Chapter 16. Mao’s Goal to Overtake England in 15 Years

Barely had the Anti-Rightist Movement been victoriously completed, in November 1957, when Mao put forward another idea: that China must overtake Great Britain in 15 years. Well, he was referring specifically to iron and steel output and certain other major products. Mao headed a delegation to the Moscow to attend the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s October Revolution. Then he attended conference with representatives of 64 communist parties and worker’s parties from all over the world. Mao announced that since the Soviet Union could overtake the US in 15 years, China could overtake Great Britain in 15 years, too.
At that time England’s annual steel production was 20 million tons. In 15 years, it might reach 30 million tons. So his aim was to reach 40 million tons in steel production in 15 years. From the estimation in an official document on the speed of the steel productivity in China, the result would be that the steel production could reach 12 million tons in 1959, 30 million tons in 1962, 70 million tons in 1967, and 120 million tons in 1972. This sounds like the same kind of estimates that drove the agricultural policy, but the party leaders thought that their aim could be achieved in 3 or 5 years, no need for 15 years. To find new sources of iron ore, local party secretaries led people in their areas into the mountains, even elementary school pupils and the elderly, people in their 70s and 80s, joined in the action. Peasants left their work in the fields and abandoned the harvests to participate in the search for ore deposits. In Henan province, 50% of the grain was left unharvested and rotted in the fields.

By then, the total goal for iron and steel production had been set at 10.7 million tons. An official Party decision to that effect was taken on the 17th of August, 1958. To achieve that goal, they wanted the whole nation to engage in the making of iron and steel. They ordered people to build old-styled open-pit ovens, like in the kitchens of primitive old houses. In all factories other than steel plants, a couple of ovens were set up to make steel on the side. As to where to get the raw materials, they commanded people to take down all the steel doors, iron bars on windows, and steel fences, and to sell all their household goods made of iron and steel, such as tools and kitchen utensils. If people could have cut their food with wooden knives, they would have ordered them to give up their steel knives. This of course reduced production of other necessities and disrupted the supply chain for other goods. As a result of all these efforts, it was declared in December 1958 that the total output of iron and steel was 11,080,000 tons, task victoriously completed. But more than 3 million tons of the steel and 4,160,000 tons of the iron were no good, all garbage. A complete waste of money and materials and labor force. The loss was estimated at about 20 billion yuan in Chinese currency.
Once they had melted the raw material, how did they make the “steel bricks? Here is a description. Whatever scraps of iron or steel were on hand would be thrown in the oven until they melted a little, just enough to stick together. Then the piece was taken out and put on an iron anvil. One man tightly held the half-softened piece on the anvil using long-handled tongs, and two other men hit it in turn with big hammers, while the person holding the piece turned it around, over and over, until it began to take on the shape of a brick. The two men hit the piece by turns, as is often done in hand-forging, as the piece cools quickly and one man can strike while the other is raising his hammer again. As soon as the shape was fixed, the job was deemed finished. This “steel brick” was put aside and they would go to work on the next one. Three men’s efforts were tied up working at each oven. That was how the steel bricks were made.

Chapter 17. The Meeting On Mt. Lu and Peng’s Letter

Background Information

In 1958 when Khrushchev visited Beijing, he derided China’s Great Leap Forward as a mania of the petty bourgeoisie. During the period of May–June in 1959, when Khrushchev officially visited Albania, he met Peng Dehuai, who let Khrushchev read a memorandum recording some severe criticisms of the Great Leap Forward and the people’s commune. On July 17, Khrushchev made a speech in Poland criticizing the Great Leap Forward and the people’s commune. The next day, the newspapers in the Soviet Union and Poland repeated the same criticisms. That set the international background.
Data from the National Statistics Bureau showed that China’s total output in 1958 was valued at 130.7 billion yuan, 21.3% more than in 1957; the total industrial value was 108.3 billion yuan, 54.8% more than in 1957; and the total agricultural value was 56.6 billion yuan, 2.4% more than in 1957. The total quantity of grain in 1958 was 200 million tons, 2.54% more than in 1957. Therefore, Mao thought that the policies of the Great Leap Forward and the people’s commune were correct. So he refused to accept any criticism, though he admitted that there had been some shortcomings in carrying out the policy, like forcing people to do things against their will, exaggerating, commanding blindly, and allowing cadres to arrogate special rights over people.

The Meeting On Mt. Lu
In July, 1959, the Party held a conference on Mt. Lu, on which Mao owned that there were some demerits in the Great Leap Forward and the people’s commune movements, but the Party should yet accelerate the completion of all the tasks of the Great Leap Forward. At first the conference was going peacefully. The representatives toured the mountain in the day and held a dance or had a walk in the evening, besides attending meetings. The purpose of this conference was at first just to let other leaders know these demerits and help to correct them. The conference lasted for nearly a month and all the representatives were happy as it drew to an end. Just then an apple of discord dropped on the table. Peng Dehuai handed in his “Ten Thousand Words Letter” to Mao.

Peng’s Ten-Thousand Word Letter

Peng Dehuai was the vice chairman of the central military committee of the CPC, the minister of National Defense, and a vice Premier of the state council. Although the administration was not known for inviting input from anyone, he finally decided that he had quite a lot to say. What did Peng say in his “Ten-Thousand Word Letter”? He just pointed out all the mistakes made so far, with an in-depth analysis. In 1959, he said the Party should slow down the speed of development and not keep on with the Great Leap Forward, which had thrown the economy off balance and created new difficulties. He also sharply pointed out that the exaggerated statistics and the passing of false information to party leaders were just the surface of the problem, the deeper cause being the lack of openness to advice and other opinions (an aspect of democracy) and personality worship, which hit home to Mao’s leadership. On July 17, coincidently on the same day as Khrushchev delivered his criticism in Poland, Zhou Xiaozhou, the first party secretary of Hunan province, gave a talk that supported Peng. On July 20, Zhang Wentian, a vice minister in the foreign affairs ministry, supported Peng, too.
Mao refused to listen to Peng, and Peng had an argument with Mao. Mao criticized Peng severely, and called Peng and his supporters an “Anti-Party Clique.” They were removed from their official positions and put in prison. But the people of China respected them for their courage in speaking out. During the anti-rightist movement over 10,000 party members were criticized and were ill treated. All those cases were redressed in 1962, except Peng. It is thought that Peng’s main offense was his failure to protect Mao’s eldest son adequately during the Korean War.

A Great Leap Backward into Famine

Largely as a result of the foregoing policies, a serious famine hit China from 1959 to 1961. Some reports suggest that at least 30 million people died from hunger. The high estimation was more than 60 million. As the Communist Party kept such statistics a national secret, no one can be sure. If calculated at 37,558,000 (from official statistics recently revealed), the number is 7.65 million greater than the total number of deaths from starvation in all the history of China, almost equivalent to the casualties in the Second World War, which was between 30–40 million.
The Great Leap Forward and the steel making spree damaged the agricultural sector deeply. In 1960, the grain output fell to 158,000 tons, 26% less than in 1957 before the Great Leap Forward. In Sichuan province, renowned for its plentiful grain production, the output decreased year by year from 1959 to 1961. In 1961, it was even less than in 1949. In that province alone, 10 million people starved to death. Some cadres wrote a letter to the Central Committee of the CPC to tell the truth, but they were decided to be an anti-party clique.
Many in the countryside ate grass and tree bark. The Party denied that there was a famine, but called it a natural catastrophe. It really did not matter what they called it. Later, however, Liu Shaoqi, the chairman of the People’s Republic of China, confessed that the calamity was “seven tenths human error and three tenths a natural catastrophe.”
Even during the famine years, the Party exported grain in order to earn foreign currency. And in 1959, when people were starving in the streets, 4,157,500 tons of grain were exported to the Soviet Union and other socialist nations in Eastern Europe in exchange for help to develop the military industry. Given the constant menace from the West, as the Cold War raged on, one could say that there was some strategic basis for this deadly trade-off. But on top of that, in April 1960, they gave 10,000 tons of rice to Guinea, and 15,000 tons of wheat to Albania. Was that just a public relations ploy to deny the true state of affairs?

Chapter 18   What is great cultural revolution?
 
I. Background of so-called cultural revolution

During the so-called natural calamity, as three hundred millions of people were starved to death, the national economy got worse and worse. Therefore, Mao was forced to recede to the background on the political power stage, and Liu Shaoqi stepped into the foreground, helped by Deng, the secretary general of the central committee of the communist Party. Of course, such a very ambitious person as Mao would never, of his own accord, give up the political power he had enjoyed so far and now stand backstage watching others perform on the political stage right under his nose. No, he would never allow it. This was the reason of the occurrence of the cultural revolution he was scheming in his great mind.
In January, 1962, at a meeting of 7,000 people, Mao criticized himself for the mistakes he had committed, having made a mess of the national economy. Liu said then that it was three-tenth natural disaster and seven-tenth human error. But in August of the same year, on the meeting at Beidai River, Mao insisted in his theory of class fight, which was the main danger of the present society as he defined it. Mao thought that there was still the possibility of revisionism taking the upper hand, which meant the revival of capitalism according to his theory. In the later development of the events, one could see that Mao laid a time bomb in theory to turn the table for his benefits. This was his basic theory to wage the cultural revolution in future. Liu and Deng could never see the red lights—the approaching danger. Both were no equal rivals to Mao.
The cultural revolution was certainly unprecedented in the history of China, also in the history of the world. If Mao had his IQ tested, it should be very high. If his scheme for the movement went a bit amiss, the result would be different. He might never retrieve his power, or the whole country might be in civil war. His scheme was accurate in his arrangement, though he never cared how many people would die in the cultural revolution. He was a person cruel at heart. When his third wife, Yang Kaihui, had been arrested by Chiang Kai-shek's government and killed later, he didn't do anything to rescue her, but married another woman. He sent his son to the Korean War, who died there.

In February, 1963, the central committee of CPC decided on another political movement, proposed by Mao, imaginably. This was, indeed, Mao's strategy to retrieve his lost power. No one could see through him at the time. Liu, the chairman of the nation then, was of course the leader of the movement. As usual, Liu sent out work teams to the countryside for the movement. Liu thought that the target of this movement was still the common people as the previous movements did. The work teams made a mess there as they really had no idea whom they should target.
In December, 1964, at a meeting of the central committee of CPC, Mao said that it was wrong to aim at the common people. The target (this time) should be the cadres. Of course, Mao meant more than that. No one could understand at the time what he really pointed at. So Liu made self-criticism. A trap Mao set for him to fall in. Then in January, 1965, the central committee agreed with Mao that the target of this movement should be those in power within the Party, who were persisting in going the capitalist road. At that time, no one could guess who were those targeted in power and who were those insisting in going the capitalist road. But Mao had a certain goal in his mind. Another theoretical trap. It was based on this theory that Mao was the right person going the socialist road, and any other persons who held different opinions from Mao should be those going on the capitalist road. The worst thing was that all other leaders of CPC agreed to this theory, making Mao always standing on the summit of correctness. Mao could never be wrong theoretically. It was called the fight between the two roads: the socialist road and the capitalist road. As Mao declared himself and was also accepted as the representative of going the socialist road, Liu was, of course, deemed the representative of going the capitalist road. Going on capitalist road was wrong, according to Mao's theory, which was accepted by others. Liu already lost there. His tragic end was sealed even before the beginning of the cultural revolution since others were all got confused by Mao's theory and did not know how to contradict him.

