MAO'S 'CULTURAL REVOLUTION' III. THE PURGE OF THE P.L.A. AND THE STARDOM OF MADAME MAO

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79B01737A001900040001-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 84
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 24, 2004
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: June 1, 1968
• Content Type: IR

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Top Secret
DIRECTORATE OF
INTELLIGENCE
Intelligence Report
Mao's "Cultural Revolution"
III. The Purge of the P.L.A.
and the Stardom of Madame Mao
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June 1968
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MAO'S "CULTURAL REVOLUTION"
III. THE PURGE OF THE P.L.A. AND THE STARDOM OF MADAME MAO
This staff study is one of a series growing out
of continuing SRS surveillance of the China scene. The
first of this particular series, "Mao's 'Cultural Revo-
lution': Its Leadership, Its Strategy, Its Instruments,
and Its Casualties" (February 1967), concluded that the
Cultural Revolution was primarily a purge,carri,ed out
with special instruments. The second, "The P.L.A. and
the 'Cultural Revolution'" (October 1967), concentrated
on Mao's use of the P.L.A. as an instrument of the "revo-
lution" and on his reorganization of the P.L.A. itself
to make it "reliable" in that role.
The present study traces the story to June 1968.
It finds Mao to be still the central and dominant figure,
but it devotes special attention to the way in which
Mao's treatment of the P.L.A. has seemed to work against
his ends by provoking resentment among those upon whom
his position directly depends, by narrowing his base of
support to fanatics and opportunists, and by putting his
own position in danger. These trends are highlighted by
the activities and status of Madame Mao, who has become
one of the principal leaders and has played the starring
role in purging the P.L.A.
This study, like its predecessors in the series,
is not a coordinated paper; it is a result of the research
and analysis of a single staff analyst. Comments are
invited.
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Chief, DD pecia Research Staff
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SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i
THE BACKGROUND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
The Madame in the Fist Stage of the Purge . . . . 1
The Madame and the Purging Instruments . . . . . . 3
The Madame Leading Attacks . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
The PLA Unleashed and Leashed Again. . . . . . . . 6
New Leadership of the PLA/CRG and the MAC. . . . . 8
The PLA Under Attack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
The Wuhan Incident, ?eking's Anger,
New Militance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Quick Repudiation of the Hard Line . . . . . . . 13
Better Order, Purge of the "Ultraleftists" . . . 15
The New Team and Mao-s Narrowing Base. . . . . . 16
DEVELOPMENTS OF RECENT MONTHS. . . . . . 19
Further Measures to Feduce Disorder. . . . . . . 19
The Madame's Contribution to Fresh Disorder. . . 21
Plans to Rebuild the Party Apparatus . . . . . . 24
Disorder and Permissiveness. . . . . . . . . . . 25
The Fall of One of Madame's Proteges . . . . . . 26
The New Political Work Groups. . . . . . . . . . 29
The Purge of Yang Cheng-wu and Others. . . . . . 31
A New Offensive Against the "Rightists". . . . . 36
The Madame, Lin Piao, and Chou En-lai. . . . . . 37
More Defense, More Offense . . . . . . . . . . . 40
"Proletarian Factionalism" and Other
Bad Omens . . . . . . . , , , , , , , , . . . 42
The First Team: Domination by the Militants . . 45
The Scale of the Purges. . . . . . . . . . . . 49
CONCLUSIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
PROSPECTS . ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
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MAO'S "CULTURAL REVOLUTION"
III. THE PURGE OF THE ?.L.A. AND THE STARDOM OF MADAME MAO
Summary and Conclusions
The People's Liberation Army (P.L,A., meaning the
armed forces as a whole.) has been both an instrument and
an object of the "cultural revolution" in China, As an
instrument, it has been used to protect Mao against his
enemies, to protect and support the militant mass forces
of the revolution and to keep them within limits, and to
govern China until a new party apparatus can be built,
Thus the PLA has been--and remains--the apparatus on which
Mao's team primarily depends. But to make it "reliable"
in that role, it has also been an object of the revolu-
tion--suffering a prolonged purge (in installments) which
has radically reorganized the high command, claiming as
victims half of its central leaders and many of its region-
al and provincial leaders, and threatening to strike down
more,
Mao's wife, Chiang Ching, a former bit player in
the movies and now about 55, has been the scourge of the
PLA, While Mao and Lin have had the main roles in guid-
ing the PLA as an instrument, the Madame too has had an
important role. Moreover, she has been the main source
of militant exhortation to the revolutionary mass organi-
zations and has thus greatly complicated the tasks of the
PLA in controlling and governing. Of greatest importance,
the Madame has played her first starring role-in carrying
out the purge of the PLA on the lines drawn by Mao and
Lin--lines which have apparently permitted the Madame.to
exercise a good deal of initiative, perhaps subject only
to review by Mao and Lin. The Madame has dominated the
special instruments of the purge and has taken the public
lead in almost every stage, and in the course of this
she has risen spectacularly in the Peking hierarchy.
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She has been quick to break those who opposed her. Even
Mao's top two lieutenants, Lin Piao and Chou En-lai,
recognize her as dangerous. And Mao's use of the Madame
has actually increased the danger to his own position.
Madame Mao began her rise in November 1965, when
Mao used her to plant a denunciatory article which opened
the "cultural revolution." The PLA's chief-of-staff was
soon purged as an immediate threat, but, before under-
taking any large-scale purge of the PLA, Mao assigned the
Madame to look into its political condition. Following
this exercise, Mao made clear that a purge of the PLA as
well as of the party lay ahead, and set up at that time
a special instrument--the central Cultural Revolution
Group--to conduct the purge of the party; Madame Mao was
named its first deputy chairman, and brought several
proteges with her.
In August 1966, Lin Piao announced the criteria
for judging PLA leaders--demonstrated support of Mao,
and fidelity to his thought. At first he gave the re-
sponsibility for conducting the purge to conventional
organs (the Military Affairs Commission and the General
Political Department) and to PLA officers (Yang Cheng-wu
and Hsiao Hua). In October, however, the "cultural revo-
lution" in the PLA moved into a higher gear, and another
Cultural Revolution Group was formed for the PLA alone;
the Madame became advisor and de facto chief of this PLA/
CRG, and thus the only person to have a leading role in
both the central CRG and the PLA/CRG.
The Madame began at once to subvert the work of
the nominal chief of the PLA/CRG, and to go after bigger
game. In December she got it, denouncing Ho Lung, the
second-ranking officer of the MAC and the reputed cen-
tral figure of the first large group of PLA leaders to
be purged. The Madame's denunciation of a key figure for
"rightist" errors and factional activity, followed by
the purge of that leader and his associates, was to be
the pattern throughout the purge of the PLA.
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In January 1967 Madame Mao took the lead in directly
attacking the chief of the PLA/CRG and announced (on Mao's
authority) the reorganization of that group, placing it
under an elderly marshal, naming the two original super-
visors of the purge--Yang and Hsiao--as his deputies,
and adding Lin Piao's wife. The Madame and other lead-
ers soon began criticizing Hsiao, but gave him another
chance.
In late January, the great disorder resulting from
the call for "revolutionary rebels" to "seize power" made
it necessary for the PLA to intervene, under the slogan
of "Support the Left," Because Mao urgently required the
PLA's cooperation at that time, he reassured the PLA that
he did not mean to purge it on the same scale as the party.
However, the PLA tended to suppress trouble-makers
of all sorts--including "rebel" groups favored by Peking--
and the PLA itself thus became part of what was judged
by the Maoists to be an "adverse [rightist] current" in
the revolution as a whole, In late March the PLA was
put back on the leash, restricted in its use of coercion,
and directed not to act at all without orders from above.
The Madame again dismissed the head of the PLA/CRG. His
post was reportedly divided among Yang and Hsiao (his
two deputies) and Hsieh Fu-chih (the public security
chief), with the Madame remaining as the real leader.
These three officers and Su Yu (coordinator of defense
research) were named to the standing committee of the
MAC, displacing as active leaders of the MAC the five
marshals below Lin Piao,
During the spring of 1967, PLA leaders in the re-
gions and provinces came under increasing attack by the
"rebels," and by May the leaders in Peking apparently
felt it was necessary tc issue directives curbing the
"rebels," However, the PLA was not given authority to
use the necessary force, and great disorder continued.
Mao's team'in Peking chose to deal with this dis-
order--and with political resistance in the PLA--by send-
ing a small delegation under Hsieh Fu-chih to the worst
trouble-spots during July. This delegation found the
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Wuhan headquarters to be insubordinate both in its past
handling of mass organizations and in its present treat-
ment of the delegation. This latter action enraged and
alarmed the leaders in Peking, notably the Madame. The
Wuhan commander was quickly replaced, and the Madame called
on the "rebels" to arm themselves against other mass or-
ganizations which--with the possible support of PLA of-
ficers--might wish to harm them. PLA regional commanders
were summoned to Peking in late July for a lecture on
discipline, and the CRG-controlled party journal called
for a further purge of the PLA. Lin Piao in early August
again told the PLA that in dealing with mass revolution-
ary organizations it was not to act without orders from
Peking, and the MAC at that time ~et up a special "Sup-
port the Left" Group (under Hsieh Fu-chih) to guide the
efforts of PLA commanders in handling these organizations.
At the same time, Lin Piao and Madame Mao, needing
a scapegoat for the failure of the PLA commanders in the
spring and early summer to respond as Mao wished to the
confusing and disabling orders from Peking, now moved
against Hsiao Hua. Hsiao was purged, and his General
Political Department was set aside. Shortly thereafter,
the PLA/CRG--of which Hsiao had been one of the directors--
was again reorganized. It was.now placed under Wu Fa-
hsien, commander of the politically reliable Air Force,
with Madame Mao remaining as "advisor" and Lin Piao's wife
moving toward the top.
However, the leadership was not yet willing to call
off the "rebels," and its own criticism of the PLA led-
swiftly to intensified "rebel" action against local mili-
tary commanders and to increased disorder. Taking account
of this and of PLA resentment, Mao's team soon felt im-
pelled to repudiate the line taken since late July. The
Madame in particular did so--presumably on orders from
Mao--in a speech of 5 September in which she reversed her-
self, defended the PLA, criticized the "rebels," withdrew
her incitement of them to seize arms, and encouraged the
PLA to restore order. On the same date, the MAC and the
central CRG authorized the PLA to use force to repel at-
tempts by mass organizations to seize weapons from the
PLA.
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Later in September, Mao's team went further to
placate the PLA. Three second-level figures of the cen-
tral CRG--just below the Madame--were purged as "ultra-
leftists," Madame Mao, although one of those responsi-
ble for the harsh and threatening line of July and August
for which these three were made the scapegoats, was given
credit by other leaders for discovering the "errors" of
the three; again she tock the lead in attacking those dis-
credited,
By October, the worst of the disorders had appar-
ently abated, and speeches by the leaders (e.g., Lin Piao)
indicated an intention to give the PLA a respite from the
purge while it restored and maintained order throughout
China. The situation remained volatile, however. Some
versions of Mao's own "instructions" condoned violence
and disruption in undefined circumstances, and "rebel"
organizations hostile to one another remained in exist-
ence and in official favor.
