 Zhang, “Neskol'ko shtrikhov k kartine poslednikh let zhizni Mao Tszeduna, Chzhou En'laia” (Some Brushstrokes Toward a Picture of the Last Years of Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai), 81.
46 Ibid., 99; Lichnoe delo Mao Tszeduna (Personal File of Mao Zedong), RGASPI, collection 495, inventory 225, file 71, vol. 7, sheet 170; A Great Trial in Chinese History, 49–50.
47 Ibid., 159.
48 Ibid., 47.
49 Quoted from Pang and Jin, Mao Zedong zhuan (1949–1976) (Biography of Mao Zedong [1949–1976]), vol. 2, 1704.
50 Quoted from Deng, Deng Xiaoping and the Cultural Revolution, 282–83.
51 Ibid., 300.
52 See Pang and Jin, Mao Zedong zhuan (1949–1976) (Biography of Mao Zedong [1949–1976]), vol. 2, 1739.
53 For details see the book by Guo Jinrong based on Meng Jinyun's memoirs: Guo Jinrong, Zoujin Mao Zedongde zuihou suiyue (Entering Mao Zedong's Last Months) (Beijing: Zhonggong dangshi chubanshe, 2009).
54 Quoted from Deng, Deng Xiaoping and the Cultural Revolution, 353.
55 History of the Chinese Communist Party—A Chronology of Events, 373.
56 See Rethinking the “Cultural Revolution” (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1987), 22–23; Yen and Kao, The Ten Year History of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, 553.
57 Quoted from History of the Chinese Communist Party—A Chronology of Events, 375.
58 Quoted from Deng, Deng Xiaoping and the Cultural Revolution, 398.
59 Quoted from Pang and Jin, Mao Zedong zhuan (1949–1976) (Biography of Mao Zedong [1949–1976]), vol. 2, 1778.
60 See ibid., 1745–1746; Li, The Private Life of Chairman Mao, 601–2, 604–5.
61 Zhang, “Neskol'ko shtrikov k kartine poslednikh let zhizni Mao Tszeduna, Chzhou En'laia” (Some Brushstrokes Toward a Picture of the Last Years of Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai), 98.
62 Ibid., 102.
63 Lichnoe delo Mao Tszeduna (Personal File of Mao Zedong), RGASPI, collection 495, inventory 225, file 71, vol. 6, sheet 114.
64 Ibid., sheet 107.
65 Ibid., sheet 201. See also Pang and Jin, Mao Zedong zhuan (1949–1976) (Biography of Mao Zedong [1949–1976]), vol. 2, 1778.
66 Pang and Jin, Mao Zedong zhuan (1949–1976) (Biography of Mao Zedong [1949–1976]), vol. 2, 1781–82. For slightly different translations see Barnouin and Yu, Ten Years of Turbulence, 291; Michael Schoenhals, ed., China's Cultural Revolution, 1966–1969: Not a Dinner Party (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1996), 293.
67 See Lichnoe delo Mao Tszeduna (Personal File of Mao Zedong), RGASPI, collection 495, inventory 225, file 71, vol. 6, sheet 81.
68 See Li, The Private Life of Chairman Mao, 614, 618, 624; Li, Moi otets Mao Tszedun (My Father Mao Zedong), 296–97.
n88 At a press conference Bhutto said the meeting had lasted twenty-one minutes, but the Chinese said later that Mao met with the Pakistani premier for no more than ten minutes. This is just how long he spoke with Lee Kuan Yew.