However, Mao still let Liu lead this movement, as a Chinese saying goes, “If you want to get, you must give first.” Mao had read a lot of Chinese history books and was versed in all the stratagems in power redemption. Liu, as usual, sent out work teams again. Statistics showed that in the region of Changde Town, in HuNan province, 331 persons were criticized, among whom 21 were beaten, 65 bound hand and foot, 3 hung up, and 42 forced to kneel on the ground. In a suburb of Beijing, 40 people committed suicide. Only this time, the target was the lowest cadres in the countryside, not common people any more as Mao had planned to use common people as his chessmen. Pawns are powerful when getting in a certain position. The red guards were his chessmen too.
Meantime, Mao traveled all over the country. He talked secretly with some important generals and wanted to get their support. He always believed in gun. If he could get those holding the gun to support him, he could go on with his plan. Otherwise, he would stay backstage for the rest of his life. From the Chinese history, a conclusion is true: the wise can always gain the upper hand of the fool. Mao, the wise. Liu, the fool. Among all the generals, two of them were the most important ones, Lin Biao, minister of defense ministry then, and Xu Shiyou, commander of the army covering the area of Nanking and Shanghai. With their support, Mao was sure of his final victory. However, the procedures of the process must be taken very carefully. He could not have a step amiss.

II. The cultural revolution did begin in the cultural field
 
1) Mao's wife, Jiang Qing, made public appearance

At that time, most of those in power in local governments were supporters of Liu and Deng. How to seize power from them was a problem. If most of the local government leaders supported Mao, he had no need to start the cultural revolution. Since the situation was otherwise, Mao had to get his ball rolling. However, Mao plotted wisely and nicely. Mao liked to control consensus first so that he could say anything using public opinion against his political enemies. So he commenced his plot in that field.
Mao wanted his wife, Jiang Qing, to help him. Mao married Jiang Qing while he still had his legal wife, He Zizhen, sister of Marshal He Long. At that time Mao's legal wife was in the Soviet Union for the treatment of presumed mental disease. Mao and Jiang held a banquet in a big cave in YanAn. It was the twenty-first of December, 1938. Jiang was twenty-four years old then, twenty-one years younger than Mao. The original name of Jiang Qing had been called Li Yunhe, and her stage name was Lanping. She changed her name to Jiang Qing when she went to YanAn. She had been married before to Tanner. A story went at that time about three couples who had their simple wedding ceremony held under the moonlight before the Liuhe Pagoda, in Hangzhou. The three couples were Jiang Qing and Tanner, Ye Luqian and Zhao Dan, Du Xiaojuan and Gu Eryi. All were movie stars. The witness to their marriage was Shen Junru, a man of letters. After their wedding, Jiang Qing always quarreled with Tanner. Their bad relationship developed and once Tanner wanted to kill himself by drink poison. It happened only sixty days after their marriage. In 1937, Jiang Qing lived together with Zhang Ming, the director of the movie. Then she put a notice on the newspapers to declare that she had separated with Tanner. After the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War, Jiang Qing went to YanAn. Later Tanner went to Paris, France and married Anna in 1952. He died in 1988 there. Later some of her former fellow movie stars explained that why Jiang (meaning River) Qing (meaning clear) wanted to change her name to the present one was because her dirty sex history with so many men could only be washed clear in river water.

Jiang Qing had been also an actress of Beijing opera before she had gone to YanAn and married Mao. She originally lived in Shandong Province. There she was enrolled in Shandong Beijing Opera Institute. Later when she took part in some activities against Japan, she caught the attention of the local government and had to escape secretly to Shanghai. She joined the Left-Wing Drama Union, acting in some plays for revolution. It was said that when she acted in dramas she was okay, but when she was in movies, she was no good. When she was the wife of Mao, she was ashamed of her history as a star and did not want people aware of it, particularly talking of it. In the cultural revolution, most of the stars who had worked with Jiang Qing were put into prison as Jiang Qing feared that they would spread her former history as a third class movie star, which, in her opinion, would make her lose face. Luckily for Tanner, he lived in France at that time. Anyone who mentioned or even hinted at it would be put in prison, too. That was why many people, besides famous actors and actresses who had worked with her before, were persecuted during the movement and many of them died in prison.
As Jiang Qing had learned to sing Beijing opera, she began in the area of Beijing opera reform, which happened between 1964 and 1966, after she published an article “Talk on Revolution of Beijing Opera.” It gave her a bridge over which she could take part in the political movements later. When she had married Mao, CPC had made a decision that she had been forbidden to be involved in politics. The opera reform only involved culture. That's why, maybe, the revolution called cultural revolution, an actual political revolution in disguise. So none in CPC had any objection. Generally Beijing opera was about old stories. The reform made it into modern stories. The ones known in China were “Red Lantern”, etc. Ballet was reformed, too. The famous ones were the “Red Detachment of Women” and the “White-haired Girl”.
On the 10th day of November, 1965, Mao let his wife, Jiang Qing, instruct Yao Wenyuan in Shanghai to write an article criticizing the new historical play “Dismissal of Hairui from Office”. The article was published in Wenhui Daily on the 30th day of November, 1965. It was because nothing could appear in newspapers in Beijing at the time. All officials there were Liu's men. The article said that the play wanted to redress the case of Peng Dehuai, because Hairui was the defense minister in Ming Dynasty equivalent to Peng before his dismissal. This play was written by Wu Han, who was a vice mayor of Beijing at the time. He became the first official Mao wanted to get rid of, which would be a breakthrough into Liu's circle.

2) The so-called February coup d'etat

Mao wanted Yao's article to be published in all the newspapers in Beijing. But Peng Zhen, the mayor of Beijing then, thought that such an article was not suitable to come out in Beijing's newspapers, and so refused to do it. Besides, the writer of the play, Wu Han, was a vice mayor of Beijing. To support Wu Han, Peng Zhen organized a “five-person cultural revolution group”, approved by Liu, Deng and Zhou Enlai, the premier of the State Council, intending to limit the criticism within the culture, not into politics. And Peng Zhen wanted to protect Wu Han, too. He did not realize the plan of Mao. But Mao would not allow it. So he wanted to get rid of Peng as well. As a Chinese saying goes, if a man of power wants to accuse anyone of any crime, he can easily find a reason whatsoever for the person, no matter if the reason sounds right or ridiculous.
Yao's article connected the play with the dismissal of Peng Dehuai, which smelled of political attack. Mayor Peng thought the criticism of a play was in the field of culture, and should not connect it with a political event. On the 13th day of February, Mayor Peng summoned a meeting of the five-person group, and criticized Yao for his connection of his article with a political event, intending to limit the criticism within the scope of culture. All the attenders supported him except Kang Sheng, a secretary of the central secretariat of CPC, who insisted in the rightness of the article.

Anyway, the five-person group drafted a report called “February Outline”, saying that any discussion in the field of culture must be based on facts, and respect facts, which meant the connection of the article with the dismissal of Peng Dehuai did not respect truth. On the 8th day of February, Mayor Peng, Kang Sheng and Lu Dingyi, the head of the propaganda department of CPC, went to see Mao and gave him the “February Outline.” Mao pointed out that the gist of the play was the “dismissal” and so had the connection with the dismissal of Peng Dehuai. Mao wanted to use this as a reason to rid of Wu Han, and further of Peng Zhen.
From the 17th day to the 20th day of March, at a meeting of the political bureau of CPC, Mao made a speech: Who controlling the newspapers, magazines and publishing presses is very important; those capitalist authorities in culture must be criticized; the magazine “Frontline” controlled by Wu Han and his supporters is anti-Party and anti-socialism; a cultural revolution must be waged in the areas of literature, history, philosophy, law, and economical theory; how much of Marxism-Leninism is in those areas? So the February Outline of the five-person group was also criticized. Mayor Peng and his supporters were all removed from office and were defined as an anti-Party clique.
It looked that Mayor Peng and his supporters only had different opinion from Mao. How could they plot a coup d'etat? On the 27th day of July, 1966, Kang Sheng said on a public meeting in Beijing Normal University that Peng Zhen planned to have coup d'etat because he had a battalion of soldiers in every university. The crowds believed him as he was a party leader. But that was not the truth. The fact was that in February, 1966, the central military committee decided to strengthen the local military forces and maneuvered a regiment into Beijing for training purpose. The regiment of soldiers was planned to lodge in some empty rooms of some universities. But afterwards, the soldiers found elsewhere to lodge and didn't sleep in any universities. However, the fact was distorted to become a crime of Peng Zhen and his supporters.

III. Where did cultural revolution go next?
 
1) Lin Biao set up personal worship of Mao

On the 16th of May (5.16), 1966, on the meeting of the political bureau of the Party, a document, approved by Mao, was passed, known as “5.16 Notice”, which was officially deemed the actual beginning of the so-called Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, the official name. At the same time the “Central Cultural Revolution Group” was organized to replace the “five-person cultural revolution group”. On the 8th day of May, Lin Biao, the minister of the defense ministry at the time, said that Chairman Mao was a genius, every word he said was truth, nothing but truth, and a sentence from him was worth ten thousand sentences from others. This began the “Personal Worship” the nation over. Anyone said anything disrespectful to Mao, let alone against Mao, would be defined as a reactionary and put in prison. For that reason many innocent people became prisoners during the cultural revolution. Ridiculous stories were circulated. A person killed a cat and was jailed because the Chinese word for cat had the same pronunciation as Mao. The person killing a cat was deemed to have the intention to kill Mao. Someone accidentally threw a stone, which hit the picture of Mao hanging on the wall, and he was deemed a reactionary. A person walked in a park and felt tired. He saw a bench, which was dirty from the rain of last night. He put the newspaper he had just bought on the bench and sat on it. He was reported and arrested because there was a picture of Mao on the newspaper. It was disrespect of Mao to sit on his picture, even by mistake. The personal worship of Mao developed to such a degree in the cultural revolution.
Why should Lin Biao set up Mao as the object of the so-called “Personal Worship”? It must be another tactics of Mao. The fact was so clear that those supporting Mao were much fewer than those supporting Liu and Deng. Mao, through Lin Biao, set up himself as the object of “Personal Worship” like a god being worshiped so that no one dared to oppose him. He could be always at an advantageous point. Then the slogan of “Four Greats” about Mao appeared: Great Guide, Great Leader, Great Commander, Great Helmsman. Then Lin Biao, or someone else in his name, invented a style of dance, called Loyalty Dance. Generally the dancers held a card board with the word loyalty written on it.