The uneasy calm was short-lived. On 12 November,
Madame Mao made several statements which could be and were
read by militant rebels as a justification for resuming
violence and attacking "people in authority." Those "rebel"
groups which did this found that they could get away with
it--that the PLA, rightly afraid of Mao's reaction, would
not use the necessary force against them; and the word
quickly spread. After mid-November, violence substanti-
ally increased,
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This disorder continued through the winter of
1967-68. In at least some cases, contrary to the Septem-
ber directive, local PLA commanders were ordered not to
use force even to prevent seizures of arms. And they
were not.permitted to suppress the increasingly serious
fighting among "rebel" organizations which the seized
arms made possible. Although the militant leaders of the
"cultural revolution"--principally Mao, Lin, and the
Madame--made a conciliatory gesture to the PLA by purg-
ing another of the "ultra-left" second-level figures of
the central CRG who had offended the PLA, these party
leaders did not alter the policies--the real source of
the trouble--which restricted the PLA's actions,
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At about this time, perhaps by design of Lin Piao
in order to dilute Madame Mao's power, three new work
groups were established in the PLA to carry on the tasks
of political surveillance once performed by the discredited
General Political Department. The most important of these
--the political work group--was apparently either to sup-
plement or to replace Madame Mao's PLA/CRG. There is some
evidence that Yang Cheng-wu was given the job of supervis-
ing this new group. If so, the Madame may have seen Yang
as a threat to her position as the principal person re-
porting to Mao and Lin on the political reliability of
senior PLA officers.
. The next wave of the purge was to hit Yang Cheng-
wu himself, along with two other high-ranking officers
(the first political officer of the Air Force and the
Peking Garrison Commander). All that is clear about this
case is that the three ran directly afoul of Madame Mao.
Official materials on the case give the impression--per-
haps falsely--that Yang and the Air Force leader were
purged primarily for having questioned the judgment of
Mao, Lin Piao, and Madame Mao, and for having tried to
do something about it. (If so, this could have happened
in connection with the work of the new political work
group.) The two had also come into conflict--for this
reason or some other--with two other strong leaders,
Hsieh Fu-chih and Wu Fa-hsien, with whom the Madame worked
closely in purging the PLA, and possibly with some of
the regional commanders. Yang and the garrison commander
brought matters to a head on the night of 7-8 March, when
they allegedly tried to "arrest" some people on the pre-
mises of the central CRG. Madame Mao was credited with
"bravely" preventing the arrests. The three, along with
many other military leaders, immediately disappeared from
the news.
Mao's team--including Madame Mao--immediately
launched a new offensive against the "rightists." The
Madame defined the "main danger" throughout China as the
rightist effort to "reverse verdicts," and in a series
of meetings she and others warned audiences in Peking
and delegations from other arts of China of the danger
of a new "adverse [rightist] current." On at least one
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occasion, the Madame and others rebuked some regional
military leaders for rightist attitudes.
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At a 25 March meeting, the PLA was informed of
the purge of Yang Cheng-wu and the others and of the ap-
pointment of Huang Yung-sheng (like Yang, a long-time
lieutenant of Lin Piao's) as the new chief-of-staff and
of Huang's former deputy as the new garrison commander-
M
At a 27 March rally, the recent chal-
o a ame
ao personally was again emphasized, and
extreme deference to the Madame was again shown by other
leaders.
While Peking's campaign against factionalism in
mass organizations had led to a reduction. in violence by
early March, now in early April Peking redefined "faction-
alism" in such a way as to make "proletarian" factional-
ism a good thing. This, together with the campaign against
the "rightists," encouraged "rebel" groups to become mili-
tant and troublesome again. From several points there
were reports of renewed heavy fighting and of fresh poster
attacks on military leaders.
On May Day, Mao's team made a show of both the
militant and the moderate features of its policies, with
the militant dominant. This was true both of the offi-
cial pronouncements and of the line-up of leaders, which
displayed strikingly the militants--including Madame Mao--
who had risen in and on the "revolution." The militant
leaders were displayed even more strikingly in the small
group--of 13 or 14--presented on two other occasions in
May as Mao's first team .
As of late May 1968, the casualties of the purge
of the PLA had already been heavy. Of the 65 top posi-
tions in the central mi-itary leadership, the occupants
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of at least 35 posts (28 individuals) had apparently been
purged; half of these were military commanders, half poli-
tical specialists. The purge had claimed many victims
as well in the regional and provincial commands; compara-
tively few of these, however, were military commanders,
and many had survived the kind of "rebel" attacks which
had preceded the downfall of political figures.
The "cultural revolution" has continued to display
Mao's conviction of the absolute correctness of his
"thought", central to which is his belief in the power
of the fanatical revolutionary will, and his obsessive
concern with developing "revolutionary successors" who
will be faithful to that "thought." The revolution has
also continued to highlight such features of Mao's char-
acter as his boundless vanity, his increasingly paranoid
suspicion, and his vindictiveness. The mark of his style
is on virtually every concept and tactic of the "revolu-
tion"; contradictory aspects of his "thought" are established
as policy; fantasies are held up as realities; losses are
defined as gains; equivocal directives confuse those who
must implement them and leave Mao "correct" no matter what
happens. The "cultural revolution" has repeated features
of past Maoist campaigns, such as setting traps and tests
for his colleagues and punishing severely those who have
"failed", finding scapegoats for his own errors, creat-
ing new opponents by his arbitrary behavior, and relying
increasingly on revolutionary fanatics. Such irrationality
has been increasingly apparent in Mao's behavior since the
"hundred flowers" period in 1957, and has reached a new
high in the "cultural revolution."
This Maoist stamp on developments, together with
the attribution of all basic policies and changes of
policy to Mao himself (in directives and "instructions"
that appear genuine), argue strongly that Mao is still
the central figure in the "cultural revolution." The in-
creasingly important role and status assigned to Madame
Mao also argues for the continued central position of Mao;
it is most improbable that any one else would entrust
such important work to a person so little qualified, and
so much disliked.
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Mao's "thought," Mao's character, and Mao's prac-
tice give the situation an inherent instability. More-
over, Mao is committed to carry this revolution "to the
end"--meaning not only the "destruction" of the old order
but a continuing purge cf the new structures he is build-
ing. And as he further disrupts his already severely dis-
ordered society, he further reduces his already narrow
base of support among those capable of contributing to
the constructive features.
The vacillation in Chinese policies reflects pri-
marily Mao's own unsteadiness as a "helmsman." There
have been, however, important and growing differences of
disposition and inclination among Mao's lieutenants.
There are those who, like Mao himself, are inclined 'left'
(Lin Piao, Madame Mao, the other principal figures of the
central CRG), and those who are inclined 'right' and ex-
ert a moderating influence when possible (Chou En-lai and
others, including most military leaders). There has been
growing tension and conflict between these groups, but
the militants, being closer to Mao, have probably been
in the stronger position even in periods of relative mod-
eration.
Developments from September 1967 to the present
illustrate the latter point. From September to late March,
Peking's policies were mixed but on balance relatively
moderate, and Mao's militant lieutenants seemed somewhat
on the defensive. But in early March, when a group of
military leaders offended Madame Mao and other militants,
the offenders were quickly purged and a nation-wide cam-
paign against "rightists" instituted. Since then Mao has
gone out of his way to display his militant colleagues
as the dominant figures on his team.
The PLA as an instrument of the revolution has
suffered from Mao's style of work. It has repeatedly been
given responsibility without being given either clear
directives or necessary authority, and has then been
chastized for "errors." It has also had to defend it-
self against militant "rebels" incited by Peking. Al-
though the PLA has gained in political power, its sur-
viving leadership has probably been left with a sense
of resentment and insecurity.
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Despite the heavy casualties suffered by the PLA
and the inability of any individual to protect himself,
there has apparently been no broad and organized resist-
ance movement within the PLA. That is, there has been
no known effort to coordinate resistance outside Peking
or to stage a coup in Peking. One reason may be that
military leaders have been too conscious of Mao's mass
following and historical role. Another may be that he
has not taken on a large enough group of PLA leaders at
any one time. Nevertheless, resentment of Mao's treat-
ment of the PLA, combined with fear of further purges,
makes the PLA an instrument of uncertain reliability.
It may in fact become the instrument of Mao's overthrow.
Mao's base of support in the central leadership
in Peking has narrowed sharply. The 'first team' he
has recently been presenting consists of himself and Lin
Piao, two actresses (Madame Mao and Madame Lin), three
propagandists, three policemen, and only three or four
military and government leaders. Mao's base of true sup-
porters among military leaders seems particularly narrow,
as the result of his own policies and the operations of
Madame Mao.
In addition to the narrowness of Mao's base among
central leaders, it seems very doubtful that the military
figures who dominate the revolutionary committees through-
out China are reliable "revolutionary successors." They
have been put through too much. They may be too awed by
or.frightened of Mao to disobey him, but they have not
become Maoist revolutionaries.
Mao seems to believe that his "revolution" has
been a success--in purging those whom he has wished to
purge, in separating the true believers'from the revi-
sionists, in creating a new governing apparatus, and in
making fresh contributions to doctrine and practice.
But these accomplishments are illusory. An outside ob-
server cannot escape the conclusion that the "revolution"
has been a disaster for China of at least the magnitude
of the "leap forward" and the split with the Soviet camp.
In previous disasters Mao has been able to protect his
own position; in-this case, he may be unable to.
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Whatever the prospect for Mao personally, the
prospect for China is continued instability. So long as
Mao dominates the leadership, he will continue to work
toward fantastic goals through irrational and often con-
flicting policies, and he will continue to purge those
who cannot work this way. The new revolutionary commit-
tees reflect Mao himself: they are inherently unstable,
and conflict among their elements will continue. More-
over, in building the new party apparatus there may be
a destructive conflict within the camp of the militants:
the leaders of the central CRG, including Madame Mao,
will probably seek to put their own followers in key
party posts, while Lin Piao may want to install military
leaders in these party posts concurrently.
Mao's intention to conduct further purges poses
the principal danger to his own position. He may finally
provoke such resentment and anxiety--particularly through
Madame Mao's operations in the PLA--that an effective
coalition will form against him. Apart from the possi-
bility of his assassination by an individual with a griev-
ance, PLA leaders might be precipitated into attempting
a coup against him (and against Lin Piao too), either in
Peking or on one of his tours. Mao's true supporters
among PLA leaders may be so few that--like Khrushchev--
he would not receive warning of such a coup.
If Mao dies or becomes disabled, and Lin succeeds,
Lin will probably have to change Mao's policies or face
a struggle, perhaps prolonged. A struggle would probably
be waged principally between elements of the PLA and the
police and mass organizations--some elements responsive
to Lin and other Maoist militants, other elements respon-
sive to Chou En-lai and certain military leaders. Lin
would probably choose instead to make the necessary changes,
and his successors will probably weaken Mao's doctrines
still further.
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The Madame in the First Stage of the Purge
Madame Mao became an important political figure
only in late 1965, when Mao used her to plant an article
in the Shanghai press a--tacking a playwright who was to
serve as a symbol of al opposition to Mao's thought and
will. The Madame, a onetime bit player in Shanghai movies,
had been occupied for more than 15 years with an effort
to reduce all of the Chinese arts to propaganda. Until
1965 party leaders seem to have regarded her as a simple-
minded nuisance not to be taken seriously..
The planted article of November 1965 was followed
quickly, however, by the seizure of the People's Libera-
tion Army (PLA) chief-of-staff Lo Jui-Ching, thought to
be a dangerous rival to Lin Piao. This was the beginning
of the "cultural revolution," and the Madame was to rise
on the wreckage of part' and military leaders--including
all of those who once had scorned her--until the Red Guard
press could describe her as the "most outstanding command-
er of the great proletarian cultural revolution."
In February 1966, having decided that a purge of
the PLA as well as of the party was necessary, Mao assign-
ed the Madame to conduct a symposium on "cultural" work
in the PLA. The Madame's report concluded--probably the
conclusion was foregone--that there was indeed "class
struggle" in the PLA and that "revolution" was essential
to purify its ranks. Her report was approved in March
by Lin Piao and by Chen Po-ta, a long time writer and
spokesman for Mao who was to head the Cultural Revolution
Group which was formed later to conduct the purge of the
party. Since that time, Madame Mao has had the starring
role in carrying out the purge of the PLA.
