89
Zhou Enlai was dying. Mao never visited him in the hospital. The Chairman was too sick. But at the end of November 1975, Mao asked me to visit Zhou. The premier was still in the 305 Hospital, and I met with his doctors first. Zhou had cancer of the bladder, colon, and lung. Strangely, the cancers were independent of each other, not the result of metastasis.
Zhou was thin and shrunken, but he was still handsome. His neatly combed black hair had only a touch of gray, and he was wearing his usual Mao suit. Zhou refused to be confined to his bed. I met him in the reception area of his hospital suite. He seemed sad.
I told the premier that the Chairman was concerned about his health. Zhou wondered how Mao was doing and asked again whether we had found a cure for his amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. I briefed him on the Chairman's health, ignoring his question about a cure. Zhou asked me to extend his thanks and good wishes to Mao. “It appears I cannot make it,” he said. “Take good care of Chairman.” When I said goodbye and offered my hand at around 7:00 P.M. on November 29, he was too weak to lift his hand. That was the last time I saw him.
Zhou Enlai died on January 8, 1976.
There was little reaction in Group One. Even Wang Dongxing was silent. We had all known that Zhou was dying, and Jiang Qing opposed the premier to the end. For me, his death was hardly unexpected. What worried me most was the power struggle to follow. Jiang Qing and her faction were winning. The attacks against Deng Xiaoping continued, and while he had not been formally removed from power, he was no longer allowed to work. Mao himself was dying.
Many of the doctors on Mao's medical team had also treated Zhou, and they wanted to visit the 305 Hospital to pay their last respects. When I presented their request to Zhang Yaoci, his response was swift and stern. The doctors were not permitted to go, and no one was to wear the black armband of mourning. When I questioned the decision, Zhang became adamant. He was following orders, he said, and did not know the reason behind them. He cautioned the doctors that we would be in trouble if we asked again.
Inside Group One, life continued as usual. The staff still watched movies in the old swimming pool area each night. As Chinese New Year approached, Zhang Yufeng wanted to celebrate. She suggested that Zhang Yaoci set off firecrackers outside Mao's residence. Zhang was happy to please her, but when the firecrackers began exploding, the area suddenly swarmed with guards and soldiers from the Central Garrison Corps. Zhongnanhai had long had a ban against firecrackers. They sounded too much like gunfire and made security more difficult. Zhang Yaoci had failed to tell the security forces his plan. Many onlookers were also drawn to the scene, and a rumor began circulating that the Chairman was celebrating Zhou's death with firecrackers.
People began speculating uneasily about who would replace Zhou. With Jiang Qing's faction on the ascendancy and Deng Xiaoping under attack, many presumed that Wang Hongwen would be named the new premier. But to everyone's surprise, Mao recommended that Hua Guofeng be made acting premier and first vice-chairman of the party. The politburo, meeting on January 21 and 28, accepted his appointment. The formal announcement was made on February 3, 1976.
Like many people, I was stunned. But I thought the appointment was a smart move. So did Wang Dongxing. The Chairman's mind was still clear. The appointment was an affront to Jiang Qing and her cronies. The top-level leaders were split between the veteran Long March cadres (the empiricists) and the younger radicals, whom Mao had accused of dogmatism. Mao did not want to hand over leadership to either side. So he made a man who belonged to neither group premier. Few people had ever heard of Hua Guofeng, the man who once ran Xiangtan prefecture in Mao's home province and had moved on to become first party secretary in Hunan. He was what we called a '38 cadre—a man who had joined the revolutionary movement in 1938, just after the start of the War of Resistance against Japan. Wang Dongxing was pleased with the choice. Hua was an experienced and dependable leader and a modest, amiable man. The problem was that Hua would soon be made a new target of Jiang Qing and her associates. He was definitely not one of them.
Instead, the attacks against Deng Xiaoping picked up. In early March, transcripts of Mao's talks with his nephew in which he attacked Deng Xiaoping were distributed within the party. I sympathized with Deng. He was an able, astute administrator and probably the only leader capable of leading the country once Zhou and Mao were gone.
Many people found Mao's criticisms unfair. And people resented that Zhou Enlai had not been properly mourned. Beginning in mid-March, knowing that the Qing Ming festival for honoring the dead would be celebrated on April 4, the citizens of Beijing began going to the Monument to the Revolutionary Heroes in Tiananmen Square to place mourning wreaths for Zhou. The movement was spontaneous, and the crowds grew larger by the day. The country had not witnessed such an outpouring of popular sentiment since before the communists came to power in 1949.