2) The red guards movement

On the 25th day of May, Nie, a woman Party leader in Beijing University, together with other six men, put up a so-called Big Word Paper, criticizing the Party committee of Beijing University and the municipal Party committee of Beijing City. At that time Mao was in Hangzhou. When he was reported about it, he praised it, calling it the first Marxist-Leninist Big Word Paper in the country. On the same day, an editorial appeared on the People Daily, calling upon ordinary people to join in the movement, to down all authorities.
On the 29th day, the first group of Red Guards was organized in the subsidiary middle school of Qinghua University. The chaos developed fast. Students in many middle schools and universities rose to oppose the leadership of the Party there. Quite a few university principals were criticized. Seeing this, Liu sent out work teams in an attempt to control the situation. The work teams made 10,211 students the rightists, and 2,591 teachers the reactionaries.
On the 18th day of July, Mao returned to Beijing. On the 24th, Mao held a meeting, criticizing Liu and Deng for sending out work teams. Liu confessed that he did not know how to lead the cultural revolution movement. Deng said that it was like an old revolutionary facing a new problem. That was where Mao set the snare to let them fall in. Naturally, Mao took over the leadership as Liu and Deng did not know what to do. Even if Liu and Deng had not sent out work teams and did something else, Mao could, at any rate, find faults with them easily. It always happened in the struggle for political power in the Chinese history. All the same, the result would be for Liu and Deng to be out of power. The goal of the cultural revolution. Mao's scheme. Now Mao was back in power. It looked as if Liu and Deng were not driven out of power, but as if they were willing to give up the power to Mao as they did not know how to wage the cultural revolution. A real wise move of Mao, so easily to take over the power.
Mao supported the Red Guards. On the 5th of August, Mao wrote a Big Word Paper, titled as “Gun Down Headquarters----my big word paper”. Mao meant that there was a “capitalist headquarters” within CPC, implying to Liu and Deng, who were already out of power. Then Lin Biao was made the vice chairman of CPC, a reward to him for his supporting Mao to get the power back from Liu and Deng.

At the end of May, Red Guards developed on a large scale. On the 13th day of June, the Central Committee of CPC and the State Council issued a notification that the entrance examination for the university was postponed for half a year. On the 18th day, the editorial of the People Daily said that the cultural revolution must be thoroughly carried out and the education system must be thoroughly reformed. The entrance examination system must be stopped. Therefore, for more than ten years, no new students were enrolled in universities, and for many years, no classes for students in schools. Thus appeared a gap of education and knowledge between the old generation and the young generation. The young generation did not have enough education and enough knowledge. The Chinese culture in a general sense degenerated. Then what were the students doing? They were all taking part in the cultural revolution. Students in universities and middle schools formed red guards of their own. Primary school students stayed at home, being too young.

The red guards began to travel all over the country to instigate riot. They did not need to buy tickets either on trains or buses. That was the Party's decision. All they needed was an armband with the words Red Guards on it. It was easy to make and get. So other people, who were not students, seized this chance to travel for free all over the nation for sightseeing.
The whole country got into chaos. That's what Mao wanted to retrieve power from so many Liu's local government supporters. So Mao wanted the red guards to “destroy four old things”, which were old thought, old culture, old tradition, and old custom. But it was not easy to define these. So everywhere the red guards went, they burned the old books published hundreds of years ago, the old paintings even by famous ancient painters, and broke curios and relics. They destroyed old wooden shop signs and replaced them with paper ones written in new names. They even proposed to change the name of Shanghai into “July-First City”, which Mao disapproved.
Why the red guards wanted to change Shanghai into July-First City was because the Party declared that the 1st day of July, 1921, was the birthday of the Chinese Communist Party in Shanghai. But data on Internet revealed that it was established in August, 1920, under the instruction of the Soviet Communist Party. In April, that year, the Communist International sent Grigori Voitinsky to China. In May, he found Chen Duxiu, forth-two then, to contact some revolutionary young men in other cities for the establishment of Chinese Communist Party, which was founded in August, 1920. Why the Chinese Communist Party wanted to change their birthday to the 1st day of July, 1921, was that it might have two reasons. One was that they wanted to cover the fact that the Communist International had a finger in it. The other was that CPC did have a meeting in Shanghai and Mao attended it so that they could say that Mao was one of the founders to make Mao look better. But the meeting was on the 23rd day, not on the 1st day. Anyway, the Chinese Communist Party did not even give a correct day for their own birthday. How can we believe the narrations in the Party's history written by themselves? (For details of the establishment and development of CPC, please read my other book titled Two Republics in China.)

The red guards went to private houses and ransacked and destroyed or took away all the valuable personal belongings. They even beat people to death. Statistics showed that in one month from the 18th day of August, 1966, in Beijing only, houses of 114,000 families were ransacked, and 85,198 individuals were driven to where they came from in the countryside or other towns. From the 23rd day of August to the 8th day of September, in Shanghai, 84,222 families were openly robbed. And in Tianjin City, 12,000 families suffered the same disaster. Another statistics showed that during August and September, in Beijing only, the red guards got 103,000 taels of gold, equivalent to 5.7 tons, 345,200 taels of silver, 55,000,000 yuan Chinese paper currency, and 613,600 curios. In Shanghai, between the 23rd day of August and the 8th day of September, besides large quantity of gold, silver and gems, etc., they got 3,340,000 US dollars and other foreign currencies worth 3,300,000 Chinese currency, 2,400,000 yuan of silver coins and 3,700,000,000 yuan of Chinese currency. A Party document confessed that even before that, the red guards already got 1,180,000 taels of gold, equivalent to 65 tons. That was really the aim of “destroy four old things.” That's what Mao and CPC really wanted, in such a name, to rob people of their valuables. A broad daylight robbery! The robbed could not resist, nor even report to the police. The robbery was lawful, supported by CPC and Mao. That was also unprecedented in the robbery field of the world. What was the use of laws in such a country? Peng Zhen once said that the Party (supported by gun, of course) was above the law. Now all the valuables in possession of common people were taken. After that, they had nothing worth to be taken away by the Party. They were safe now, as poor as a lazy squirrel with nothing in store for winter. The pillaging action even affected some old workers who had something worth a little money saved through their hard work in the old time, before CPC came to reign.

And many antiques were destroyed, worth billions. From the 9th day of November to the 7th day of December, 1966, during less than a month, more than 6,000 articles of curio, more than 2,700 volumes of ancient edition, more than 900 rolls of paintings and calligraphy by famous ancient people, and more than 1,000 stone tablets, were destroyed. Who should be responsible for all the loss? The red guards or Mao and CPC?
As to death rate during the red terrorism, the official statistics showed that only in Beijing, the capital city, 1,700 people were beaten to death. A massacre took place in Daxing Town outside Beijing and during three days, 325 persons were killed by cruel means, including some buried alive, like the massacre in Nanking by the Japanese army. Those who made suicide reached 200,000. In the whole period of the cultural revolution, the estimate of the death rate in the whole country was between 2 million and 7 million, one percent of the whole population in China at that time. Who should be responsible for it? The red guards or Mao and CPC?
In Shanghai, the red guards of Shanghai Museum went to all the collectors on their list to take all the curios to the museum, they said, for the sake of protecting them, or the red guards from Beijing might destroy them. Some collectors even called the museum, asking it to send their red guards to their homes and take their curios away. Fortune sometimes means misfortune.
Other things happened in Shanghai during the red guards movement. At first, their action was only limited in the streets, destroying old shop signs. When they saw some women wearing high-heeled or pointed shoes, they would force them to take off and they would cut through them with scissors they seemed always carrying with them. They called it capitalist life style, included in the four old things. Once some red guards saw a girl wearing trousers in jeans. They thought it was the capitalist life style and forced the girl to take it off, and the girl had to run home in underwear. They laughed after her.

Then when they heard what their fellow red guards did in Beijing, they started to attack private houses, too. Mostly they went to big houses, generally belonging to the capitalists. Some stayed in one big house for months, eating their canned food and chocolate in store. Some embezzled gold and silver articles and diamond rings. Others took away the interesting novels for their own enjoyment. The stupid ones they were deemed. Some of the capitalists were forced to kneel on the ground and beaten or abused. Lots of red guards went to Canton and tried to break past the border sentinels to rush into Hongkong. They declared that they wanted to make revolution there, but were stopped by the Chinese army. The red guards even blamed Kim Il-Sung, leader of North Korea, as going the capitalist road and wanted to go to Korea to arrest him. So when Kim Il-Sung learned it, he was so enraged that he ordered the graves of the Chinese People's Volunteers broken, including the tomb of Mao's son, which was repaired after the cultural revolution.

In 1967, in Canton, there raised a wave to kill the released prisoners from labor reform camps, who were thought as bad people and deserved to die. From the 27th day of August to the 1st day of September, in six days, 325 of those people and their family members were killed. The oldest was 80 years of age and the youngest was only 38 days. What a nation for that!
All the professors in universities and old teachers in middle schools were criticized or even beaten. Some professors were forced to crawl around on the college playground. Some were made stand for long hours in a bowing posture with two arms stretching straight behind, looking like a jet airplane. Some were ordered to bow before the picture of Mao for a long time, too. In Shanghai Conservatory of Music, the professors were forced to slap each other's faces in public. Never say that Chinese people are not wise enough for invention. Since old time, they have invented a lot of new torture equipment and styles. A standing cage was one of them. Any offender would be put inside with his head on the top of it, the neck in a small hole so that he could not move his head down into the cage. He must keep in a standing position for how long he was sentenced to be. It was a trivial torment. For a prisoner, if he rejected to confess his crime what the government official wanted him to confess, two thick wooden sticks would be put on his forelegs, one above and one under, with ropes on both ends. When the ropes were tightened, the pressure on the forelegs through the wooden sticks inflicted pain to the prisoner. The tighter the ropes were, the acuter the pain grew, till the prisoner fainted. For women, small sticks were used between her fingers, with the same effect on her. Another invention was to use an iron piece, made hot in the fire, then put on the chest of the prisoner. His skin on that part would be burned. No one can imagine the pain this torment caused without experience. Brutal inventions of wise Chinese people!