In mid-May 1966, a central committee circular con-
firmed that a large-scale purge of the party lay ahead,
and stated expressly that Mao's opponents were in place
in the PLA as well. Mac's team formed at that time the
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Cultural Revolution Group to take the place of the central
party apparatus and to purge that apparatus.. Madame Mao,
who had never had a party post, was named first deputy
chairman of the CRG under Chen Po-ta.* Mao did not yet
see as necessary an analogous group for the purge of the
PLA.
In June and July of 1966, while Madame Mao was
warming to her new role, the "cultural revolution" was
being conducted by "work-teams"--small teams named by the
upper levels of the party apparatus and assigned to inves-
tigate and purge lower-level bodies. The PLA contributed
officers and men to these teams, and its own academies
and schools were objects of the activity of these teams.
The work of these teams was directed not by the newly-
elevated militants such as Chen Po-ta and the Madame but
rather by the conventional party apparatus under Liu Shao-
chi and Teng Hsiao-ping. Liu and Teng understandably at-
tempted to conduct the "revolution" in the party without
destroying the party apparatus, but the latter was what
Mao wanted to do, so the "failure" of the work-teams (as
defined by Mao in late July) was the proximate cause of
the downfall of Liu and Teng in early August. Several
months later, Liu Chih-chien, a deputy director of the
PLA's General Political Department, was made the scapegoat
for the concurrent and derivative failure in the conduct
of the "revolution" in the PLA in June and July.
*The Madame was the link between several leaders of
the central CRG. Kang Sheng had brought Madame Mao into
the party (in 1931), and the Madame had worked closely
with him for many years. She had worked closely also
with three important younger members of the new CRG--Chang
Chun-chiao (second deputy chairman) and Yap Wen-yuan of
Shanghai, two "cultural" careerists who had cooperated
in writing and planting the November article which set
off, the "revolution," and Chi Pen-yu, a journalist whose
article of April 1967 was to commence the attacks on the
arch-enemy, Liu Shao-chi.
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In August 1966 Lin Piao--de facto chief of the
party's Military Affairs Committee, Minister of Defense,
and Mao's newly-designated successor--provided a general
directive for the purge of the PLA, a role he was to
continue to play. He tcld PLA leaders that all of them
would be judged on the basis of whether they demonstrated
their support of Mao, gave priority to politics (over
conventional military thought), and displayed revolution-
ary zeal. Yang Cheng-wu, who had succeeded Lo Jui-ching
as chief-of-staff (acting) and as secretary-general of
the MAC, was reportedly given in his MAC role the respon-
sibility for supervising the work of the Political De-
partment (Hsiao Hua) in carrying out a purge of the PLA
on the lines of Lin's stated principles.
In late August 1966, when the newly-organized Red
Guards were turned loose against the party apparatus, the
PLA was told to stay out of it; in other words, the PLA
was not yet an instrument of the "revolution" (although
standing by as a threat). It was already an object of
the "revolution," and Mao's team--now clearly including
the Madame--was preparing for a stage of much greater
militancy.
The Madame and the Purging Instruments
In October 1966, a MAC directive moved the "cultural
revolution" in the PLA--still concentrated in the mili-
tary academies and schools--into a higher gear. Mao and
Lin set up at about this time a Cultural Revolution Group
for the conduct of the revolution in the PLA, analogous
to the central committee's Cultural Revolution Group set
up five months earlier for the conduct of the "revolution"
as a whole. The first nominal chief of the PLA/CRG was
probably Liu Chih-chien of the General Political Depart-
ment, not yet disgraced, but the de facto chief from the
start was Madame Mao, its reported "advisor." The Madame
thus became the only party leader to be a leader of both
the central CRG and the PLA/CRG.
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At the same time (October 1966), the MAC reportedly
issued another directive ordering all personnel of the
PLA who encountered statements or actions contrary to
Mao's thought or the MAC's policy to report these to
higher levels, no matter how high the position of the of-
fender. It was soon clear that Liu Chih-chien was not
militant enough for the Madame. The Madame was making
remarks subversive of Liu's work as early as November
(she was to be the first party leader to make a public
attack on Liu, in early January 1967), and she apparently
began to go after the high-ranking and prestigious Ho
Lung too at about this time.
In the same period--between October and early
January--Mao and Lin were defining a second "test" that
lay ahead of party leaders outside Peking. In the party's
work-conference in October, and in editorials and speeches
(one by Madame Mao) later, these party leaders were told
that they could keep from getting purged only by denounc-
ing Liu and Teng and their works in extreme terms, making
a public self-criticism for following the "Liu/Teng line,"
denouncing local officials who followed that line, and
meeting the demands of revolutionary mass organizations.
This definition of right conduct was to prove important
for an understanding of the process by which a few former
regional and provincial party leaders were rehabilitated
during 1967 and early 1968 and found qualified to join
the "revolutionary committees."
The Madame Leading Attacks
In mid-December Madame Mao, in her role as first
deputy chairman of the central CRG, exhorted the Red
Guards to rise up and "take over" some government organs.*
*The Madame launched at this time what was to be a
prolonged attack on the public security apparatus, regard-
ed as still under the influence of the disgraced Peng
Chen and Lo Jui-ching, and on the related apparatuses
of the judiciary and the procuratorate. Mao himself,
some time in 1967, was to call for the entire three-part
apparatus to be "smashed," i.e..reorganized completely.
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At the same time, in her role as "advisor" to the PLA/CRG,
she made the first public denunciation of Ho Lung, who
ranked second only to Lin Piao among officers of the MAC,
(Such denunciation of leading figures by' Madame Mao _
were to be repeated in almost every stage throughout the
purge of the PLA,) Brought down with Ho in the next few
weeks were several high-ranking officers of the central
military leadership--including the commander of the armored
forces and the political officer of the navy--and of the
regional military commands, including Peking's. All seem
to have been guilty--just possibly, in collusion--of re-
sisting the militant conduct of the "revolution" in the
PLA. Some were charged with conspiring against military
leaders then in favor--e.g. Yang Cheng-wu and Yu Li-chin--
who were themselves to be purged later; but this later
reversal of fortune was not to entail any reversal of
verdicts on those purged earlier.
In early January 1967 there was apparently intense
questioning of the status of other military leaders by
Red Guards seeking targets. Madame Mao, acting together
with Chen Po-ta and Chou En-lai, told the Guards that
other officers of the MAC--including Yeh Chien-ying, Nieh
Jung-then,. and Hsu Hsiang-chien--were not eligible to be
targets. But the Madame again took the lead in denounc-
ing a military leader out of favor--the luckless Liu Chih-
chien, who was made the principal scapegoat for all of
the "mistakes" of the PLA's Political Department in 1966.
The Madame also said that Liu's PLA/CRG was to be re-
organized and put under Hsu Hsiang-chien, one of the MAC
officers she had defended, with Hsiao Hua and Yang Cheng-
wu as his principal deputies, and with Lin Piao's wife
(Yeh Chun) as a new member. The reorganized PLA/CRG
was to work under the "direct leadership" of the MAC and
the central CRG, (This reorganization was announced as
a decision of the MAC alone,with no mention of the central
CRG, implying some rivalry from the start.) The Madame
at the same time adopted officially the title of "advisor"
to the PLA/CRG,
Concurrently with the reorganization of the PLA/
CRG, the PLA press called for a militant pursuit of the
"cultural revolution" in leading organs of the PLA but
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for low-key "education" in line organizations. (This was
to be under the control of party committees--not little
PLA/CR groups equivalent to the miniature CRG bodies--re-
sponsive to the PLA/CRG.) This remained Mao's policy:
to accept much disruption at the upper levels of the PLA
from time to time, but not of the military units which
might be called into action.
Curiously, within a few days of the appointment
of the new PLA/CRG, several of its members (not Hsu,
Hsiao or Yang) were being attacked in Red Guard posters
and (reportedly) by members of the central CRG, among
other things for not being:responsive to Madame Mao.
Perhaps the real target was Hsiao Hua. Within a week
of the naming of Hsiao to the post of deputy chief of
the reorganized PLA/CRG, Madame Mao and Chen Po-ta made
clear that Hsiao was not in high favor. The Madame now
charged Hsiao with some part of the responsibility for
the rightist errors of the recently-purged Liu Chih-chien
(Hsiao had in fact been Liu's supervisor), and accused
him of making decisions without clearing them with Lin
Piao and of being unresponsive to the central CRG. Hsiao
was called on to make a sincere self-criticism. Yang
Yung, the commander of the sensitive Peking military
region, was immediately purged for making public an ac-
count of this meeting, but Hsiao Hua himself was given
another chance.
The PLA Unleashed and Leashed Again
At this time (January 1967), the "cultural revolu-
tion" entered the stage of violent overthrow of all those
in positions of authority in the party and government who
were thought to be resisting Mao's new revolutionary order.
The call to "seize power" soon resulted in great disorder,
and it was apparent that intervention by the PLA was need-
ed. On 23 January, the MAC, the central CRG and the State
Council jointly ordered the PLA into action. The directive
was put in terms of giving support to the "genuine" left-
ists among those contending to seize power, but the direc-
tive could be and was used to restore order without making
fine distinctions.
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Soon after the PLA was ordered into action, new
MAC directives modified the conduct of the "cultural revo-
lution" in the PLA. Most importantly, these forbade the
use of force, unauthorized arrests, and seizures of power,
and did not repeat the earlier call for action against
the bad "handful." These directives amounted to reassur-
ances--at a time when Mao's team in Peking urgently re-
quired the cooperation of the PLA throughout China--that
the purge of the PLA would not have the scope or intensity
of the purge of the party.
By the end of February, the rightist trend in the
conduct of the revolution was so pronounced that--as
first defined by Chou En-lai in March 1967--it had be-
come an "adverse current" or "reactionary counter-current."
In Peking, the party-machine leader Tan Chen-lin allegedly
tried to reopen the cases of his purged principals, Liu
Shao-chi and Teng Hsiao-ping, and of other purged leaders,
and to discredit and destroy the central CRG. In the pro-
vinces, military leaders engaged in restoring order were
necessarily acting aggressively against some of the most
militant "revolutionary rebels." What was happening, ap-
parently, was that, after a "revolutionary" group had
"seized power" (meaning the seals of power, the authority
of inoperative party and government organizations) and
had been recognized by the local military authorities,
a competing "revolutionary" group would then attempt a
counter-seizure and would be suppressed by the PLA as
counter-revolutionary. Some PLA leaders were later pun-
ished for their effort to prevent anarchy, and still
later, other PLA leaders were brought down in part for
trying to reopen the cases of these leaders, most of whom,
presumably, were acting on what they took to be the in-
tent of the directives of the time.*
*Madame Mao's understanding of Mao, and her talent for
mischief-making, are illustrated by an incident of this
period in which the PLA was trying hard to restore order.
Red Guards in Canton stole a
bus and drove it to Peking; Chou En-lai expressed his
anger, but the Madame said the action showed the right
spirit; within hours, buses were being stolen all over
Canton.
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During March, Mao decided that the swing had been
too far in the direction of an imposed order, and the
"revolutionary rebels" were unleashed again, to attack
first the "restoration" of discredited officials to posts
in government organs. Chou En-lai, head of the govern-
ment apparatus, defended some of the government leaders
attacked for this practice but himself warned against in-
discriminate rehabilitation, an issue which was to arise
again in the spring of 1968.
Later in March, following an inspection tour by
Lin Piao, the PLA was put back on the leash. On 30 March,
Lin told the PLA that PLA units would be restricted in
their use of coercion and that they were not to take action
on their own initiative but were to wait for orders from
above. This order--which was highly important in holding
the PLA to a strict, legalistic interpretation of its
mission in the months to come--was embodied in a 10-point
directive of 6 April. Whereas the 23 January directive
had given the PLA the upper hand over disorderly elements,
the 6 April directive seemed to put the PLA at the mercy
of these elements, unless local PLA leaders chose to defy
Peking.