I sympathized with the movement and was impressed by the courage of the citizens of Beijing. We all knew that the demonstrators were doing more than mourning the death of Zhou. They were also protesting against Jiang Qing and her radical faction and showing support for Deng Xiaoping. I wanted to go to the square, both to show my sympathy and to see for myself what was happening, but Wang Dongxing and Zhang Yaoci warned me to stay away. Plainclothes police were everywhere, and if my photograph ever appeared in their files, I would have a lot of explaining to do. If I had to go there on business, they said, I should make certain the curtains on my car were drawn.
Toward the end of March, I used a visit to Beijing Hospital on business for Mao as an excuse to go. The square was filled with tens of thousands of people singing, making speeches, and reading poems. The mourning wreaths stretched from the Monument to the Revolutionary Heroes in the center of the square all the way to Changan Avenue just in front of the Gate of Heavenly Peace, and thousands of banners were flapping in the breeze. It was an impressive and moving sight. My driver was grateful for a chance to witness the event. His superiors had warned him, too, against going. He would have liked to stay longer and take a closer look, but I thought it better to go back. Later I learned that our license plate had been recorded. The police did not investigate, because the car was registered to the Central Bureau of Guards.
Day after day the crowds returned, both mourning and angry. Jiang Qing and her associates were coming under particular attack. On the evening of April 4, the holiday of Qing Ming, the crowds swelled to the hundreds of thousands. The politburo met to decide what to do. Its members concluded that the peaceful demonstrations were part of a deliberate, planned counterrevolutionary movement. Mao did not attend the meeting. Mao Yuanxin served as his liaison. When Mao Yuanxin gave the Chairman a written report summarizing the politburo deliberations, Mao concurred. That night, the order was given to remove the wreaths, banners, and posters from the square and to begin arresting the counterrevolutionaries.
The next day, April 5, the situation turned violent. Angry demonstrators began clashing with the militiamen, police, and soldiers from the People's Liberation Army. Reinforcements were brought in, and by nine o'clock that night, ten thousand militiamen, three thousand policemen, and five battalions of security forces had sealed off the square, beating and arresting the demonstrators who remained inside.
Jiang Qing spent the whole day in the Great Hall of the People, at the western edge of the square, observing the crowd through binoculars. I was in the reception room at the old swimming pool at eleven that night when she came to tell Mao about the successful suppression of the “counterrevolutionaries”—a great victory for her faction. I have no idea what she said to Mao. But I thought the Tiananmen demonstrations were a genuine mass movement, not the “small handful” of counterrevolutionaries that Jiang Qing and her gang accused them of being. Mao had always said that force should not be used against the masses. Now the masses had become the enemy.
Jiang Qing left Mao's room triumphant and invited us to join her to celebrate with maotai, peanuts, and roast pork. “We are victorious,” she said, offering a toast. “Bottoms up. I will become a bludgeon, ready to strike.” It was an unpleasant experience, and I was very upset.
The politburo met again on the morning of April 6, after the mass arrests. Thirty thousand militiamen were ordered to patrol the square and its environs, and nine battalions of soldiers were called to stand ready. Again Mao Yuanxin conveyed the decision to his uncle, and Mao concurred.
The next day, Mao Yuanxin gave Mao the articles from the People's Daily condemning the counterrevolutionary incident. Wang Dongxing told me what happened. Mao believed that the incident was counterrevolutionary. It had taken place in Tiananmen Square, in the heart of the nation's capital. Buildings and vehicles had been burned, and fights had broken out. Deng Xiaoping had been behind the incident, Mao said. He had to be dismissed from all his positions in both the party and government, retaining only his party membership. Mao wanted Hua Guofeng to become the permanent premier and first vice-chairman of the party. Mao Yuanxin conveyed Mao's recommendations to another meeting of the politburo. The politburo agreed, and the announcement was made over the People's Broadcasting Station. Deng Xiaoping had been purged again, and Hua Guofeng had permanently replaced Zhou Enlai.
That evening, Wang Dongxing presided over a meeting of Group One and the medical team. We met in the reception room at the old swimming pool. Wang Dongxing announced the politburo decision and distributed a document about the campaign to criticize Deng Xiaoping and oppose his efforts to “reverse the verdicts” of the Cultural Revolution. When the meeting was over, he asked me, Zhang Yaoci, and several of the security officers to stay behind. He warned us to be careful and to watch our words, and he instructed me to pass the message on to the other doctors on the team. The doctors were from several different hospitals, and Wang did not know them well, either personally or politically. Wang had been a supporter of Deng Xiaoping, and he too stood to lose now that Deng had been overthrown. I understood his warning as an effort to keep us silent about his relationship with the deposed leader.
The doctors were not talking politics, though. Their attention was focused on Mao. He still refused our efforts to examine him and would not allow any tests. Our only measure of his health was the urine samples the nurses provided us, and we had brought in sophisticated equipment from the 305 Hospital to help with our analyses. We were able to increase Mao's output of urine from 500cc to 800cc a day, but with such limited access to him, our efforts on behalf of the Chairman were limited.