IV. Power-seizing stage of great cultural revolution

Then, the target of the cultural revolution changed to the authorities of the local governments, under Mao's instruction. Mao thought that most of them were supporters of Liu and Deng. Therefore, so-called rebels rose and attacked the local government leaders. They seized power from the leaders and organized so-called Revolutionary Committees to replace the local governments.
Now the cultural revolution was on the power-seizing stage, which was really what Mao aimed at. It began with a movement targeting the petty cadres, really a false move of Mao to set up a snare for Liu; then it went to a stage to openly criticize a play to get rid of some important supporters of Liu in the capital Beijing; then it developed to the red guards stage to cause chaos in the country; then in the chaos, it got to the power seizing stage. It was the critical stage. If successful, smoothly, the last stage would be easy to tide over. The last stage was to put all the supporters of Mao in the local governments after getting rid of all Liu's supporters. The cultural revolution would thus end as planned by Mao and as we can see, looking back. On this critical stage, if Chiang Kai-shek had ordered his army to attack the mainland, no one could tell what would be the future of China. But the stupid Chiang Kai-shek let the opportunity go like sands through his fingers.

Many rebellious groups were organized and fought each other to vie for taking over the power. Generally, at first, they got into a debate. At that time, people all over the country were learning The Little Red Book. Every time people wanted to say something, anything, they must quote something from the Little Red Book first. Even when anyone was to write some self-criticism paper, he must also begin with a quotation from it. Sound ridiculous? That's the fact at the time. So when a debate began between two groups, the debater in each group must quote something from the Little Red Book to prove that what he was saying was in accordance with Mao's instruction. Then the debater from the other group followed suit. But no one could persuade the other. It was called “Quotation Battle” since both sides used Mao's quotations to prove they were the right side. Debates often continued in a fight. But it seemed that quotations from the Little Red Book contradicted each other, or how could the opposite groups both cite from it to support their different opinions?
The rebels among workers in Shanghai called their organization as Shanghai Worker Revolutionary Rebellious Headquarters. The commander-in-chief of this headquarters was Pan Guoping, a young worker from a factory. The famous Wang Hongwen was, at the beginning, the vice commander-in-chief, who was a Party member and a cadre of the lowest rank. On the 3rd of January, 1967, Zhang Chunqiao and Yao Wenyuan, two members of the Gang of Four, came back to Shanghai from Beijing and supported Wang Hongwen to seize power from Shanghai municipal authorities. Pan, being too young, was out of power, and was only made a member of the revolutionary committee. This event was called “January Storm”, which caused the power-seizing action to develop to the whole nation. That was what Mao desired.

V. Quarrel in Huairen Hall in Beijing in February

Huairen Hall is in Beijing, a gathering place for meetings of the leaders of the central committee of CPC. The event began like this: during the “January Storm” in Shanghai, Chen Pixuan, the first secretary of Shanghai municipal party, was afraid of the chaos to paralyze the municipal administration and called Tao Zhu, a member of the central cultural revolutionary group on the 3rd day of January, 1967. Previously on the 25th day of December, 1966, to protect those old revolutionary cadres, Tao Zhu had had a severe quarrel with Jiang Qing, Kang Sheng, and Zhang Chunqiao, who were those tools Mao used to fight Liu and Deng, and their local supporters. After the power seizing, Zhang Chunqiao became the head of Shanghai.
When Tao Zhu received the call from Chen in Shanghai, he went to see Mao and reported it. Mao looked like supporting Tao when Tao was in his presence. But Tao was soon removed from office. Then, premier Zhou Enlai, said to be instructed by Mao, drafted a list of old cadres for protection, including all the first secretaries of provinces. They were escorted to Beijing so that no one could harm them. But Chen Pixuan, the first secretary of Shanghai, was detained by Zhang Chunqiao, which was the fuse of the dispute in Huairen Hall.

In the afternoon on the 16th day of February, 1967, premier Zhou summoned a meeting in Huairen Hall. When Tan Zhenlin met Zhang Chunqiao at the gate, Tan asked Zhang why Chen Pixuan was not coming. Zhang said that Chen was detained by the revolutionary crowds in Shanghai. At the meeting, the question of Chen's absence was mentioned again and other old cadres were also infuriated that the central cultural revolutionary group wanted to push aside all the old cadres and take over power into their hands. They used the so-called revolutionary crowds who had actually been organized by them as an excuse to fight old cadres. Ye Jianying, a leader of the liberation army, criticized Jiang Qing and Zhang Chunqiao, etc., for their intention to let the revolutionary crowds to attack the army and take over the command of the army from the old cadres. Ye broke his little finger when he slapped his hand on the table in ire. If at the beginning of the cultural revolution, the old cadres did not yet realize what Mao and his supporters wanted, now they came to be clear that they wanted to push aside the old cadres, or even torture them to death so that they could rule China by themselves.
On the 18th day of February, Mao summoned the central political bureau, and taking off his two-faced mask, jumped forth to criticize old cadres, to the delight of Jiang Qing, Wang Hongwen, Zhang Chunqiao, and Yao Wenyuan, the so-called “Gang of Four.” This event was literally called “Current against the (revolutionary) flow in February” by the gang of four. Then the central political bureau stopped its administration and the central cultural revolutionary group replaced it, becoming the administrative center of the whole nation. That was what Mao wanted and long planned, but none of the gang of four had the abilities to run such a vast country like China, and so at length, Mao had to let Zhou Enlai took charge of the state affairs.
In 1971, after the event of Lin Biao crashing in an military airplane in Mongolia on the 13th day of September, the so-called “Current against the flow in February” event was redressed. Mao said that the event was to aim at Lin Biao, which meant that as now Lin “betrayed” the Party and escaped to the Soviet Union, the event against Lin Biao was correct and so must be redressed.

VI. How did armed fight start the country over?

On the 6th day of May, 1967, the leftists pro the communist party in Hongkong, began a riot against Hongkong government. The riot started with strike and demonstration, and developed to assassinations, bombing and gun fight. Luckily, it ended in October. 52 people died, including 10 policemen. 1,167 bombs exploded.
Almost everywhere in the country, rebels had benefit conflicts among themselves and they formed different groups and fought one another. Some, supported by the army, got guns. So gun fight began. Once, even tanks appeared in the streets. The most serious fights were those:
From the 26th day of February to the 5th day of March, 1967, in XiNing Town of Qinghai province, T55 tanks appeared in the streets and 822 persons died and 1,355 persons wounded. From the 2nd day to the 25th day of August, 1967, in Yichun Town of Heilongjiang province, 37 government buildings were destroyed and two military camps were gunned down in cannonade. 1,944 persons died and 1,806 persons wounded. From August to November, the rebels in Huaihua Town of HuNan province occupied some labor-reform farms and factories and resisted the attack of the army. 37,700 persons died and wounded, including 430 military men. The death was 13,300. From June, 1967, to March, 1968, in Yibin Town of Sichuan province, more than 170,000 people joined in the fight, including two army regiments. 43,800 persons died and wounded, the death was 21,100. From October, 1967, to the end of May, 1969, in Inner Mongolia, 56,200 persons were killed, and over 377,000 persons imprisoned, and over 3,550,000 involved, one-fourth of the population of the Inner Mongolia. From April to July, 1968, in Nanning Town of Guuangxi province, 22 battles took place. Over 101,000 persons died, and 74,000 people wounded. From December, 1968, to February, 1969, in eight ammunition factories in Baoji area of Shaanxi province, out of 70,000 staff, over 45,400 workers were judged as reactionaries and 297 among them were executed, which caused rebellion. Tanks, armored cars, cannons, and fire-throwers were used. Over 13,300 persons died, including some government leaders. Later, Mao and the Party strictly forbade this and the fight gradually subsided in August, 1968, and no more fight after 1969.

The climax of fighting happened in WuHan City of Hubei province, called 7.20 event. At that time, many cities had set up so-called Revolutionary Committees to replace the local governments, but there were still places where the fight was going on. WuHan city was one of them. The largest group named themselves as “Million Heroic Division”, though they didn't have a million members. They were against the local authorities supported by the Independent Army Division. It was arranged that on the 16th day of July, 1967, Mao wanted to go to WuHan to swim in the Yangtze River. The health of the communist leaders is always a secret, and also a concern of the nation, or even of the world. At such a critical moment, Mao decided to swim in the river to show that he was still healthy at the age of over seventy. But in reality, he went there to solve the fighting problem himself. He never had a chance to swim that time. Openly there was a delegation sent there by the central committee of CPC to solve the problem. Later, Zhou Enlai went there too. But one of the delegation member by name of Wang Li was detained and beaten by the revolutionary people of Million Heroic Division, because they were deemed in the wrong. Their detention of a member of the delegation from the central committee of CPC was thereby defined as reactionary action. Once they were thought by authorities to be in the wrong, their doom was already sealed. And some other groups supporting the local authorities were in the right. That was the reason for fighting. As a rule, the wrong side would be persecuted. Therefore, they wanted to keep on fighting in the hope of turning the table. Why the central committee didn't think much of them was because they were mostly common people while their opposite groups were mostly veterans. When Mao and Zhou stayed in the city, crowds of Million Heroic Division were seen almost everywhere, carrying long swords and guns. So Mao and Zhou felt a danger and threat. Mao escaped secretly under the protection of his bodyguards. Then Zhou and his followers disguised themselves as members by wearing armbands of Million Heroic Division. When they met the real members in the streets, they even shouted, “Final victory is Million Heroic Division's!” Such things never happened before. In the Chinese idea, it is a shame for leaders to escape like this. Anyway, they safely reached the military airport and flew back to Beijing. Once in Beijing, Mao and Zhou maneuvered troops to WuHan for armed suppression. Wang Li, the member of the delegation, was safely back to Beijing at last. Thus ended the 7.20 event.

Supposing, under the most serious riotous circumstances, if Chiang Kai-shek sent his army to land on the mainland, the rebellious groups, who failed in power-seizing actions, would probably go to Chiang Kai-shek's army for support. Even Party members would do so for their own interests. Don't think that Party members are always loyal to the Party. Many Party members are opportunists. They join in the Party for benefits or for the hope of becoming a cadre. A cadre would surely get benefits easily. And look at the facts that many upright Party members are imprisoned for their criticisms of the Party. Zhang Zhixin, a woman Party member, was killed by the Gang of Four for criticizing the wrong-doings of the Party. For fear that she might shout out something unfavorable to the them, her throat was cut when she was taken to the execution site and killed. No government will do so except the communist government in China. A brutal deed.
But no gun fight happened in Shanghai. The army there was under strict control. The largest event was the fight in Shanghai Diesel Engine Factory, which was located in the northeast part of Shanghai and had 10,000 people working in it. At the beginning of the rebellious period, there were two groups in the factory: one called the East Red group consisting of Party members and cadres, and the other called United Headquarters group consisting of workers and other staff. At first, United Headquarters group seized power and was in the leadership of the factory, since majority of workers joined this group, but East Red group wanted to take over the leadership as they thought themselves to be the Party members and cadres and should be the leaders of the factory. Then fight began between the two groups. When Wang Hongwen became a leader of Shanghai, he supported the East Red group as he was also a Part member and a cadre. United Headquarters group rejected to give up the leadership.