New Leadership of the PLA/CRG and the MAC
On the same day (6 April), there were intensive
and apparently inspired poster attacks on Hsu Hsiang-
chien and Yeh Chien-ying, two officers of the MAC who had
probably had important roles in directing the conduct of
the PLA during the February-March period of its repres-
sion of militant "rebels" and who now -with the change
of line--were evidently to be made the scapegoats for that
period. Both were charged with a number of rightist of-
fenses, including opposition to Madame Mao. In mid-April
posters reported (perhaps prematurely) that the Madame,
supposedly only the "advisor" to the PLA/CRG, had "dis-
missed" Hsu as the chairman of that body--in part, for
not being sufficiently responsive to her personally--and
that the leadership had been given to two of Hsu's deputies,
Hsiao Hua (who had evidently made a satisfactory self-
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criticism) and Yang Cheng-wu, and to Hsieh Fu-chih; Lin
Piao's wife remained.*
At about this time, Hsiao (director of the General
Political Department) Yang (acting chief-of-staff), Hsieh
(Minister of Public Security), and Su Yu (onetime chief-
of-staff, then a deputy minister of defense and most re-
cently coordinator of defense research), were reportedly
added to the standing committee of the MAC. Together with
Lin Piao, these officers composed the entire group of top
military leaders who were still clearly in favor. And
they soon seemed to displace from the leadership of MAC
the five marshals--Nieh Jung-chen (who had become second-
ranking after the purge of Ho Lung but had been criticized),
Hsu Hsiang-chien and Yeh Chien-ying (also under critic-
ism), the inactive Liu Po-cheng, and the much-assailed
Foreign Minister Chen Yi (the only one of the five report-
ed to be actually removed from the MAC).
During the spring of 1967, while the PLA's military
control commissions were in effect occupying China until
"revolutionary committees" could be set up to replace the
smashed party apparatus and the paralyzed government
structure, regional, provincial and municipal PLA lead-
ers came under increasing attack by elements of the "revo-
lutionary rebels." The initiative for these attacks was
apparently most often taken by "rebel" organizations which
had been ruled against by the PLA in the early months of
1967 and which now sought a reversal of verdicts; these
attacks were launched against both the PLA and the "rebel"
organizations which had found favor with the PLA. Local
*The reorganization of the PLA/CRG should properly
have been handled by the MAC--of which the Madame was
not even a member--as it was a MAC directive which had
named Hsu: another indication of possible rivalry.
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PLA leaders, forbidden since late March to take harsh
action against "rebel" groups without specific orders
from Peking, had perforce to protect themselves by sup-
porting those "rebel" groups which were friendly to them.
There were probably some cases too in which PLA leaders
knew very well which groups were in favor with the mili-
tants (of Madame Mao's type) in Peking, but found those
groups so obnoxious that they refused to support them un-
til directly ordered to do so by Peking.* Mao himself
wanted it both ways--that is, wanted both the PLA and the
"rebels" to correct their errors through "rectification"
programs, meeting then on a middle ground.
By mid-May the emphasis had shifted from the faults
of the PLA to the faults of the "rebels," and a new dir-
ective of 6 June called for an end to a number of "rebel"
offenses (e.g. assaults, destruction, looting, arrests)
and gave the PLA the responsibility for enforcing the
order. It did not, however, order the "rebels" to turn
in the weapons they had seized, and it did not give the
PLA the authority to use force against "rebel" organiza-
tions. There was simply no way for the PLA to act ef-
fectively against "anarchy" if it was forbidden to use
force.
Disorder continued. Hsieh Fu-chih revealed in mid-
June that there was disagreement among the leaders in
Peking--probably between Madame Mao and the others of
the central CRG on one hand and Chou En-lai and the cen-
tral military leaders on the other--as to how to proceed.
Hsieh himself was chosen to carry out the decision to
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send a small delegation to various troubled areas of China
to try to put an end to the armed struggles between "rebel"
groups and between those groups and the local military
forces. Hsieh's lieutenants in this mission were Wang
Li, a militant journalist who had been taken into the
central CRG, and Yu Li-chin, the political officer of the
CCAF. Both Wang and Yu were to become casualties in later
stages of the "revolution."
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The Wuhan Incident, Peking's Anger, New Militance
This insubordination enraged and alarmed the lead-
ers in Peking, notably Madame Mao. Chen Tsai-tao was
quickly summoned to Peking and purged for it, and on 22
July the Madame called upon the "rebels to arm them-
selves against their enemies. There was at once a great
increase in seizures of weapons by the "rebels."
At the same time, in late July, the military com-
manders and political officers of most of the other region-
al commands were called to Peking. While they may have
been given an opportunity there to state the genuine dif-
ficulties facing them in trying to comply with Peking's
will, they were almost certainly warned in strong terms
about disobedience or evasion. The point was underlined
at July's end by Red Flag (controlled by officers of the
central CRG), which called for the "overthrow" of the "bad
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handful'.' in the PLA. This withdrew the reassurances given
in February that there would be no fresh wave of purges
of the PLA.*
Further, in an early August speec in iao,
who had repeatedly shown that his allegiance was primarily
to Mao rather than to the PLA, again criticized the mis-
takes of the PLA, and again (as in late March) told PLA
leaders that in dealing with mass organizations they were
not to take action of any kind without orders from Peking,
no matter how long they had to wait. Lin also told the
PLA to seek guidance in handling the "rebels" from the
central CRG. Wall posters and the Red Guard press soon
reported that the MAC had established a 'Support-the Left'
Group in the PLA under Hsieh Fu-chih, second-ranking of
the active officers of the MAC.** The mission of this
new.group--probably guided by the central CRG--was almost.
certainly to be that of guiding the efforts of PLA com-
manders outside Peking in handling the revolutionary mass
organizations. Subordinate 'support the left" offices,
composed of PLA personnel and administratively under the
jurisdiction of local military districts, were soon iden-
tified in many parts of China.
By mid-August, Hsiao Hua, the director of the PLA's
General Political Department and one of the directors of
the more important PLA/CRG, was finally brought down. He
*The term "handful" was not reassuring. Mao's team
had used the same euphemism about the state of the party
before purging about three-fourths of the leading func-
tionaries of the party apparatus.
**Posters and the Red Guard press agree that other mem-
bers of the new Group were: Hsiao Hua, as the deputy
chief; Li Tien-yu, a deputy C/S and concurrently a deputy
director of Hsiao's Political Department; and Cheng Wei-
shan,, then deputy commander, later commander, of the Pek-
ing MR. Hsiao Hua, the new deputy, was to be purged with-
in about two weeks.
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had managed to survive the fall of several of his deputies
and criticism of him by several party leaders, including
Madame Mao, but this time he was through. Again Madame
Mao led the attack on a discredited figure, although Lin
Piao had prepared the way. Hsiao was held responsible
for the deficient political consciousness of PLA leaders,
as expressed in the "mistakes"--and crystallized in the
Wuhan Incident--which had just been criticized by Lin.
Thus Hsiao was made the scapegoat for the failure of some
PLA leaders to respond as Mao wished to the confusing and
often disabling orders from Peking.
At about the same time, the PLA's Cultural Revolu-
tion Group--of which Hsiao Hua had been one of the direct-
ors--was reportedly reorganized again. It came now under
the control of Wu Fa-hsien, commander of the politically
sound CCAF, and replaced some of its members of political
officer backgrounds(and closely associated with the newly-
purged Hsiao Hua) with military professionals.* So far
as is known, both Yang Cheng-wu and Yu Li-chin, who were
later to collide with both Madame Mao and Wu, remained
members of the PLA/CRG.
Quick Repudiation of the Hard Line
The harsh and threatening line taken toward the
PLA from late July soon led to a great increase in dis-
order, as the "rebels" were emboldened by this line. In
late August, taking account of this disorder and of PLA
*The PLA/CRG continued, however, to give the same ap-
pearance as did Mao's team as a whole--that is, of an un-
stable association of very different types. While the
reorganized PLA/CRG gave greater representation to mili-
tary professionals, the extremist Madame Mao was still
its real leader, and Yeh Chun--Lin Piao's wife, and a
person who seemed of the same type as Madame Mao--seemed
to be increasingly important, in the same roles as (though
smaller parts than) Madame Mao.
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resentment, Peking began to shift the line. At first,
the new line did not withdraw the criticism of the PLA,
but it sharply increased criticism of the mistakes of
the "rebels," and it did withdraw (reportedly on Mao's
order) the late July call for a further purge of the PLA.
It did this by condemning those who wished to "drag out"
PLA leaders. In other words, Mao's team in Peking, alarmed
in late July by the attitude of PLA leaders, was now con-
cerned about the effects on the PLA of the line since late
July and about the "rebel" violence which Peking's actions
had been provoking in that period.
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Mao's team apparently continued to desire a high
level of "rebel" activity, but a decline in the violence.
The PLA was not told to restore order at all costs. On
the contrary, Liberation Army Daily informed the PLA on
30 August that it was to continue to support the Left,
to support all genuine revolutionary organizations, and
to bring them together rather than to suppress those which
had made mistakes.
In a speech on 5 September, Madame Mao reversed
and repudiated the line of late July.* She withdrew her
*Mao was on tour of the provinces, accompanied by Yang
Cheng-wu (acting C/S), Yu Li-chin (political officer of
the CCAF'and interim commander in Wuhan after the Wuhan
Incident), Chang Chun-chiao (second, deputy chairman--be-
hind Madame Mao--of the central CRG, and the top man in
Shanghai), and Wang Tung-hsing (once and perhaps still
chief of Mao's personal security staff, since late 1965
or so director of the general office of the CCP central
committee, a post which almost certainly includes security
functions, and since early 1967 reportedly head of the
CRG sub-group for central party organs). Yang and Yu,
like some others who had been close tr Mao in earlier
stages of the "cultural revolution" (e.g., Tao Chu, Ho
Lung), were to be purged within a few months. Yang in
particular was riding high in this period of early autumn
1967. For example, in a speech of late September he com-
mented on the overall condition of the PLA, criticized
some provincial military leaders for disobeying or distort-
ing orders, identified some regional military leaders
(footnote continued on page 15)
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call for "rebel" groups to arm themselves, warned of the
danger from the "extreme 'left'" as well as from the
right, defended the PLA warmly and at length, and criti-
cized the "rebels" for attacking the PLA. On the same
date, the MAC and the central CRG gave the PLA a new
directive which, it seemed, could be used to suppress
"rebel" groups when necessary. The directive authorized
the PLA to use military force to repel attempts to seize
weapons and other materiel from the PLA. If liberally
interpreted, the directive could justify efforts to re-
cover weapons and to repel physical attacks on PLA per-
sonnel and installations. As it turned out, however, the
PLA in general did not interpret the directive liberally.
Better Order, the Purge of the "Ultra-Leftists"
Beginning almost immediately after the issuance
of the 5 September directive and Madame Mao's speech,
there was a dramatic improvement in several of the areas
in which there had been serious fighting as late as the
first week of September? On 18 September, the day after
Liberation Army Daily reaffirmed that it was the PLA's
as to assist revo utionary groups to "unite," Mao be-
came personally associated with this course in the form
of a "latest instruction." In this Mao declared that
"there is no fundamental clash of interests among the
working class" (i.e., revolutionary mass organizations
should form alliances, not fight).
