18

The congress was scheduled to open on September 15, 1956. The other party leaders returned to Beijing sometime before the meetings, but Mao stayed behind in Beidaihe. The weather was beginning to turn cool, but Mao liked chilly weather, and we continued our afternoon swims until the water became too cold even for him. We left just before the congress opened.

The Eighth Party Congress was the first to convene since 1945, when the party was still in Yanan before the establishment of the People's Republic, and it would both elect a new Central Committee and lay down the guiding principles for the newly established socialist system. Mao wanted the congress to lay down his policies of radical reform and to confirm his position as the country's unparalleled leader. But he left the details of the meetings to Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping, and I think the two men let their own self-importance overwhelm their political good sense. They had misunderstood Mao's plan to resign as chairman of the republic, and their management of the congress was a slap in the face to the Chairman. He accused them of taking control and pushing him to the second line, not only on nonsubstantive and formal matters but on issues of vital interest as well.

Liu Shaoqi was charged with delivering the party's political report, the most important speech of the congress. Ordinarily, Mao would have been actively involved, commenting on Liu Shaoqi's various drafts. But Mao told me—and repeated the claim on numerous occasions during the Cultural Revolution—that Liu Shaoqi did not let him see it.

“I am going to resign the chairmanship of the republic,” Mao complained to me, “but I am still the chairman of the party. Why didn't they consult me about the party congress? They did not give me a chance to participate in drafting the political report. They did not even let me see the text in advance. They said they were short of time. Well, I was not out of the country. Why did they say they were short of time?”

I did not know whether Mao had read the draft of Liu's speech, but he clearly did not like what he had learned of it, and I think his statement to me must have been an example of the exaggeration he often engaged in when he was angry. The general line laid out at the Eighth Party Congress never had Mao's support, and all of his political initiatives thereafter—the party rectification, the Great Leap Forward, the socialist education campaign, and the Cultural Revolution—were efforts to undermine the general line laid down by the congress. Not until the Twelfth Plenum of the Eighth Party Congress of 1969, which formally purged Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping, ousted the majority of representatives of the Eighth Party Congress, and enshrined Mao's thought as the country's leading force, was Mao's revenge complete.

Deng and Liu worked closely together, and their views of how China should be governed were, I think, fundamentally different from Mao's. They saw the party as a decision-making organ, and Khrushchev's attack on Stalin only confirmed their belief that decisions ought to be made collectively. They viewed Mao as the first among equals. Mao's view, however, was more imperial. He saw himself and his will as supreme and resented any indication to the contrary.

Mao gave the opening address to the congress, and I accompanied him for both the opening and closing sessions and listened offstage to Liu Shaoqi's political report. I knew immediately, listening to both Liu and Deng Xiaoping, that Mao would be furious. I, too, was very surprised. Mao had good cause to feel slighted. The reports lauded the principle of collective leadership and decried the cult of personality, and Deng Xiaoping assured the party delegates that China would never have a cult of personality. The new constitution described by Deng deleted the phrase that took Mao's thought as the country's ideological guide and created a new position for Mao, that of honorary chairman, which he would assume upon resigning the chairmanship of the party—suggesting that even his party chairmanship would not be permanent and that others expected him to step down from that post, too.

The praise of collective leadership, following Khrushchev's example, was particularly disturbing. If the party adhered to the principle of collective leadership, everyone would be equal and important issues would have to be jointly determined. Mao's role would be diminished. But Mao wanted to stay at the top. He wanted a cult of personality.

I agreed. Mao was supposed to be the leader, not Liu Shaoqi or some collective body.

Similarly, while Mao said that he wanted to retreat to the second line, he still expected to be consulted on all important matters. The problem, Mao said, was that what Liu and Deng regarded as important and sent to Mao for consideration, Mao regarded as unimportant; what Mao regarded as unimportant, Liu and Deng sent to Mao's attention.

The Eighth Party Congress was the first time I was aware that there were differences between Mao and Liu Shaoqi, his chosen successor, and the meeting was a turning point in Mao's relations with both Liu and Deng. Mao was convinced the top leaders were trying to diminish his power.

But Mao had a way of deflecting his anger, lashing out first not at the real targets of his rage but at their underlings. Just as Mao's earlier anger at Stalin had been directed instead toward his representative, Wang Ming, so Mao's fury against Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping was initially directed against their subordinates, Luo Ruiqing and Wang Dongxing. His anger brought quick and dramatic changes to my life.