On the 4th day of August, 1967, Wang Hongwen sent 10,000 people to attack the United Headquarters group in the factory, and the vanguards were the trained firefighters. He did not dare to send army or police force there. The United Headquarters group defended the factory with only 3,000 people. The weapons both sides used were mainly axes and steel bars. The defenders also used some glass bottles containing materials easily catching fire and big nuts to shoot from giant rubber bands.
Wang Hongwen acted as the commander and 10,000 people surrounded the factory. Finally the attackers used crawler crane to knock down the gate and rushed in. Every man captive got a good beating. Thousands of captives with blood all over walked between the attackers, singing the Internationale, into prison vans. Those who were injured seriously and could not walk were thrown into vans. The women were treated a little better. The next day, the members who had not been in the factory that day were arrested one by one. During the fight, thousands of people were hurt on both sides altogether. No one died, as no guns were used.
In all those days of power transferring, Big Word Paper, posted all over the walls and shop windows in the streets, revealing all the information most people generally did not know, information about the behavior and activities of the central leaders, which were national secrets before, about how a leader staying in a special hospital for minor health problem had raped a young nurse. Such wrong-doings were deemed nothing as long as he stood on Mao's side politically. If he was against Mao, this would be one of his crimes. If a high-ranked cadre killed a common person, he might be removed from his office. If a common person killed another common person, he would be sentenced to death. Life paid for life. But for a high-ranked cadre, only his rank paid for death of another.
Many jobless men also organized some rebellious groups and went to the Street Committee. They did not seize power from authorities there. They just waited there and if any factory or store or anywhere sent in a notice to hire someone, one of them would put in his own name and use the seal to stamp on the paper. He took the paper and went to, say, the factory to work. He at last got a job this way. The authorities there did not dare to prevent him, afraid that all jobless people would get angry and beat them.

Since universities did not enroll students from high schools, the high school graduates must be given jobs. However, there was no vacancy anywhere, and so it was impossible for them to have jobs. Then the Communist Party thought of a way to dispose of them. The high school students graduated in 1968 and 1969 must go to the countryside to be re-educated by peasants. It sounded so funny. From the theory of the Chinese communist party that the illiterate peasantry represented the backward productivity and had the backward thinking, how could such peasantry re-educate the high school students who had at least had 12 years of education? Ridiculous. It should be that the communist party wanted to throw the students who could not be given jobs in cities to the countryside to make them maintain their lives at the lowest level of living standards so that the government could save a lot from them.
How did those students fare in the countryside? They must work and live with peasant families. Life was hard in the countryside in that time in China. Some students who could not have enough to eat would steal something from peasants. If they were caught, they got a good beating. Some students who had families with money saved in banks got food parcels from time to time from families. If one of them could give gifts to leaders, he would become their favorite and got better treatment. City girls looked much better than village girls. So the sons of village leaders loved to marry city girls in the village by luring them with personal benefits or even by force. Some girls who could not bear the hard life there married the sons of the leaders and lived better.
But a few years afterwards, the communist party had a policy that the students thrown into the countryside could return to cities where they came from on certain conditions like they must still be single or have some sicknesses. Therefore, some girls having married the leaders' sons got divorces and went back to their parents. Sometimes two students married each other. Now under such policy, they had to divorce first and applied to return to cities separately; then got married again in the city if they still loved each other, or married someone else respectively.

VII. Why did Lin Biao's betrayal of Mao happen?
 
1) Background of the “9.13” event
On the 8th day of March, 1970, Mao made a decision and informed all other leaders that China should no longer set the position of the National Chairman (as vs the Party Chairman as Mao had the position at the time). He also declared that he would not take the position of the national chairman in the future. Why did he make such a decision? It was said that since he had given up such a position and let Liu Shaoqi have it when he had brought China into an economically bad situation, if he took it again when Liu was driven out of it, he would lose face like a child who had given a toy to someone and then take it back when after a quarrel. People would think that he had not willingly, but forced to resign the position as the national chairman, and now when the position was vacant, he would take it again. In the idea of Chinese people, it looked ridiculous for anyone to do so. Mao would never do it to lose face. A typical Chinese idea. Therefore, he thought that it was not suitable for anyone else to take this position, except for himself in the present condition. Besides, he feared that anyone else taking this position would surely get part of power from him just like Liu Shaoqi had done before. He would never have such a threat like a time bomb by his side. So the best way to elude it was not to set such a position any more in the constitution. He even suggested to revise the constitution about this point.
The national chairman was deemed as the head of the nation. Theoretically, a nation could have no head to represent it in the world, but in reality, on certain occasions, there should be a head of the nation to receive foreign VIPs or attend some international ceremonies. A party chairman could not do the duties of the national chairman. Therefore, Lin Biao, the vice party chairman at the time, and other party leaders thought that China must have the national chairman. That was why Lin made the proposal to keep the position of the national chairman. Mao thought that Lin wanted to take this position, though Lin manifested that he would never take this position and even proposed that Mao resumed it. He did not know why Mao rejected the position.

2) Different opinions for that matter became open at a meeting on Mt. Lu

In the afternoon on the 23rd day of August, 1970, the second session of the ninth party conference started on Mt. Lu. Three items were to be discussed for final decisions. First was to revise the constitution. Second was to make national economical plan. Third was to make preparations for battles, because at that time the crisis of territory occupation between the Soviet Union and China arose with potential warfare in the north frontier.
The most severe debate happened in whether there should be the revision of the constitution to abolish the position of the national chairman. Many representatives supported Lin for his opinion to ask Mao to be the national chairman, and also proposed Lin as the vice national chairman, which Mao did not like. Mao did not want Lin to have more power as he had already had as the vice party chairman, though Lin showed no desire to usurp Mao's power. He was lawfully decided the successor of Mao.
Lin had quite a few followers in the army as he had been the commander of the 4th field army in the second civil war. Four of his followers in the army supported him on the meeting and also his wife. Mao determined that anyone who was in favor of the idea to keep the position of the national chairman was wrong and must have self-criticisms. So the four followers and Lin's wife had to criticize themselves, but not to Mao's satisfaction. Mao thought that Lin was behind all this and Lin should make self-criticism, too. However, Lin thought that he was not wrong in the proposal of Mao to be the national chairman. He had declared that he would not be the vice national chairman even if Mao was elected the national chairman.

3) How Mao pushed Lin Biao into a deadly snare

After the meeting, Mao wanted to get rid of Lin Biao as he had got rid of Liu Shaoqi. Anyone who had different opinions from him, he could not endure like ancient emperors to their courtiers. He needed absolute obedience. So he traveled outside Beijing again to make preparations, just like he had done so before his riddance of Liu. He went to talk to the army commanders in several major provinces about Lin's intention to be the national chairman, which was an action of anti-party since Mao thought himself to be the representative of the party and anyone against him was against the party. This was the traditional thinking of ancient emperors: “The state, it's me!” Mao demanded the absolute loyalty to him from those commanders. The trick lay there: he warned them to keep the talk as a secret. But secretly he let the talk leak out and let Lin Biao and his family get wind of it. Mao reckoned that if Lin was patient enough to wait for Mao's next step without any rash action, his wife and son were young and inexperienced and must take some drastic means to fall into his snare.
The official record of CPC said that Lin's son had organized a secret assassinating group, called “United fleet”, to murder Mao. But another article said that at first he organized it to deal with Wu Faxian, the command-in-chief of the air force, because Wu declared his loyalty to Lin Biao while he also declared loyalty to Jiang Qing, a typical two-faced man. But when he got the news having leaked out secretly that Mao wanted to get rid of his father, he plotted to use the United Fleet to kill Mao by using antiaircraft guns to level at the train Mao rode in from Hangzhou to Beijing, without the knowledge of Lin himself. (It was so said to all the Chinese people after the crash of Lin's plane.) But Mao made a false move, somehow, as the party told Chinese people in their official record, and safely arrived in Beijing. However, people doubted if there really had been a plan to murder Mao. As there really nothing happened to Mao, people could be in no way to know if this was the fact or just what CPC invented to tell people as the pretense to plot Lin's death since CPC always made up “facts” as they desired. Anyway, it was said in the official report to people that when their plot failed, Lin's wife and the son wanted to escape first to Canton to set up another central government against Moa's Beijing government. People was so told. On the 13th of September, 1971, Lin's wife dragged Lin out of bed and pushed him into a car to drive to a military airport, and when they boarded a military plane with the son and some followers, they were told that the gas in the tank was not enough to fly to Canton, and so they changed their plan to fly to Russia as Lin had been in Russia for treatment of his illness. (It is also on the official record.)

Then the Party told all nation that an event happened that Lin, his wife and his son died in the plane that crashed in Mongolian Republic. How could a leader's plane so easily crash? The explanation was not so satisfactory. Then a rumor was in circulation that the plane was downed by a missile from the inner Mongolian area just as the plane was crossing the border into Mongolian Republic. The commander of the army stationed there was General You Taizhong at that time. In communist China, rumors are always based on facts, as facts are always covered up. The saying “Rumors have short legs” is not fit to use in communist China. Facts have to be circulated in the form of rumors. Or the Party declares the fact as a rumor as they cannot deny the fact some other way. A new idiom was invented: “Rumor ends in transparency.” If the facts are shown in a glass house for everyone to see, who will make up a rumor and circulate it? In details, a rumor may be a little different from the truth, but very close basically. So if Lin's plane was not downed by a missile, the crash must be a schemed one.
Many years later, Zhang Ning, the girlfriend of Lin's son, wrote a book narrating the event. She was with Lin family when the event took place. According to her, readers can draw such a conclusion that Lin's death was a trap set up by Mao and Zhou Enlai, the premier. Mao had talks with some concerned leaders of local governments and warned them to keep it a top secret, but he let someone leak it to Lin's wife and son, as Lin was sick in bed. The secret leaking out was made to sound like Mao wanted to have Lin arrested or even killed. Lin's wife and son fell in panic and wanted to escape. They dragged Lin out of the house and pushed him into the car. The chief guard Li, who was sent here by Zhou Enlai to guard Lin for his safety, got into the car first so that Lin's family members would naturally follow him in without a second thought. But when Lin family sat in the car, he jumped out. He shot at himself at his left arm so that he would be sent to a clinic for treatment. If he went with Lin family, he would die in the crash, too. He must have known the result and acted like that to shun the inevitable death. When Lin's car sped away, the soldiers guarding the place could easily stop it, but no one took any action. Lin family got to the military airport and climbed on the plane especially used for them. A few minutes after the plane rose into the air, it seemed that the plane wanted to re-land, but all lights in the airport were out and the runway was in dark. How could that happen? It seemed that all this was arranged beforehand. They had to fly north. The Party added that at first Lin wanted to fly to Canton to establish another government against Mao, but as there was not enough gas in the tank of the plane, he had to fly to Russia, taking the shortest route. As the plane crossed the borderline, it fell in the territory of Mongolian Republic. Although Chinese people had doubts about the whole thing, yet they did not care that Lin died. He supported Mao, or the cultural revolution would not happen. There is a Chinese saying going like that: when there are no more rabbits, the running dogs will be cooked. This was a typical example of Lin. It was said that Mao wanted to wipe out all the old cadres from the Long March and YanAn to make way for the Gang of Four, Jiang Qing, his wife, Wang Hongwen, the vice chairman of the party at that time, Zhang Chunqiao and Yao Wenyuan. Later, Mao wanted to wipe Zhou Enlai out of power. His intention was so apparent, like the nose on the face.