(footnote continued from page 14)
(e.g. Hsu Shih-yu in Nanking) in Mao's favor, spoke of
Mao's plans for shifting regional leaders whom he thought
to have been too long in one place and for shortening
terms of service and simplifying study and equipment,
and confirmed Mao's mismated plans for taking guns back
from "rebel" groups while at the same time arming other
such groups.
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Later in September, as forecast by Madame Mao in
her 5 September speech, Mao's team went further to placate
the PLA. Three second-level members of the central Cul-
tural Revolution Group (Wang Li, Kuan Feng, and Mu Hsin),
and a lesser figure who was an editor of Red Flag (which
had called publicly for a further purge of the PLA) were
removed from their posts, charged in posters with "ultra-
left" mistakes. The basic policy had of course been for-
mulated, imposed and reaffirmed by the sacrosanct leaders,
Mao and Lin Piao, but it is possible that the three second-
level figures had exceeded their instructions in carrying
it out. Inter alia, these figures were accused of having
bonds with a "rebel" group which sought to overthrow not
only Chou En-lai but such militants as Mao, Lin and Kang
Sheng. While Chou En-lai and other relatively moderate
leaders may have advocated the purge of these particular
militants and were presumably pleased by it, party lead-
ers credited Madame Mao with discovering the errors of
the "ultra-leftists" and with taking the lead in attack-
ing them.
The situation throughout China continued to improve
through September. By National Day, 1 October, large-
scale disorders were no longer being reported, although
violent incidents had'not ended. Both the PLA and the
"rebels" had apparently been generally responsive to the
new line developed since late August.
The New Team and Mao's Narrowing Base
At the same time, however, press accounts of Nation-
al Day showed how Mao's base in the leadership was narrow-
ing down to the fanatics and opportunists. The "leading,
comrades"--Mao's inner circle--were now reduced to the
old-timers Mao, Lin Piao, Chou En-lai, Chen Po-ta, Kang
Sheng, Li Fu-chun, and Nieh Jung-chen (not all of them
fully reliable), the military and security figures who
were newcomers as party leaders, Hsieh Fu-chih, Yang Cheng-
wu, Su Yu, and Wang Tung-hsing, and the complete newcom-
ers of the central CRG (in addition to Chen) and of the
PLA/CRG--Madame Mao, Madame Lin, Chang Chun-chiao, Yao
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Wen-yuan, and Chi Pen-ya. (Part of this already narrow
base was soon to be cut away.) A few leaders who had been
removed from posts and ;vere thought to be in some degree
of disfavor--at least at the time of their removal--appeared
on this occasion, but not a single one of those thought
to be in strong disfavor was rehabilitated and displayed.*
In other words, there had been no "reversal of verdicts."
Lin Piao, giving the main speech at the National
Day rally, defined the "most important" current tasks as
those of (a) criticizing and repudiating party leaders
already brought down (i.e., focussing on enemies rather
than fighting with one another), (b) concluding and de-
veloping "alliances" among "rebel" groups (i.e., keeping
order), and (c) developing the "three-way alliances" (i.
e. the cooperation of t'ne PLA, rehabilitated party cadres,
and young revolutionaries in forming and operating revo-
lutionary committees to govern China). The latter two
tasks were principally the tasks of the PLA. On the same
occasion, the regime's three most important journals--Peo-
ple's Daily,:. Red Flag, and Liberation Army Daily--joined
in prophesying that in carrying out its tasks in the year
to come the new team would encounter challenges from both
the "right" and the "ex :reme 'left'." This was of course
a self-fulfilling prophecy.
*Among those who had lost posts and favor during the
"revolution," but who now appeared in qualified favor,
were the military leaders Hsu Hsiang-chien and Yeh Chien-
ying. Some observers regarded the reappearance of the
party and government leaders Li Hsueh-feng and Yu Chiu-
li--out of sight for some months--as even better evidence
of the increasing strength of a "moderate faction" which
(they thought) was coming to dominate or already dominated
the central leadership. However, both Li and Yu had been
represented in early 1967 as the very models of erring
officials who could be rehabilitated by repentance, con-
fession, work and study. a few others who had run this
course successfully were to be produced in the early months
of 1968.
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The PLA had already been hit hard by the "cultural
revolution," far harder than was generally realized. More-
over, Mao at this time reaffirmed his intention to carry
the revolution through ".to the end." This meant that,
while the PLA was to be given a respite while it restored
and maintained order, it was sure to suffer a further
purge. The interesting question was whether Mao, if he
chose to make it another large-scale purge, would be able
to get away with it--that is, whether he would not provoke
resistance leading to'his own overthrow.
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Further Measures to Reduce Disorder
Another "instruction" issuing from Mao's September
tour was that the process of setting up a new governing
structure be speeded up. His stated intention was to
establish "revolutionary committees" throughout China by
early 1968, with a balance among the three elements. Local
military leaders (both military commanders and political
officers) and rehabilitated party and government cadres
were to divide the work, and representatives from the
spectrum of revolutionary mass organizations were to "super-
vise" them (i.e., keep the "revolutionary" pressure on
both).* Military figures were evidently to be dominant
in most of these committees in the early stages.
The formation of these "revolutionary committees"
from below--that is, through agreements among local mili-
tary leaders, party cadres, and "rebels"--had apparently
not worked very well. Thus the decisions had to be made
in Peking, after consultations with representatives of
all three components of the "alliance." This shortcut
itself took a long time, however, because the composition
of the committees then had to be approved by all three
components.
Throughout October, the effort to restore order
was increasingly successful, although some "rebel" groups
continued to be refractory. That Mao himself favored
some limits on disorder-was made clear by the various
"instructions" and directives attributed to him; for
*It appeared and still does appear that the revolution-
ary committees, replacing both the party and the govern-
mental apparatus, must be responsive to all three of the
key central organs--the CRG, the MAC, and the State Coun-
cil, perhaps in that order of importance.
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example, he advocated "alliances" on the part of mass
organizations rather than disputes for position, he said
the "chief danger" was that "some people want to beat
down the PLA," he insisted that there must be "no chaos"
in the PLA, he described the recent "countrywide disturb-
ance" as the "last of its kind." On the other hand, some
versions of his "instructions" appearing in the "rebel"
press condoned violence and disruption in certain unde-
fined circumstances. The most militant of his lieuten-
ants--that is, Lin Piao, Madame Mao, Chen Po-ta, and
Kang Sheng--spoke more clearly than he did in favor of
restoration of order. So, of course, did Chou En-lai,
who among other things warned the "rebels" not to allow
themselves to be pushed by the condemnation of "ultra-
left" errors into rightist errors: he expressly warned
against efforts to "reverse verdicts" on disgraced right-
ists, a theme which was to get greater emphasis in the
spring of 1968.* Hsieh Fu-chih also spoke for the restora-
tion of order, and also
gave a good account o e com-
position o e dominant group of leaders, among whom
he did not place himself. As stated by Hsieh, the big
three were Mao, Lin, and Chou En-lai, with Chou a step
below the other two as their staff man, while Chen, Kang
and the Madame (the three leaders of the central CRG)
composed a. group formed to assist the big three; these
six, Hsieh said, were the holders of ultimate power, re-
placing the former standing committee of the politburo
as the body above the politburo and the central committee.
(At the same time Chou En-lai described the central CRG,
considered separately, as the equivalent of the old secre-
tariat but with greater responsibilities.) In other
*It was true, however, that there was a difference in
tone between such spokesmen as Kang Sheng and Chou En-lai.
Kang, like Mao, suggests a predisposition to radical and
militant policies; Chou executes such policies, and well
enough to protect himself, but suggests a different pre-
disposition, and an inclination to modify such policies
when he safely can.
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words, while relatively moderate policies were to be pur-
sued for a time and relatively moderate leaders (Chou En-
lai and his friends) were to have large roles in carrying
them out (as often before), Mao and Lin continued to
dominate the party and could change course at any time,
and the group closest to them were the militants of the
central CRG. Although it could be argued that Madame
Mao had replaced Chou En-lai in the big three in terms
of power to make or break individuals, Hsieh's assess-
ment otherwise seemed exactly right.*
In early November Madame Mao made two speeches--per-
haps reinforced by unpublished speeches on the same Occa-
sion by the other militant leaders of the central CRG,
Chen and Kang--which clearly contributed to the increase
in disorder which followed. The Madame's speeches, as
amalgamated and perhaps toned down in a subsequent arti-
cle, were given to PLA representatives concerned with
literature and art and to representatives of "revolution-
ary" groups. They were explicitly addressed to the situa-
tion in literature and art, and were concerned largely
*Shortly thereafter, acting C/S Yang Cheng-wu published
an article in praise of Mao's thought and works which was
denounced in March 1968 when Yang was purged. Even in
retrospect it is impossible to discover how this orthodox,
fulsome treatment of the subject offended against either
Mao's thought or Mao's works; Yang's line ("establish
absolutely" Mao's thought) was in fact the line emphasized
at the time. However, Yang was later charged with having
sought personal publicity by trying to get his article
printed on the first page of People's Daily (reserved for
one of Mao's "instructions") and by ordering the PLA to
study the article, Moreover, the article, while praising
Lin Piao strongly for his active defense of Mao's thought,
did not mention Madame Mao's contribution to this defense;
the Madame may have construed the omission as a deliber-
ate slight.
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with the procedures for forming "three-way alliances" in
accordance with the policies of the time. They were not,
in general, militant.. However, 'they included a certain
amount of incendiary material which could be used by mili-
tant "revolutionary rebels" as a justification for resum-
ing the violence and attacks on "people in authority."
This had happened before. The Madame had made a
speech in late November of 1966 which was also addressed
only to literature and art but which had stated clearly
Mao's intention to put all party leaders'who had failed
him through a long process of criticism and self-criticism,
and that speech was underlined as authoritative in sub-
sequent pronouncements in party journals. Again now in
1967 the Red Guard press made much of the Madame's speech,
and after some delay official media again called attention
to "stagnant pools." The Madame seemed really to be ex-
pressing both aspects of Mao's "thought"--that some or-
ganizations were too disorderly, while others were too
quiescent. The insistence on having it both ways was
evident in Mao's own "instructions" of the time; both
militant and moderate "revolutionary rebels" were soon
found to be quoting selectively from these ill-composed
directives to support their very different predilections.
There were probably other factors in the increas-
ing violence after mid-November. One was the increased
pressure on "revolutionary rebel" groups to compete for
position in the "revolutionary committees." Another was
resentment over the composition of those committees and
preparatory groups already formed; those excluded, or
dissatisfied with their shares, attacked those in "power"
and those who had put them there, and attacks led to counter-
attacks and to small wars which perpetuated themselves.*
*As a glaring instance of arrangements imposed by Pek-
ing and resented by "rebels," in early December Huang
Yung-sheng, commander of the Canton MR, was named to head
the preparatory group for a revolutionary committee in
Kwangtung. Huang had been under attack by "rebel" groups
in Canton for more than a year, had taken strong action
against some of them, and had reportedly continued to
(footnote continued on page 23)
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Another was the increasing evidence that rehabilitated
party cadres were to play more important roles in the
new committees than were the "rebels." Moreover, there
were continuing indications--certainly noted by the "reb-
els"--of Mao's dissatisfaction,with'the general condition
of the PLA and in particular with the PLA's handling of
mass organizations. Of greatest importance, those rebel
groups which did resume violence and did attack those in
"authority" found that they could get away with it. They
could disobey the PLA's orders with impunity because the
PLA was not interpreting liberally the 5 September directive
on using force to recover stolen weapons and was not tak-
ing this directive as a mandate to use all necessary force
to restore order. It was not that the PLA was afraid of
the "rebels," but rather than the PLA, burned twice be-
fore, was afraid of Mao, was afraid that he would once
again rebuke and purge the army for harshness toward the
young militants, This estimate of the situation--by both
the "rebels" and the PLA--was presumably strengthened by
a new "instruction" attributed to Mao in early December,
which was in fact a reaffirmation of Mao's position that
"rebels" who had committed "mistakes" should be helped
to achieve "unity," rather than suppressed. In sum, the
disinherited "rebels" thought that they had something to
gain from violence, and they had good reason to believe
that they would not be severely punished for engaging in
violence, so it was not surprising that violence was to
increase.