The explosion occurred one evening shortly after the Eighth Party Congress and just after the October first National Day celebrations in 1956. Most of the Zhongnanhai staff were in Huairen Hall watching a performance of Chinese opera. Mao was in his bedroom, and I was reviewing some medical records in the duty office nearby. Suddenly, Li Yinqiao walked into my office and phoned Huairen Hall, instructing Luo Ruiqing and Wang Dongxing, both attending the opera, to report to Mao immediately.

The two men arrived within minutes, puzzled at Mao's unceremonious summons and wondering what could be so urgent.

“The Chairman wants to see you,” was all Li Yinqiao would say.

Mao began yelling the moment the two officials walked into his room, cursing them in the crudest of language. The meeting lasted an hour, and Li Yinqiao and another bodyguard took it all in by eavesdropping at the door. Mao had already criticized Luo and Wang in Beidaihe. Their security arrangements, he had said, were excessive, wasteful, and obsequiously modeled on those of the Soviet Union. He was still angry with Wang Dongxing for opposing his swim in the Yangtze. But what really infuriated him was something that he could not admit—that they were too subservient to the party bureaucracy. Both were in the habit of reporting directly to the party center, under the supervision of Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping.

But Mao was the chief, the head of the party secretariat, and there was no institutional necessity for Luo and Wang to report to someone else. They did so not out of loyalty to Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping and certainly not to antagonize Mao. So far as both men knew, the relationship between Mao and the other top leaders was solid as a rock. They reported to the party center because they were terrified that Mao's defiance of their security arrangements could lead to some sort of accident. They wanted to make certain that the other top leaders just under Mao would share responsibility if anything went wrong.

That the two officials reported so often to the party center had always vexed Mao, and after Liu's behavior at the Eighth Party Congress, Mao was more infuriated still. His fury was further fueled by Li Yinqiao. Li told Mao that Luo and Wang were determined, despite Mao's criticisms at Beidaihe, to provide the Chairman with “maximum protection.”

Li knew that Mao did not want “maximum protection.” He wanted to be free to swim where he wanted, to mix with the masses, and to indulge undetected in his private life, too. Maximum protection meant maximum exposure to guards who were strangers to Mao and loyal to Luo and Wang. The more bureaucratically appointed guards he had, the more people were privy to his private affairs, and the greater the possibility that his activities would be reported to the central party leadership. Mao needed more freedom to maneuver. He did not want the party leadership to know everything he did. He needed guards who were loyal only to him and willing to skirt the bureaucratic hierarchy. He could not say this, though, because he could not yet admit his disaffection with the men who were supposed to be his comrades.

“I don't believe that old Hunanese saying that when the butcher dies you have to eat unskinned pork,” Mao shouted at Luo Ruiqing and Wang Dongxing, which meant that he could do very well without their services. “You two are fired.”

Mao told Luo Ruiqing that he was being demoted, removed as minister of public security and appointed to the much less distinguished position of governor of Hunan province. Wang Dongxing was to be relieved as head of Mao's security guards and vice-minister of the Ministry of Public Security. He would go first to be “educated” at the Communist party's Central Cadre School in Beijing and then be sent back to his home province of Jiangxi for further reform.

The two men were pale and shaken when they left Mao's room. Luo Ruiqing was particularly upset. He could not understand why Mao resented his well-intentioned protection.

“What happened?” Luo asked, his lips trembling, as the two came into the duty office. He wanted to report immediately to the party center and to call a meeting at the Ministry of Public Security. He still could not understand that his penchant for reporting everything to the party center was why Mao had dismissed him.

Wang Dongxing, who was closer to Mao, understood him better. He knew that if Luo called a meeting or went to the party center, the chance for compromise would be lost and Luo's break with the Chairman would be complete.

He urged Luo Ruiqing not to act rashly, suggesting that the meeting could wait until they found out what had gone wrong. Luo was persuaded.

Later, Luo Ruiqing wrote a letter apologizing to Mao, confessing his mistake. When he called a meeting at the Ministry of Public Security it was to make a public self-criticism.

Mao relented. Luo continued as minister of public security. He never went to Hunan.

Wang Dongxing also wrote a letter apologizing to Mao and made a self-confession. But Wang was not exonerated. He was fired.

Wang Dongxing's dismissal left me bereft. He had been my friend and protector—my only support within Group One. He had given me advice and kept me informed and helped me when things went wrong. Wang Dongxing had brought me into Group One, over the persistent objections of people who remained behind and who would benefit from his departure. Both Ye Zilong and Li Yinqiao were delighted that Wang was gone, and their enmity toward me persisted. Without Wang I felt naked, helpless against the constant skirmishes within the palace walls. I had no way to survive. I would be eaten alive. I, too, would have to leave Group One. I began planning my escape.