Recently a recording of the last five-minutes conversation in Lin's plane was discovered. The pilot Pan Jingyin didn't take his co-pilots, his navigator and radio operator. What was his intention? The recording revealed it. Originally, Lin family wanted to go to Canton. So pilot Pan began to fly south, but then he made a wide roundabout turn to north without anyone else on the plane knowing it. The following is what the recording exposed:
Lin's son asked, “What's the time now?”
Liu Peifeng, working under Lin's son, “2:27.”
Lin's son, “Where are we now?”
Liu, “I'll go to ask.” (It seems he's going into the cockpit.)
Liu, “Old Pan, where are we now?”
Pan, “We are over HuNan province.” (It's a province in the south.)
Liu, “How long will it be to Canton?”
Pan, “Another half an hour.”
Liu (sounds like speaking to Lin's son), “Old Pan said that we are over HuNan, and half an hour to Canton.”
(Suddenly a sound of explosion and the plane shook for a while.)
Lin's son, “What's the matter?” (It seems that they looked outside the plane window.”
Lin's son, “There's flame on the right wing. Old Pan!”
Pan, “Really? Could it be the enemy's missile?”
Lin's son, “What did you say? What enemy?”
No answer from Pan, and the plane is making a wide turn.
Ye Qun (Lin's wife going into the cockpit), “What's the matter?”
Lin's son, “Old Pan, you are turning round. Why do you want to turn round?”
No answer from Pan.
Ye Qun, “Where are we now?”
Still no answer from Pan.
Lin's son, “Speak, Old Pan.”
(The plane violently shook again.)
Pan to the microphone, “Director Wang, Director Wang, please answer!” (Almost crying.)
Yang ZhenGang, shouting from the entrance of the cockpit, “Pilot, who are you talking to?”
Still no answer from Pan.
Lin's son, “The explosion sounded like a time bomb. Someone wants to murder Lin.”
(The plane is going downwards.)
Pan, “Too bad, too bad!”
Liu, “What's the matter?”
Pan, “We are over Mongolia. Now flying back to our country.”
Liu, “Mongolia?”
Lin's son, “Mongolia?”
Pan, “Before taking off, Director Wang wants me to fly into Mongolia and then wait for his further command. But now, he cuts connection with me.” (Looks like Director Wang deserted him.)
Liu, “Why didn't you bring two co-pilots?”
Pan, “Director Wang said it's a special task. We don't need them.”
Lin's son, “How long have we been in Mongolia?”
Pan, “I don't know. Maybe, about 10 minutes.”
Ye Qun, “If we enter Mongolia, we'll be deemed as traitors.”
Lin's son, “If we die here, we'll be deemed traitors forever.” (It's what Mao and Zhou planned for them to make them look like traitors.)
Pan, “I am too stupid. Director Ye (addressing to Ye Qun), I've betrayed you all.”
(The plane is still going downwards.)
Pan to the microphone, “Technicians, shut all three engines.”
Pan, “The speed can't be decreased. The air brake doesn't work now. Maybe it already broken. The wings are out of control now.”
Lin's son, “Let's have forced landing.”
Pan, “It's out of control. Someone sabotaged the plane.”
Yang, “Pilot, I can't die. I have wife and children.”
Pan to the microphone, “The plane will soon land. Everyone back to the seat and buckle the safety belt. Take off your shoes. Let destiny decide our life or death.”
Pan, crying, “Vice Chairman Lin, I'm sorry to you.”
Then a loud sound. The end of the recording.

VIII. Why did Mao want to criticize Lin Biao connected with Confucius?

On the 18th day of January, 1974, Mao instructed to have another movement, called “criticize Lin and criticize Confucius.” What did Confucius have anything to do with Lin Biao? They lived thousands of years apart. It was said that after Lin's death, Lin's rooms were searched and some quotations from Confucius were found written on paper stuck on the walls. And Lin had said that Mao was like the first emperor of the Qin Dynasty, the tyrant, who had buried alive hundreds of scholars and burned books he did not like. It resembled the anti-rightists movement of Mao against intellectuals. When Mao learned it, he said that he loved the tyrant emperor and hated Confucius. That was why Lin and Confucius were combined for criticisms.
Then at Mao's instruction, “criticize Zhou” was added. The slogan became “criticize Lin, criticize Confucius and criticize Zhou.” Zhou was meant premier Zhou Enlai. After getting rid of Liu, and then of Lin, now Mao wanted to get rid of Zhou to clear way for the gang of four to take over the national power. But as all the old cadres supported Zhou, and as Mao knew that Zhou was wise enough to fall into any trap, Mao had to let this movement slip by without any results.

IX. April-Fifth event in 1976 on TianAnMen Square
 
1) Background of this event
After Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping were out of their leading positions at the beginning of the great cultural revolution, both had different destinies waiting for them. Liu had serious diabetes and was lying in bed in a hospital with tubes in his nose and throat. In October, 1969, Lin Biao ordered Liu to be moved to a prison in Kaifeng City of HeNan province. He was put on a stretcher without clothes on, only covered with a blanket. He was flown to the city in a military plane. Since he had only a thin blanket on, he got cold and then pneumonia. He was thus thrown in a special cell in the prison. On the 13th day of November, when a nurse came to check on him, he was found without breath. So his body was sent to crematories and burned to ashes. On the paper work of the crematories, his name was written as Liu Weihuang, not Liu Shaoqi. His job title was vagabond, not the chairman of the People's Republic of China. His case was redressed in February of 1980.
As to Deng Xiaoping, when Liu was carried to jail, he was sent to labor in a factory repairing agricultural tractors in Xinjian Town in Jiangxi province. Luckily for Deng, the leader of the factory had been an subordinate of Deng in the war period and so took good care of him. Deng just did some light work. In February, 1973, Deng returned to Beijing. When premier Zhou was found to suffer from cancer, Deng was appointed to be in charge of the state affairs.
On the 19th day of May, 1975, in the annual routine checkup, Zhou was found to have cancer in bladder. The doctors in charge reported it to the central committee of CPC and got instructions: first, no more examination; second, don't have operation; third, keep it a secret from Zhou himself and his wife. This decision was made by the gang of four. They wanted Zhou to die as soon as possible.
On the 8th day of January, 1976, premier Zhou died. By his will, his ashes were not put in an urn and buried anywhere, but were spread on the land of China. A very bad tradition in ancient China was that anyone in power would dig up the body of his enemy and would flog the body to vent his fury. That was why Zhou did not want to keep his ashes in any special place lest his urn should be insulted some day when the gang of four got into power.

2) The April-Fifth event on TianAnMen Square

On the 4th day of April, 1976, the tomb-sweeping day for the dead, people in Beijing gathered on the TianAnMen Square in memory of Zhou Enlai and criticized the gang of four without mentioning their names. Sometimes, the people gathering there amounted to over 2 million. So in the night of that day, police were sent to clear the square of the wreaths and slogans and also began to arrest people, which prolonged till the dawn of the 5th day. There was a three-storeyed house in the southeast corner of the square used as a commanding center. Angry crowds burned some cars and surrounded the house, demanding to have a talk with someone in charge in the commanding center, but was refused. So crowds set fire to the house, but those inside escaped and no one was hurt. At night of that day, over 10,000 militiamen, five battalions of soldiers and 3,000 policemen rushed to the square to disperse the throngs. As the militiamen, soldiers and policemen only carried wooden sticks, no guns, there was no one bleeding. The gang of four thought that Deng was behind this as the crowds on the square had shouted their support of Deng, and so on the 7th day of April, Deng was out of office again and put in confinement. Then Hua Guofeng was appointed the premier and the first vice chairman of the central committee of CPC.
No slaughter on TianAnMen Square happened this time, but this event was defined as a reactionary event. In November of 1978, the case was redressed and all those who had been arrested and imprisoned were set free.

X. The arrest of the gang of four – end of cultural revolution
 
1) The downfall of the gang of four with the death of Mao
After the death of Lin Biao, the health of Mao turned bad. In 1972, he had a serious shock. Then he suffered from cataract and could not see like blind. In 1975, after operation, he could see something. On the 9th day of September, 1976, he died at the age of 83, of some kind of disease, no definite diagnosis mentioned. His title at the time was the chairman of the central committee of CPC, the chairman of the central military committee of CPC, and the honorary chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. So he was only the head of the communist party, not the head of the nation of China. But as he was the chairman of the military committee of CPC, he was the most powerful man in the country, because in China, the military forces were controlled by the communist party, not by the government, or the nation. That was why when he had given up the position of the chairman of the republic, but not the position of the military committee of CPC. Before his death, he appointed Hua Guofeng as his successor, as he clearly knew that none of the gang of four, not even his wife Jiang Qing, had abilities to administrate such a huge country like China. If he appointed his wife as his successor, the old cadres would surely oppose his decision. But if he appointed one of the old cadres as his successor, the gang of four and their followers would have objection, too. And Hua Guofeng, though also without enough abilities for the position, was acceptable to both sides. In any political play, a politician should make balance among all sides, and then he could stay safely in the center.
Chinese people knew that the gang of four was supported by Mao only. Now when Mao was out of the picture, the gang of four would not stay long in power. And now there lay before Hua Guofeng a choice: on which side he must lean, the gang of four or the old cadres. A wise man could see which side he must choose. And Hua was a wise man and stood with the old cadres.