(footnote continued from page 22)
support their enemies even after Peking had reversed Huang's
"verdict" on some of these groups. There was no reason
for the "rebels" to conclude that Huang was himself im-
posed on Mao, that Mao was as sorry about it as they were;
on the contrary, Huang, who had had commands under Lin
Piao ever since the early 1930s, had made a satisfactory
self-criticism and had been praised by both Mao and Lin
prior to this appointment, and the appointment itself was
almost certainly another mark of confidence. The continu-
ing attacks on Huang by "rebel" groups were presumably
intended to "reverse the verdict."
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Plans To Rebuild the Party Apparatus
Also in early December, following reported asser-
tions by party spokesmen (e.g. Hsieh Fu-chih) that the
party intended to convene its Ninth Congress sometime in
1968, a joint directive--of the central committee, the
MAC, the central CRG, and the State Council--made clear
that Mao and his team did indeed intend to rebuild the
party apparatus, as in fact Mao and his spokesmen had
promised from the start that they would do. This rebuilt
apparatus was presumably to function either as the core
of the "revolutionary committees" or as a parallel (and
more powerful) structure.
Presumably, the new party apparatus would be staffed
in large part by the officers of the revolutionary com-
mittees. And presumably the new apparatus would become
what the old apparatus had been--the principal instrument
for formulating,-transmitting and carrying out the olic-
ies imposed by the small group of top leaders.*
ree
militants of the central CRG had been given the task of
rebuilding the party on Mao's lines: Kang Shang, to handle
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the actual reorganization (i.e., drawing up name-lists
for a new politburo and secretariat, and for all other
key party organs); Chang Chun-chiao, to draw up the party
program; and Yao Wen-yuan, to set up the party congress.
One of the most interesting questions was that of whether
the PLA figures dominating most of the revolutionary com-
mittees would be transferred to the new party committees,
and, if so, whether they would retain their military posts.
Disorder and Permissiveness
By the end of December, civil disorder and viol-
ence were again widespread in China, with serious dis-
turbances reported from almost every province. The dis-
order was apparently no-~ as serious as it had been a
year earlier, but it seemed again to be approaching the
point at which Mao and Lin--as in January 1967--would
have to take serious measures against it. The Maoist
methods of investigation, persuasion and education could
not do the job.
At the same time (early January), the authorita-
tive Shanghai newspapers introduced a theme which was to
become of great importance during the spring. Reviewing
the cases of a number of local party leaders who had been
purged, the Shanghai papers said that attempts had been
made to "reverse the verdict" on some of them. Those who
had taken part in this effort had turned out to be "count-
er-revolutionaries." (The Red Guard press soon picked
up this theme.)
The party and military press continued in January
to tell the PLA to support "all" revolutionary mass or-
ganizations under the abiding slogan of "Support the
Left," and to exhort the mass organizations to rid them-
selves of the various expressions of "factionalism." It
was made clear that this factionalism existed also with-
in the revolutionary committees, not simply among groups
competing for posts on the committees. There was evidence
too that at some points--as Yang Cheng-wu had implied
in his September speech--different components of the PLA's
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regional and provincial commands were backing different
groups of "rebels." It was unclear, however, whether
this particular development was widespread or serious.
At the same time, there was evidence that Mao's
team in Peking was failing--in at least some cases--to
back the PLA leaders in the regions and provinces in
using force under the terms of the 5 September directive,
and, moreover, was discouraging a liberal interpretation
of that directive. Whereas the directive had authorized
the PLA to use force to repel attempts to seize weapons
and could be used also to justify the forcible recovery
of weapons, in the early weeks of 1968 there were con-
firmed instances in several areas--Yunnan, Szechuan,
Tibet, Kiangsi, Kwangtung, and Fukien--in which disorderly
"rebel" groups seized arms and got away with it. In some
of these cases, the local PLA commands were expressly
ordered not to use force against "rebel" groups, either
to recover the arms or to suppress the increasingly
serious fighting which the seized arms made possible.
The Fall of One of the Madame's Proteges
This development--the failure to crack down--was
itself a good indicator that Mao and Lin and the milit-
ants of the central CRG continued to dominate the lead-
ership. The group around Chou En-lai and the central
military leaders--if they had been the dominant figures--
would almost certainly have authorized PLA commanders
in the field to take all necessary measures to restore
order.
However, at about the same time (February 1968)
certain changes in the second-level leadership--three
appointments and one dismissal suggested to some ob-
servers that the relative moderates in the top leader-
ship were now dominating it, and were imposing these
changes. The appointments were of three figures of the
old party apparatus who turned up in leading positions
in the new "revolutionary committees" in the provinces.
One of these (Li Hsueh-feng in Hopei) had been publicly
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working his way back into favor for a year, and was no
surprise; but two others had been out of sight for more
than a year and had been presumed purged. The probability
was that these two were instances of what Mao had promised
as far back as October 1966--the restoration of those
party officials who could successfully pass through the
long and painful process of reform and rehabilitation;
subsequent Red Guard materials, quoting Mao, described
one of them as exactly that. (There have thus far been
very few at the upper levels, despite the assurances of
Mao and Lin that "most" of the party's cadres were re-
garded as "good" or pretty good.) Whether such officials
were genuinely reformed. had really become perfect in-
struments of Maos thought and will, was of course another
question.
The dismissal was of Chi Pen.-yu, a militant member
of the central CRG, one of the "literary adventurers"
who had been pulled into the leadership in the early stages
of the "cultural revolution" when Mao needed new voices
to denounce the old propaganda apparatus. Several others
of this lot (Wang Li, Kuan? Feng, et al.) had been brought
down in September 1967 for "ultra-left" mistakes--i.e.
over-zealous implementation of the line imposed by the
militants at the top. Chi's record had been much the
same, and he might have fallen at that time if he had
not had a powerful protector (to permit him to make "self-
criticisms") in the person of Madame Mao. As previously
noted, the Madame had worked closely with Chi for several
years and had probably been his sponsor when he was
brought into the central CRG in the summer of 1966. Where-
as the Madame had led the attack on those purged in Septem-
ber, now in February, in Chi's case, she refrained from
doing so. But she evidently did withdraw her support from
him, and he was charged inter 'alia with collecting "black
material" on the Madame as well as on Lin Piao, Chou En-
lai, Hsieh Fu-chih, and others. The central charge
against Chi appears to have been that of responsibility
--along with those purged in September--for the "ultra-
left" policy of late summer 1967 which had mistreated and
threatened the PLA. He was also charged with "ultra-left"
initiatives against some of those (both moderate and
militant) above him in the hierarchy. And he may have
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come into conflict with Chou En-lai on the specific ques-
tion of Sinkiang.* The fall of all four of the "ultra-
left" second-level leaders was subsequently said to have
provided a pretext for a resurgence of "rightist" activity
in the early months of 1968.**
The conclusion--from the three appointments and
Chi's dismissal--that the moderates were now dominating
the leadership was pretty clearly too strong. However,
there may have been a temporary dilution of the power of
*The situation in the province ("autonomous area") of
Sinkiang continued to be baffling. Wang En-mao, the party
first secretary and military commander in Sinkiang, had
been hit hard by the Red Guards.'in an early stage of the
"cultural revolution" and had seemed out of favor with
Mao's team; in fact, Mao himself had reportedly criticized
him. Yet Wang remained in place, and for much of_ 1967
was in Peking, where Mao could presumably have purged him
if he chose. Wang was back in his provincial capital by
October 1967 and then dropped out of the news, but Red
Guard materials reported him to be under attack; again in
early 1968 by one of his subordinates there and by Red
Guard groups apparently responsive to that official; they
reported him also to be "dragged" to Peking at this time
and kept there (he appeared in Peking on May Day). The
Sinkiang question may yet affect the fortunes of many
leaders in addition to Chi Pen-yu.
**By the end of February, the level of violence through-
out China was in general reported to be dropping. This
was presumably a payoff from the campaign against faction-
alism and may also have been due to increasing indications
from Peking that regional and provincial military leaders
who had long been objects of "rebel" criticism and attack
were in fact in favor with the militant leaders in Peking,
including Mao and Lin. One of them was soon to be named
as the new chief-of-staff and as secretary-general of the
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one of the worst of the militants--Madame Mao herself.
This conjecture derives from the establishment of new
political work groups in the PLA.
The New Political Work Groups
At about this time--February 1968--Mao's team set
up in the PLA three separate but related groups to carry
on the work of political control and surveillance once
performed by the General Political Department (sent to
purgatory after the fall of its director--Hsiao Hua--in
August 1967). The new groups were designed either to
supplement or to replace the PLA/CRG as the body concerned
with the political reliability of high-ranking military
officers.
The three groups were called the political work
group, the literary and art group, and the military press
(chun pao) group. At a reception for members of these
groups (reported in the Red Guard press in early March),
L'n Piao and Yang Cheng-wu defined the work of the groups.
Their work was to be "political"--saturating the PLA with
Mao's thought--and "organizational," that is, learning
more about the PLA's leaders from the army level up, to
support a judgment as to their political reliability.
Lin complained that,.owing to Hsiao Hua's poor perform-
ance, the top leaders did not know whom they could rely
on. Lin told these groups that they would get instruc-
tions from, and would report to, Chairman Mao, the central
committee, Premier Chou, the central CRG, and the "ad-
ministrative unit" of the MAC; as reported, Lin did not
mention the PLA/CRG, the organ which, one would think,
would be the logical choice to supervise these new groups
directly if the PLA/CRG were to continue to function. In
fact, Lin told them, they were to be supervised by offic-
ers of the MAC and the central CRG.
The political work group--clearly the most import-
ant, in that it would normally be dealing with officers
of higher rank and in command of combat forces--was to
be supervised by the "administrative unit" of the MAC.
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The chief of this office was not identified, but it may
have been Yang Cheng-wu, as it was Yang who was secretary-
general of the MAC and who provided the discussion of the
work of this group. (The head of the group itself may
have been Wu Fa-hsien, particularly if the PLA/CRG was
disbanded at that time.) The literary and art group was
to be supervised primarily by Madame Mao, and the military
press group by Chen Po-ta and Yao Wen-yuan.
Although the new political work group may have been
designed simply to feed information to the PLA/CRG, sub-
sequent developments were to give some support to the con-
jecture that the new group was intended to replace the
PLA/CRG.
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although the evidence is thin, it may be that Madame
Mao's power was diluted by the establishment of this new
group, and it may further be that Yang Cheng-wu was
named the supervisor lof the group (analogous to the
Madame's role as "advisor" to the PLA/CRG) and that the
Madame saw Yang Cheng-wu as a threat to her position as
the principal person..reporting to Mao and Lin Piao on the
political character of their PLA leaders.* (It will be
recalled that Yang had played this role once before--in
autumn 1966--just prior to the time that Madame Mao took
over leadership of the PLA/CRG.) If so, the purge of
Yang Cheng-wu a few weeks later is easier to understand.
*The speeches at this reception in fact show a minor
clash between Yang and the Madame at the time. Yang im-
plied that the political work group was too small for
its many tasks, and the Madame immediately countered
--snidely--that a few men were enough, if their leaders
were good. The Madame may have had an interest in re-
stricting the size (and authority) of the group.
