I waited for more than a month. Then on February 8, 1966, Mao allowed me to listen in on a meeting in the huge reception room of the Meiyuan guesthouse, where we were staying in Wuhan. He often encouraged his staff to listen to his conversations as a way of keeping ourselves informed. I sat apart from the participants but could overhear everything. Three members of a committee established in July 1964, the “Five-Man Group of the Cultural Revolution,” had just arrived from Beijing. The committee had recently been charged with directing criticism of Wu Han's play Hai Rui Dismissed from Office. Its members included propaganda chief Lu Dingyi, politburo member Kang Sheng, Beijing mayor and member of the central secretariat Peng Zhen, deputy chief of propaganda Zhou Yang, and head of the People's Daily Wu Lengxi. Lu Dingyi, Kang Sheng, and Peng Zhen had come to meet with Mao, accompanied by Xu Liqun, another deputy of the Propaganda Department, and Hu Sheng, a deputy editor in chief of Red Flag, the party's monthly propaganda journal.

Mao presided. He said that last December 21, he had told Chen Boda and Kang Sheng that he thought Yao Wenyuan's article attacking Hai Rui Dismissed from Office was very good. But Yao Wenyuan still missed the point, which was that the Ming dynasty's Jiajing emperor dismissed Hai Rui from office and in 1959 Mao dismissed Peng Dehuai. Peng Dehuai, Mao said, is the modern-day Hai Rui.

Mao turned to Peng Zhen, the head of the five-man committee. “Is Wu Han really anti-party, anti-socialist?” he wanted to know.

Before Peng Zhen could reply, Kang Sheng interjected to say that Wu Han's play was an “anti-party, anti-socialist poisonous weed.”

No one dared to contradict him.

“Of course, if there are different opinions, they should be aired,” Mao said as the silence continued. He said he wanted different opinions to be expressed, so we could compare them and see clearly which was right and wrong. “You should all feel free to speak. Let different opinions be aired here.”

Peng Zhen finally spoke. He wanted to defend the contents of a document he had brought with him. Entitled “An Outline Report of the Five-Man Small Group to the Center,” the document argued that the issues raised in Wu Han's play were academic rather than political. “I think we should follow the Chairman's instructions, letting one hundred schools contend, one hundred flowers bloom when discussing the academic issues raised by the play,” Peng said. “We need a lively discussion.” The Outline Report, already agreed to by the politburo standing committee, awaited only Mao's final approval.

Lu Dingyi spoke in support of Peng Zhen, emphasizing the academic nature of the debate, arguing that labels like anti-party and anti-socialist had to be avoided. If not, he argued, there will be complete silence.

Kang Sheng said nothing after Peng Zhen and Lu Dingyi presented their views. The battle lines were clear. Kang Sheng was interpreting the Wu Han affair as an issue of class struggle and wanted open political attacks against Wu Han and his supporters. Peng Zhen and Lu Dingyi were trying to keep the conflict in check by arguing that the controversy surrounding the play was nothing more than intellectual debate.

Minutes passed and no one said anything more. Mao adjourned the meeting.

But the participants still did not know where Mao stood. Peng Zhen wondered whether he had the Chairman's approval to write and distribute an intra-party commentary.

“You people work it out,” Mao responded. “I don't need to see it.”

I knew immediately that trouble was in the wind. Mao was deliberately setting a trap. His refusal to review the document could only mean that he did not approve. But Peng Zhen did not understand Mao the way I did. Peng Zhen and Lu Dingyi were heading for trouble. Distribution of their Outline Report meant danger.

Four days later, on February 12, 1966, the “Outline Report of the Five-Man Small Group on the Current Academic Debate” was disseminated to the party, together with a written commentary from the “central authority.” But Mao had not seen the document, and those in the central authority who had were divided. The views represented in the document were those of Peng Zhen and Lu Dingyi. Discussions of Hai Rui Dismissed from Office, the document said, would be strictly academic.

Mao interpreted the document as a rebuke to his views. He agreed with Kang Sheng that Wu Han's play was a “poisonous weed” and that Wu Han himself was anti-party and anti-socialist. Lu Dingyi had been in serious political trouble before the report was published, and Peng Zhen had been under suspicion. Now the two men were in still greater jeopardy. By confining the discussion to academic debate, refusing to condemn Wu Han, they risked being branded anti-party, anti-socialist themselves.

“It appears that what I said before is correct,” Mao said to me the night the Outline Report was distributed. “Reactionaries don't fall down unless you hit them hard.” Mao was getting ready to hit hard. Peng Zhen's document was to become notorious ever after as the infamous anti-socialist “February Outline Report.” Peng Zhen was about to be toppled.