2) The cultural revolution ended with the arrest of the gang of four
Just after the death of Mao, Jiang Qing, in the name of Mao's wife, demanded Zhang Yufeng, the personal secretary of Mao, to give her the key to Mao's safe, but Zhang refused, saying the everything belonging to Mao belonged to the Party. She must give the key to the chairman of the Party, Hua Guofeng at the time. Jiang had to leave without the key. What was so important of Mao's safe? It contained the top secret documents of the Party and the state, and some delating letters to reveal some personal secrets of high-ranked cadres, etc., besides Mao's passbook and check book. Whoever controlled those documents and letters could control certain persons, or even the state power. Zhang reported it to Hua Guofeng afterwards, and Hua came to know the importance of Mao's safe and sent Wang Dongxing, commander of the central security bureau for the safety of the Party and national leaders, to take care of it.
On the 21st day of September, Jiang Qing and Zhang Chunqiao recommended Li Xing as the commander of the central security regiment. They wanted Li to report to them all the information of the security regiment and addresses of all the members of the political bureau and conditions of how to guard their residences, etc. Li promised to give them all the information they wanted, but at the same time, he reported it to Wang Dongxing, and then to Hua Guofeng. Both sensed the danger of coup d'etat from the gang of four. Before Mao's death, Mao's nephew, Mao Yuanxin, was appointed the liaison officer between Mao and the central political bureau of CPC. Naturally Mao Yuanxin worked under Jiang Qing, Mao's wife. At dawn of the 4th day of October, 1976, Li Xing heard Mao Yuanxin informing the gang of four at breakfast that he had maneuvered two divisions from Shenyang military zone, which stationed now only one day's distance from Beijing. If summoned, they could reach the capital in one day. Li immediately reported it to Hua. Hua decided that he must take action at once. So he went to see Li Xiannian and Ye Jianying, two old cadres in charge of the army. They decided to notify the gang of four to a meeting and would arrest them then and there. Meanwhile, they notified the commander of the Shenyang military zone to order the two divisions to return to their original camps.

Wang Dongxing was entrusted for the apprehension of them. Zhang Chunqiao came first and was caught in the dark corridor to the meeting room without any trouble. Then Wang Hongwen was put under custody and pushed into the room when he suddenly struggled out of the hands of the security guards and dashed to Ye Jianying with the intention to grip Ye's neck, but was stopped and handcuffed only one meter from Ye. Yao Wenyuan did not make any resistance when arrested. Jiang Qing was always quick-tempered and threw a porcelain vase to the guards, but was subdued at last.
In the morning of the 25th day of January, 1981, the gang of four were judged at court. Jiang Qing and Zhang Chunqiao got the death verdict, but suspended for two years, which generally meant that the prisoner would not be executed at the end of the suspended period, but the sentence would be changed for life. Zhang Chunqiao said nothing at court, by which he showed his contempt for the so-called people's court. After two years, Zhang's verdict was accordingly changed to life sentence in January, 1983, and in March, 1993, hie verdict was changed again for 18 years, but in January, 1997, he was released for medical treatment. He died of cancer on the 21st day of April, 2005, at the age of 88. At court, Jiang Qing made a lot of protests and even gave a speech that sounded like reading the composition of a primary school girl. In January, 1983, her verdict was also changed to life sentence. On the 4th day of May, 1984, she was released for medical treatment of throat cancer. But on the 14th day of May, 1991, she hanged herself in the bathroom using several handkerchiefs tied together. She died at the age of 77. Wang Hongwen was sentenced for life and since 1986, he was moved to a hospital in Beijing and died of liver disease on the 3rd day of August, 1992, at the age of 58. Yao Wenyuan was sentenced for 20 years and was released after 20 years on the 6th day of October, 1996, and died of diabetes on the 23rd day of December, 2005.
Chinese people watched the whole process on television like watching a drama. A political drama for people to enjoy. Nothing more. It was just a fight within the communist party, like dogs fighting for a bone—political power. Whoever won the game had nothing to do with common people. The winner became the king and the loser became the prisoner, as a Chinese saying goes. Thus ended the great cultural revolution and began a new era for China. Good or bad for Chinese people? Wait and see.

Chapter 19   Birth control policy began in 1970
 
I. The general regulations of the birth control policy

The one-child policy is only limited in the Han tribe, especially in the towns and cities. The party called upon young people to marry late, generally, boys after 30 and girls after 25, so that there would be less births. As to the minorities, there was no such a limit. The peasant families in the countryside, and the families of the couples, each of whom already was one child, could have a second birth. So the accurate name for the policy should be the birth control policy, not the one-child policy. The enforcement of the policy decreased the birth rate in China. In 2000, the nationwide census showed the decrease of 250 million child birth, and in 2010, the rate of the population growth reduced to 0.57%.
What would the government do if a couple wanted to have a second birth and the wife was already pregnant against the regulations? At first, the cadres of the resident committee would come to persuade them to have abortion, and leaders of where the couple worked would do the same. They would even threaten the couple by stopping the pay of wages or salary if the couple insisted to have the second birth. Without income, how could the couple live? So generally, the couple had to yield and had abortion. There was a special example in Shanghai. The wife did not have job and was pregnant again. And the government could not stop her pay. The stop of the husband's pay was no use, because his father had been a capitalist and had money to support the couple. As the regulations did not have any penalty to the father in such a situation, the government could do nothing to the father. So the only way the cadres of the resident committee could adopt was to go to see the wife everyday and sat in her house to persuade her all day long. If the wife could not bear the bothering any longer, she might have the abortion. But to the surprise of the local cadres, she played disappearance. They could not get any information where she had gone from the father and the husband. The wife went to hide in a relative's home in another town. She gave birth there and brought child back. The local cadres could not kill the child. No such policy. Afterwards, the policy decided that the couple against the regulations to have the second birth must pay a fine. However, in smaller towns or countryside, things could be very different.

II. Serious events happened concerning the one-child policy

Some illegal performance happened in carrying out the birth control policy in Shaoyang Town of HeNan province. The local cadres, in order to get money for government, “confiscated” by force the child born unlawfully, i.e., taking the baby away from the parents. The family must pay 10,000 yuan fine to get back the child within the time limit. If the family did not hand in the money, the child would be delivered to a local orphanage beyond the time due. They would make up a document to change the status of the child into an orphan, whose surname would be changed to Shao, which was the first word of the town Shaoyang. Some of the orphans were really lawful children of the one-child policy. They took them away from the families by force. The orphans stayed there to be adopted, often by foreigners through lawful procedures, but they must pay 3,000 American dollars. $1,000 would go to those local cadres as commission. This event began in 2000 through 2005. It was revealed on the 21st day of March, 2006, in the South China Morning Post in Hongkong.
Another event was that in Changli Town of Hebei province, where a couple must apply for a “birth service certificate” to have the baby delivered in a hospital. Yang Zhongchen, the husband, and Jin Yani, the wife, got the marriage certificate on the 5th day of May, 2000, and became lawful couple. Then when the wife was pregnant for 9 months and still did not get the birth service certificate, the local cadres forced her to go to the birth service station in the town and she was given an injection for abortion. The 9-month old baby died in the womb, but the dead baby was too big to be easily taken out. An instrument was put in the womb to crush the baby's head and taken out bits by bits. The woman got serious injured and was diagnosed to lose the ability to have child ever afterwards. And the couple was forced to pay the abortion service fee. On the 16th day of January, 2007, the couple sued them for some compensation. Although the court accepted the case, yet the court passed the judgment to overrule the case on the 18th day of May. A similar event happened in Ankang Town of Shaanxi province.

On the 25th day of February, 2007, an event took place in DunGu Town of Bobai county in Guangxi province. The town government decided to gather fines from those families who had had the second birth since 1980. They must pay the fine in three days. Besides, every local cadre must fulfill an allotted quota to have at least one married woman to have the Fallopian tube tied up, which was demanded by the government as one way for efficient birth control. (Sometimes, the husbands were demanded to tie up the seminal duct.) The quota also included the collection of the fines for 500 yuan by the end of August. This decision involved many families. So it developed on the 17th day of May that more than 300 people gathered before the gate of the town government. Some people attacked the government cadres and policemen. On the 18th and the 19th days, such things happened in other six towns. The people gathering once reached 3,000. The event was quieted down on the 23rd day under the pressure of the local governments. Statistics showed the the government income from the fine of the enforcement of the one-child policy reached more than 200 millions a year.
Some Chinese husbands with feudal thinking like boys and hate girls because boys can hand down the family name, in the countryside, some illiterate fathers will kill the baby girl so that he can have a boy born to him next time, especially since 1971 when child control policy was forcibly carried out. In the actual situation since China has such a giant population, the one child policy is correct, or China would have much more population than now, a heavy burden to the nation and to the world as well. What was wrong was Mao, who had encouraged people to have more children like the Soviet Union had done after the World War II. But the block-headed Mao never knew differences between different things. After the second world war, the population in the Soviet Union was only 167 million while that in the fifties in China was round 600 million. The right policy at that time should not encourage people to give more birth. If so, the population nowadays will not be so great. And one child policy is not needed. From all the facts in China, a conclusion can be easily drawn that Mao always made mistakes to bring China into all kinds of troubles: from economical plight to excessive population. Who can deny all the truth? Looking back, in 1950, Ma Yinchu, the president of Beijing University and the vice director of the central financial committee, had proposed the birth control, but Mao did not listen to him. In 1970, the population in China reached 813 million while that in India was only 549 million. If Mao listened to Ma Yinchu in 1950, the population problem will not be so serious.

Chapter 20   The economical reform and the open policy
 
I. Deng Xiaoping came into power again
After the chaos of the 10 years of the cultural revolution, the whole nation wished for restoration of peace and production of necessities for living. At that time, the chief leader of the party and the country was Hua Guofeng, who had no abilities for the management of the national economy. And Ye Jianying was in charge of the army and was not deemed as a person who could shoulder the responsibilities for the national economy. Therefore, almost everyone, even Chinese people, thought of Deng Xiaoping, the famous person, in Mao's words, to go the capitalist road. Now China needed to go the capitalist road for the restoration of the national economy.
An old data showed that in 1820, the GDP of China was 32.4% of the world total GDP, the first in all the countries; in 1919, GDP was 9.1%; in 1952, GDP was 5.2%, while in 1978, after the cultural revolution, GDP fell to 1.8%. So the urgent task for China was to raise its GDP as fast as possible.
At the beginning of 1977, after the downfall of the gang of four, there lay before China a big question mark: where China should go? Hua Guofeng, as the successor of Mao and the new leader of the country and the party could not answer this question. He just put up his policy of “two whatevers”: “Whatever policies Mao had made, we must support; whatever instructions Mao had given, we mush follow.” But all the old cadres opposed the two whatevers as they looked upon it like Hua wanted to continued what Mao had been doing. They thought that China must get rid of Mao's leftist route and then could go the rightist route—the capitalist road, as Mao had put it. Therefore, the two whatevers policy was criticized and Hua was criticized likewise at the meeting of the central political bureau on the 16th day of November, 1980. But the most unforgivable fault of Hua was that he did not support the old cadres to restore to their former positions and work. So Chen Yun openly said that Hua was not suitable to be the leader. Therefore, Hua was forced to resign. On the 5th day of December, his resignation was approved by the central political bureau of CPC. Naturally Deng became the new leader of the party and the nation. Hua died of some kind of disease on the 20th day of August, 2008.
Deng had two famous quotations: One is “practice is the sole criterion to determine what is truth.” The other is “It doesn't matter whether it is a white cat or a black cat, the cat that can catch the mouse is a good cat.” The second quotation clearly reflects his pragmatism.