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The Purge of Yang Cheng-wu and Others
By early March there was evidence that the PLA was
acting aggressively in running the "revolutionary commit-
tees" throughout China. While the local PLA leaders re-
mained responsible to the MAC, the CRG and the State Coun-
cil for their actions, military men dominated most of
these committees, and, in the absence of explicit orders
from Peking, could act high-handedly--contrary to Mao's
longstanding proposition that the party must command the
gun, and to his recently-reaffirmed intention to rebuild
the party apparatus and make it his principal instrument
again. Both the PLA press and the party press for some
weeks had been reminding the PLA of its duty to treat
cadres--as well as representatives of the revolutionary
left--"correctly," and had been calling for "emancipating
the great majority" of cadres, encouraging them to "step
forward," "boldly using" them, allowing them to play their
"core and key" role, and so on. (The press had also added
this element to its running attacks on "anarchism" and
"factionalism",on the part of revolutionary mass organiza-
tions.)
On 7 March Mao, Lin, and seven other top leaders
(including Madame Mao) received delegates to various
conferences of activists in the study of Mao's works.
More than 40 second-level leaders concerned with military
affairs appeared on this occasion, and it was to be the
last appearance for some of them, because on that same
night three of the central military leaders were so care-
less or unlucky as to give Madame Mao cause to purge them.
This group was broken at once, and other military leaders
remained out of the news while--presumably--their cases
were being examined.
The first three victims of this latest wave of the
purge were all high-ranking military officers who had risen
in the course of the "revolution" as their predecessors
had been purged or transferred, and who were now to be
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brought down themselves as "rightists."* They were Yang
Cheng-wu, acting chief-of-staff since late 1965 and rank-
ing below only Lin Piao and Hsieh Fu-chih among active
military leaders; Yu Li-chin, first political officer of
the CCAF; and Fu Chung-pi, commander of the Peking Garri-
son. Two of the three, Yang and Yu, had been members
of the PLA/CRG under Madame Mao and Wu Fa-hsien; Yang
may have been named a few weeks earlier to supervise the
political work group, of the MAC which was to supplement
or replace the PLA/CRG and which Wu Fa-hsien may have
*It does not seem very useful to try, as some observ-
ers have tried, to separate the Chinese military leaders
into "radical" and "moderate" figures. Except for Lin
Piao (who seems to have identified completely with Mao
Tse-tung) and a handful of young opportunists, almost all
of the Chinese military leaders should probably be regard-
ed as relative moderates, when compared with the doctrin-
aire militants like the officers of the central CRG.
The nature of their work predisposes them to dislike and
resent disruptive political adventures like the "cultural
revolution," while at the same time predisposing them
to try to carry out orders. The great majority of Chi-
nese military leaders, like the government leaders around
Chou En-lai, are seen as having a common interest in op-
posing the excesses of the "revolution" (and in fact in
every known case in the course of the "revolution" the
purged military officers have been charged primarily with
"rightist" offenses),but as cautious in expressing that
opposition (as witness the fate of those who had been
incautious). A small number of PLA leaders are seen as
psychologically divided--identified with the PLA on one
hand, with long-standing ties to other military leaders,
and thus unsympathetic to "revolution" as conceived by
its most militant leaders, but placed in a very difficult
position by being given posts which have forced them to
conduct the purge of the PLA or to carry out exercises
which harass the PLA and impede its work (those in the
Political Department, the PLA/CRG, the political work
groups, and the 'Support the Left' group).
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headed,and Yu may also have been named to that new group;
Yang had also been closely associated with Hsieh Fu-chic
in the MAC; Yu had of course worked closely with Wu Fa-
hsien in the CCAF and had been a member of Hsieh Fu-chih's
touring group in summer 1967; and Fu had been an officer
of the Peking revolutionary committee which Hsieh headed.
The various accounts of the purge of the three fail,
as is usually the case, to give a satisfactory picture.
All that is-clear about this case is that the three ran,
directly afoul of Madame Mao.
"rebel" newspapers--both centering on a long speech by
Lin Piao at a 25 March meeting--give the impression that
Yang and Yu were purged primarily for having questioned
the judgment of Mao, Lin Piao and Madame Mao and for hav-
ing tried to do something about it, and that Fu was purged
mainly as a catspaw of the other two. The treatment of
the case at the 25 March meeting--by such leaders as Lin
Piao, Chou En-lai, and Kang Sheng, as well as by the
Madame herself--emphasizes the outrage to Madame Mao per-
sonally.
The materials suggest that the relations of Yang
and Yu with the Madame, Hsieh and Wu--especially with the
Madame--had been deteriorating for some time. The two had
not been openly opponents of the three, in the way that
Peng Te-huai had openly opposed Mao; indeed, they were
said to be "double-dealers," who pretended to support the
decisions of the leaders but really did not, and said
disrespectful things and then denied it. Both Yang and
Yu had apparently drawn attention to themselves by advo-
cating, or being taken as advocating, a review of the
cases of some of the party and military leaders purged
earlier. Thus they are charged with having "dared to
witness for the adverse current" which Tan Chen-lin had
allegedly initiated a year earlier--which sought a "re-
versal of verdicts"--and thus with having "slandered"
Mao, Lin, the central CRG, and Madame Mao.
If this is indeed what happened, it could have
come about through the operations of the MAC's new poli-
tical work group--as the new group began to compile
materials to support a judgment as to the political
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reliability of PLA leaders. The judgment might easily
have been reached by intelligent and honest men (and Yu
at least had seemed, to be an unusually intelligent and
able man) that poor; decisions had been made, and this
judgment is clearly attributed to them in the charges.
Moreover, if the same criteria were to be used, then a
number of other military leaders still in favor were
equally qualified to be-,objects of-the purge; and this
judgment is implicitly attributed to them in the addi-
tional charges that 'they "conspired to oppose" Hsieh and
Wu and that they planned to'"overthrow" those two lead-
ers and several regional military commanders. Beyond this,
the very operations of the new group--particularly if it
was designed to replace or had already replaced the PLA/
CRG--could be seen by Madame Mao as a threat to her per-
sonal position, and Yang and Yu are in fact charged with
seeking to build "personal political power." Any group
of leaders attempting to direct any organization would
of course be vulnerable to charges of empire-building,
and most of those purged during the "revolution" have had
this charge included in the list; but the leaders of the
political work group may have been particularly vulner-
able, as Lin Piao and Chou En-lai in their remarks to the
group had warned expressly against repeating this parti-
cular mistake of the General Political Department.*. (There
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*It should be recognized that the evidence is not
strong for the proposition that Yang Cheng-wu was the de
facto supervisor of the political work group. It consists
largely of his role as secretary-general of the MAC and
of his role in the reception for the new groups. I
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are additional charges relating to self-publicity, disputes
in the Peking revolutionary committee, and the handling
of mass organizations.)
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Any expression of the feeling attributed to them
--that some poor or questionable decisions had been made
in the course of the ":,evolution"--could indeed be taken
as reflecting unfavorably on Mao and Lin, and would cer-
tainly be taken by the Madame (who has displayed a vanity
of the same pathological order as Mao's own) as reflect-
ing unfavorably on herself. She would have then both a
means and a motive for "settling accounts," in addition
to the possible motive of wishing to strangle the new poli-
tical work group or to get her own men into the leader-
ship of it. On the night of 7-8 March she got her chance.
the "rebel" press agree
that Yang sent Fu Chung-pi, the garrison commander, to
the premises of the central CRG to "arrest people" there.
These unidentified "people" may have been simply visitors
--perhaps some of the Madame's favorite Red Guard groups--
but Lin's speech suggests that they may have been low-
level staff members who had helped to prepare charges
against persons in favor with Yang and Yu. It is not
clear whether Yang was acting under any kind of order
from above, or in whica of his posts (perhaps as super-
visor of the political work group); nor is it clear
whether he was giving fresh offense to Hsieh (Minister
of Security) by sending the garrison commander. It seems
clear, however, that Yang did not obtain permission in
advance from the leade=s of the central CRG--Chen Po-ta,
the Madame, and Kang Saeng--and Madame Mao is given credit
for personally and "bravely" preventing Fu from making
the arrests.
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The probability is that Yang, Yu, and Fu were all
placed under house arrest at once, although they seem
to have been given an opportunity to defend themselves
before sentence was passed on 22 March. Their case was
publicized to the PLA on 25 March.
A New Offensive Against the "Rightists"
Party leaders--including Madame Mao--began at once
to prepare a new offensive against the "rightists." On
11 March, Madame Mao, Madame Lin, and Chou En-lai, speak-
ing to students and teachers in Peking, denounced the
"adverse current" of early 1967 and warned of the danger
of a new "adverse current." On 15 March, Madame Mao and
some others (again including Chou) met in Peking with a
delegation from Szechuan, and the Madame defined the
"rightist" effort to "reverse verdicts" as the current
"main danger" all over China. On this occasion, the
Madame and others rebuked Chang Kuo-hua and Liang Hsing-
chu--the leaders of the Chengtu MR and of the preparatory
group, who had been installed after a series of military
leaders of that regional headquarters had fallen--for
having failed to give proper support to militant leaders
and militant revolutionary mass organizations there, in-
cluding a deputy political officer of the MR who had a
better understanding of the true leftists.* (The Madame
reportedly told them that, contrary to what they might
believe--what any PLA officer might reasonably believe--
*The Madame showed an interest in the rehabilitation
of a member of the former party apparatus in the South-
west, Li Ta-chang, an old friend, who had gone through
the process of self-criticism and denunciation of his
former associates which entitled one to be considered
repentant and purified--the very process which the Madame
in a November 1966 speech had publicly stated to be neces-
sary. Li duly appeared as an officer of the new revolu-
tionary committee in SXechuan in late May.
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she was not hostile to the PLA; and she also told them
that the PLA should have more "woman generals.")
On the next day (16 March)., Liberation Daily in
Shanghai--long a favorite vehicle of the militant lead-
ers of the "cultural revolution" and controlled directly
by two members of the central CRG--opened the public at-
tack on those who wished to "reverse the verdicts on the
rightists." On 18 March, Madame Mao and Chen Po-ta spoke
of the current danger to a delegation from Chekiang. On
20 March, in Shanghai, the disgraced Chen Pei-hsien was
dragged out again as an example. On 21 March, the Madame,
Chou En-lai and Kang Sheng spoke on the same lines--the
current threat from the right--to a group from Kiangsu.
On this occasion, the Madame followed the practice of
Mao himself by explaining that the "bad elements" of the
central CRG (notably the "ultra-leftists") had been placed
there by Liu Shao-chi and Teng Hsiao-ping. At the same
gathering, Kang Sheng increased the gravity of the charges
against Liu and others by declaring them to be agents
of the Kuomintang (and thus eligible for execution). On
22 March, there was a large-scale demonstration in Peking
against Tan Chen-lin, the alleged central figure of the
first "adverse current." On 24'March, Madame Mao and Kang
Sheng spoke to PLA representatives about the past and
present threat posted by people like Tan Chen-lin. At
about the same time, public denunciation of the three dis-
graced in the 7-8 March incident--Yang, Yu, and Fu--began
with poster attacks on these "big ambitious rightists"
and conspirators.