II. Deng's goal to let part of Chinese people get rich first

Deng did not say who could be get rich first. But from the later development of the economy and cases of many individuals, who got rich first, being then fined for tax evasion or whatever reasons the government could think of to be poor anew. Some were even imprisoned for violation of this law or that. But the family members and relatives of the party leaders and government high officials were all safe from penalty or jail though they were known publicly having violated laws.
Anyway, though Deng wanted to go the capitalist road as against Mao's socialist road, he met with oppositions, because just after the cultural revolution, Mao's leftist thinking was still maintained by many people. But it was the fault of Deng himself too, as he did not criticize Mao's leftist thinking first before he went the capitalist road. If he could have started a movement to criticize Mao's leftist thinking, it would be easier for him to go the capitalist road. Why did he still want to keep Mao as the idol of the communist party and not entirely abandon his influence? No one could have the answer. Since the signboard of Mao was still upheld in the present time, the reform, even in the economical field only, had certain limits, which tied the hands and feet of the party leaders. If China wants to make further advance without a hitch, the idol of Mao must be overthrown forever. They must declare to be entire capitalism, not the initial stage of the socialism, but going the capitalist road financially and the socialist road politically.
There were debates about certain problems. When going the capitalist road, there would be private businesses and the owners of the private businesses must hire employees. According to socialist thinking, there should not be exploitation of employees by the private business owners. The debates went on for a couple of years. Finally, Deng made the decision: Let there be exploitation if China must go the capitalist road. Deng's decision is actually opposite to the idea of socialism, as Marxism decided that exploitation is typical of capitalism, though Chinese communist party repeatedly declares that China is a socialist country. Of course, the world knows that it is a false declaration. And as the CPC always tells lies, it is no surprise to the world.

In the early 80s of the 20th century, as approved by the central political committee of CPC and the state council, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Shantou, and Amoy in the southern coast area became the special economic zones. Therefore, the local governments invited the investment of the foreign capital for the development of the local economy. Another problem arose. The foreign businesses might employ some Chinese personnel as managers. Thus there would be a new compradore class, which reminded some old people of the old China where the so-called imperialists had made the economical invasion.
On the 24th day of January, 1984, Deng went to inspect Shenzhen, Zhuhai, and Amoy, three special economic zones, and was satisfied with the situation. He decided to open more harbor cities like Dalian and Qingdao, as the special economic zones. At that time, Deng was the director of the central counselor committee and the chairman of the central military committee of CPC. It meant that he had the control of the army. So every party leader must listen to him. His decision was the final, though he had no position in the central government.
In April of 1988, HaiNan Island was made an independent province and also a special economic zone. In June, the local government and a company from Hongkong signed an agreement that 30 square kilometers of land in Yangpu Peninsular would be leased to the company for 70 years. The company could use it at its own discretion. It was the first time that the communist party adopted such a style in its open policy. It was called Yangpu Style. Some old people connected it with the foreign settlements in old China, criticized it and opposed it. In March of 1989, this event developed into a so-called Yangpu Storm, politically. Many party leaders went there for inspection. Then Deng interfered and the storm quieted down. On the 9th day of March, 1992, the state council approved the official set-up of the “Yangpu Economic Developing Zone.”

III. How Hu Yuebang got into and out of power
 
1) Hu Yuebang became general secretary of central secretariat of CPC

Hu Yuebang (11/20/1915—04/15/1989) was from a poor peasant family and joined the communist party in 1933. When Hua Guofeng was forced to resign in June, 1981, there arose the question who would be the chairman of the party? Deng Xiaoping, 77 of age at the time, wanted to be the chairman, but Ye Jianying did not support him because he did not like the resignation of Hua. Someone nominated Ye as the chairman, but Ye declined because he was over 80 then. Since Hu Yuebang had a lot of merits in his work to the party, he was agreed to be the chairman of the party. Zhao Ziyang (10/17/1919—01/17/2005) was made a vice chairman of the party. After Hua resigned all his positions, Zhao was made the premier of the state council. Then Hu Yuebang proposed to have Hua as a vice chairman of the party and his proposal was agreed upon. Deng was the chairman of the party military committee.
In the 12th party conference, Hu Yuebang wanted to resign from the position of the chairman of the party and proposed Deng to be the chairman, and Hu himself to be a vice chairman. Deng proposed Ye to be the chairman, but Ye declined once more and said, “You two dwarfs can work together for the party.” (Deng Xxiaoping and Hu Yuebang both had short stature.) But Hu insisted in not being the chairman of the party. He could take the position of the general secretary of the party. Then the position of the party chairman was vacant for many years. The general secretary took charge of the party affairs.
When Hu had been the minister of the organization ministry of the central committee of CPC, he had done a great job in the correction of many wrong cases, the biggest one being the case of the so-called anti-rightists movement, which involved over 550,000 rightists.

2) How Hu Yuebang was forced to resign from general secretary position
The cause of Hu's resignation was his different opinion with Deng about Deng's full retirement from power. Since Mao had stayed in power till death, Deng likewise wished to have power as long as possible. In May of 1986, Deng made a false move, a typical two-faced person like Mao. Maybe, he just learned it from Mao. Deng invited Hu to come to his home for the discussion of the personnel arrangement of the party positions in the 13th party conference. Hu said that he was over 70 and must retire in the 13th party conference. Deng said, “Chen Yun, Li Xiannian, and I will all retire. You (Hu) can half retire, no longer to be the general secretary, but still can be the chairman of the military committee or of the nation for a term. Then you'll see what to do.”
On the 22nd day of August, 1986, Deng had a birthday party for his 81st anniversary. At the party Deng said that he would retire in the 13th party conference. Hu believed it. The stupid dwarf, Hu, was no match for the wise dwarf, Deng. In October, on the meeting of the central political bureau, Hu openly said that he supported Deng to retire and then other old cadres would retire, too, so as to make way for the younger comrades. He added that he would retire from the office of the general secretary at the end of the term. Some old cadres agreed with Hu, including Wan Li. When Deng asked Wan why Hu wanted him to retire, which showed that Deng never actually wanted to retire, Wan said that Hu might just have a slip of the tongue. Deng asked again if Hu wanted to show himself off by so doing. Wan replied that Hu was not such a sort of person.
Anyway, on the 10th day of January, 1987, on an informal meeting of the political bureau, some of Deng's supporters criticized Hu and asked him to resign right away. Therefore, He had to resign on the spot. But people remembered him for his integrity. In the 13th party conference, he was elected the member of the central committee of CPC by over 1,800 votes, and was elected the member of the central political bureau with almost the full votes less 7.

Chapter 21   The slaughter of students on TianAnMen Square
 
I. The background of the TianAnMen event

In 1986, there was a democratic atmosphere on the political stage in China. As the economical reform had an obstacle from the political system and the economical system, the reform, though somewhat having some achievements in the countryside, met with difficulties in cities. Prices of goods rose. Inflation happened. Officials became corrupt. Belief crisis worsened. Therefore, there originated the conflict of two different opinions among the party leaders. One was to support the reform and the other objected the reform by opposing the so-called bourgeois liberalization. Deng at first tended to the former, but then turned over to the latter. He might be afraid that the bourgeois liberalization would endanger the tyrannical rule of the communist party.
After the resignation of Hu Yuebang, Zhao Ziyang became the general secretary. Li Peng was made the premier of the state council. On the 13th day of May, 1987, Zhao Ziyang, instructed by Deng, gave a speech to actually cease the anti-bourgeois-liberalization movement. Deng changed his attitude again. At the suggestions of some economists, Zhao tried to carry on the reform from the prices of goods. The goods price reform caused a stampede of purchase that had an impact to the price control. Those who opposed the reform thereby persuaded Deng to stop. Criminal cases of all kinds increased.
College students had the sharpest sense to the change of the political situations and the social conditions. Some renowned intellectuals, especially the university professors, demanded to release all the political prisoners. On the 6th day of January, 1989, Fang Lizi, a famous scientist, wrote an open letter to Deng for amnesty of political prisoners, especially Wei Jingsheng, who later was allowed to leave China for the US.

In universities in Beijing at the time, there was a wall,on which students could openly post their opinions written on paper stuck on it. Since all the opinions could be openly expressed there, the wall was called “Democracy Wall.” The famous wall was the Xidan Democracy Wall, located in Xidan of Beijing, not within any of the university campus. It had developed from the big-character paper in the cultural revolution stuck on the wall. In 1978, a lot of articles and poems were posted there. On the 16th day of November, an article posted with an alias of Mechanician #0538 conveyed the criticism of the historic mistakes of Mao and requested to abolish the tyranny, and to have democracy and the freedom of speech. There gathered sometimes as many as more than 10,000 people, including foreign press.
On the 8th day of January, 1979, Fu Yuehua, a female textile worker, had a demonstration on TianAnMen Square with thousands of other people for the human rights. They held up a banner bearing the words: Democracy and human rights. On the 9th day of January, Fu Yuehua was apprehended. On the 22nd day of March, 1979, Beijing Daily published an article “Human rights are not the proletarian slogan.” On the 25th day of March, Wei Jingsheng posted his article on Xidan Democracy Wall titled “Democracy or new tyranny” to openly criticize Deng going the tyrannical road. On the 29th day, Wei was arrested. The reason for the arrest of Wei made open by the government was that Wei sold military information to foreigners at the price of 20 yuan of Chinese currency. It meant that Wei was so destitute in need of 20 yuan. Many Chinese people had 20 yuan at that time. Who would care for 20 yuan? And did they mean that Wei did not know the importance of military information and that he would sell it for only 20 yuan? No wonder. The communist government always tells lies. On the same day, Beijing government put up a public notice to prohibit this, prohibit that, anything to criticize the government and the party. They also forbade the posting of the big word paper and demonstrations.
On the Second Session of the Fifth National People's Congress in June, Hu Yuebang said that some comrades criticized him for supporting liberalization which would encourage anarchism, but he wanted to maintain his own viewpoint. As to the apprehension of Wei Jingsheng and others, Hu said that for these brave people, they did not care to be imprisoned. If Wei Jingsheng died in the prison, he would be deemed a martyr in the eye of people. Hu implied that it was not worth letting Wei die in prison. Hu's hint meant that political prisoners were always maltreated in jail.