The Madame, Lin Piao, and Chou En-lai
Lin Piao, in the presence of Mao and Madame Mao
and a few other party and military leaders, informed the
lower levels of the PLA on 25 March of the disposition
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of the cases of Yang, Yu, and Fu.* He also announced
the appointment (by, Mao) of Huang Yung-sheng--then com-
mander of the Canton MR--to replace Yang as chief-of-
staff or acting C/S, and of Wen Yu-cheng, Huang's former
deputy in Canton and more recently a deputy C/S, to re-
place Fu as commander of the Peking Garrison. (The re-
vised team of military leaders--L.n, Hsieh Fu-chih, Huang,
and Wu Fa-hsien, in that order,--appeared publicly the
same evening.** IE:
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**Some observers-i-not most--have treated Huang as a
military leader more "closely aligned" with moderate
forces than was Yang Cheng-wu, and thus as a new C/S
whom the militants in the Chinese leadership were "forc-
ed to accept." But Huang seemed a "moderate," or an
ally of the moderates, in exactly the same sense that
Yang and other military professionals had seemed to be:
one predisposed against a militant and disruptive con-
duct of the "revolution," but cautious about resisting
it. Moreover, Huang, like Yang before him, had served
since the 1930s in Lin Piao's commands, had been praised
by Mao and Lin, and, like Yang, had almost certainly been
chosen for the post not by any group of "moderates" but
by Mao and Lin. This is not to say.that Huang will not
disappoint their expectations, as Yang did; as the "revo-
lution" proceeds, Huang too may find a point at which he
feels he must take certain risks to resist it, if the
PLA is not to be ruined.
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More Defense, More Offense
The recent challenge to Madame Mao (and the cen-
tral CRG as a whole) was again emphasized, and extreme
deference to the Madame was again shown by other leaders,
at a rally on 27 March and a reception on 30 March. As
the principal speaker at the rally of 100,000, Madame
Mao defended the course of the "revolution" and all of
the adverse decisions on individual leaders that had been
made, described the efforts of the recently-purged mili-
tary leaders to discredit the central?CRG, and took note
that some people wanted to "fry me in oil"; her pauses
were filled by "shouts" by Hsieh Fu-chih, Yeh Chun (Madame
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Lin Piao) and Chen Po-ta, endorsing her analysis, praising
her conduct, denouncing her opponents, and calling upon
everyone to "learn" from her, "support" her, carry out
her "directives," and defend her (and the central CRG)
"until death." The same deference to the Madame was
shown in the speeches of other top-level leaders--Kang
Sheng, Chen Po-ta, and Chou En-lai--on this occasion.
Chou's speech in particular was remarkable, as Lin Piao's
25 March speech had been, for a prolonged tribute to
Madame Mao, in which he stated expressly that the principal
party and military leaders who had been purged in the
"revolution" had (among other offenses) persecuted and
opposed the Madame personally, and went on to imply (as
had seemed to be the case) that the Madame had had the
principal role in the central CRG in judging whether in-
dividual leaders met or did not meet Mao's standards (and
thus in marking those to be purged).*
Immediately after the 25 March meeting, the public
campaign against the new rightists--against the "rightist
resurgence" and the efforts to "reverse verdicts"--began
to spread across the nation. The Honan Daily began it
on 26 March with an editorial forthrightly entitled
"Resolutely Repulse the Counter-Revolutionary Black Wind
*In her own interjections, Madame Mao called for the
defense of Mao and Lin, and praised Chou.
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of Reversing Verdicts on the February Adverse Current."
The authoritative Shanghai press soon followed, and in
the next few weeks authoritative newspapers in most of
the provinces and major municipalities were to carry edi-
torials denouncing "right deviation" and "right splittism"
in general and the effort to "reverse the previous cor-
rect decisions" on rightists in particular, and to report
rallies to the same end at which previously-disgraced
officials were again produced.
The press followed the lead of party leaders in
working a defense of Madame Mao into the campaign against
the "rightists." For example, an editorial of 7 April
in Peking Daily--recognized as authoritative and reprinted
--described Lin Piao and the Madame as both being Mao's
"close comrades-in-arms", and went on to praise her for
being "most resolute and courageous" and for having made
"outstanding contributions." The Wen Hui Pao (Shanghai)
reprinted this under.a banner of "pledging our lives" to
defend Mao, Lin, th;e central committee, the central C11G,
and Madame Mao.
"Proletarian Factionalism" and Other Bad Omens
Beginning on 10 April, there was an important
change in the definition of "factionalism." Whereas
"factionalism" for the first three months of 1968 had
meant factionalism--that is, self-seeking and disorderly
behavior by mass organizations which were supposed to
form alliances--and was a bad thing, it now turned out
that there was a good factionalism and a bad factionalism.
Writing jointly on the inauguration of the revolution-
ary committee in Hunan (Mao's place of origin), People's
Daily and Liberation Army Daily reminded the national
audience that the cultural revolution was a class strug-
gle, and went on to argue that bourgeois factionalism
must be opposed. Subsequent editorials were to make the
point explicit that proletarian factionalism was a good
thing and indeed necessary to combat bourgeois faction-
alism.
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On 12 April, the Tsinan Radio, which had been car-
rying on for several days about "counter-revolutionary
double-dealers" (like t=ze Yang Cheng-wu group) in the
Shantung provincial committee, announced the purge of
three members of its standing committee (the second-level
of leadership)--apparently for a mixture of "rightist"
and "ultra-leftist" offenses. It was alleged that in
collusion with "counter-revolutionary double-dealers at
a higher level" (presumably Yang's group), the three had
conspired against the tep leaders of the committee (one
a party figure, one military). The one known military
officer of the three (a deputy C/S of the provincial MD)
was described as having taken the initiative in the con-
spiracy. There was no independent evidence of a special
relationship between Yang Cheng-wu's group and any of .
the three, but the event had unpleasant implications for
other national, regional and provincial military leaders.
Within a few days, there was evidence that mili-
tant "rebel" groups in several areas had been freshly
stimulated by the attacks on "rightist" military leaders
since late March. Posters appearing in Peking and per-
haps elsewhere attacked Chen Hsi-lien, commander of the
Shenyang (Northeast) MR, and Sung Jen-chiung, former
political officer of that MR (and longtime protege of
the disgraced Teng HsiaD-ping), for having ordered or
at least permitted armed attacks (using tanks and machine-
guns) on "rebels" in Shenyang in early April. These lead-
ers had reportedly been given a vote of confidence by
Chou En--lai himself in late March, and both the fresh
activity of the militant "rebels" in early April (appar-
ently provoking military counter-action) and the fresh
poster attacks on the military leaders suggested a
belief--or hope--that the situation had changed. Further,
posters reported large-scale violence in Shansi as a
result of clashes between the civilian head of the revo-
lutionary committee there and the political officer of
the provincial MD. There were concurrent reports of heavy
casualties in renewed fighting in Shensi, Szechuan, Kwangsi,
Kwangtung, and Hunan.
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For the rest of April, the tone and content of both
the central and the provincial press--on the matters of
both the threat from the rightists and the virtue of pro-
letarian factionalism--continued to be harsh and militant.
Some of the commentaries--both central and provincial--
joined the two themes, arguing that the rightists could
be countered by the; good factionalists.
On 20 April, developing the theme they had intro-
duced on 10 April, People's Daily and Liberation Army
Daily wrote jointly'on the "need to apply class analysis
to factionalism." This editorial strongly encouraged the
expression of "proletarian revolutionary factionalism,"
and concluded that one must "never discard a revolution-
ary principle merely for the sake of achieving an outward
appearance of peace and harmony," and that one must
"struggle" for unity and not "compromise" for it--thus
in effect reversing the line taken in February and March.
The Shanghai press followed at once, going so far as to
warn against "forgetting class struggle and occupying
ourselves with inane discussion of a struggle to oppose
factionalism"--a pejorative description of the previous
line. The provincial press soon followed, while continu-
ing its campaign against the rightist threat, and, as
noted above, sometimes related the two themes.
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In commenting on the rightist (or "ultra-leftist"
objectively rightist) threat, in particular the effort
to "reverse correct verdicts" on the rightists, several
of the provincial journals not only denounced previously-
disgraced officials for this and reported the "dragging-
out" of some of them, but stated or implied that this
threat was a current concern to the local authorities.
Further, they implied that some of the local authorities
themselves would be purged; it was said, for example, that
persons still in office were protecting dangerous right-
ists removed from office but still dangerous. And in
commenting on factionalism, several of the provincial
journals indicated not only that the local authorities
would take harsh action against "rebel" groups judged
to be conservative, but that there was fresh fighting
among "rebel" groups and new attacks on the local auth-
orities themselves by "rebel" groups.*
The First Team: Domination by the Militants
On May Day, Mao's, team offered a show of both
aspects of its position--that is, a collage of moderate
and militant features, with the militant in the brighter
colors. The joint editorial of the three principal
journals--People's Daily, Red Flag, and Liberation Army
Daily--on one hand reaffirmed that the team was making
its way between the perils of the right and of the ultra-
left, that it favored alliances, that there were "extremely
few bad elements," and that the PLA had., done a great job
and must be cherished; and on the other hand that the
class struggle was intensifying as the "revolution" pro-
ceeded (a Stalinist line;, that all "hidden renegades"
*In this connection, there was in late April an eye-
witness report of battles (although apparently without.
heavy weapons,. and with little blood spilled), among
"hundreds" of students at Peita (Peking University),
making it virtually certain that there were renewed
outbreaks of violence at many other points.
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must be discovered, that all expressions of rightism (in
particular, the effort to "reverse correct decisions")
must be opposed and smashed, and that proletarian fac-
tionalism was a good thing. In other words, the team
was reaffirming both the relatively moderate policies
in effect from September to late March, and the militant
initiatives taken since late March--both genuine features
of Mao's tangled and contradictory "thought," but with
the militant showing as closer to Mao's heart.
The same impression was given by the display of
leaders on May Day. The team put on display all of the
central leaders not known to be in outright disgrace.
That is, it included a number of party and military lead-
ers known or believed to be in some degree of disfavor,
including some who had been out of the news since early
March, the time of Yang Cheng-wu's collision with the cen-
tral CRG. (Some of these were even on the rostrum with
Mao and Lin.) Thus Peking was indicating that it had not
yet found, or was not yet choosing to point out, any
"black backer" of Yang's group, as all of the leaders
of his level or above were present. But at the same time
the line-up of leaders on the rostrum showed strikingly
the importance of the militants who had risen in and on
the "cultural revolution" and of the special instruments
of the "revolution"!which they dominated.
On the rostrum with Mao, Lin and Chou (and a few
survivors from the old politburo) were the top five of-
ficers of the central CRG (including the Madame, ranked
ninth among all leaders present but seventh among active
leaders) and the five or six principal officers of the
old PLA/CRG (including Yeh Chun, Lin Piao's wife, ranked
twentieth among active leaders and now second among of-
ficers of the PLA/CRG), now possibly reassigned to the
central CRG and the MAC's political work groups. The
military was well represented: most of the active of-
ficers of the MAC were on the rostrum, and all were pre-
sent; almost all of the surviving. leaders of the Ministry
of National Defense and of the central departments and
service headquarters were present; more than half of the
commanders of military regions were present; and there
were many other regional and provincial military leaders.
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(Representation was disproportionately heavy from areas
without revolutionary committees and with an abnormally
high degree of disorder, such as Szechuan, Tibet, Sinkiang
and Fukien, suggesting that these officers were in Peking
in part for consultations on the formation of such com-
mittees and related problems.)
The same balance--that is, imbalance, favoring the
militants--appeared in the poster accounts of the fortunes
of individual leaders wh:ch were observed at that time
or appeared immediately after May Day. On one hand, a
"huge" poster was seen which carried a self-criticism by
Chen Po-ta, head of the central CRG, reportedly emphasiz-
ing his responsibility for favoring Chi Pen-yu before the
latter's fall in February (this was doubly interesting,
because it had apparently been Madame Mao, not Chen, who
was principally responsible for Chi's rise); however,
Chen's self-criticism was in the same self-serving form
as Mao's own "self-criticism" in October 1966 for having
trusted Liu and Teng, it included a claim that he had cor-
rected his errors, and this claim was endorsed in the
poster by Hsieh Fu-chih, who described Chen as one of
Mao's faithful soldiers (also doubly interesting, in that
Chen was thus cleared by someone well below him in the
hierarchy). On the other hand, there were fresh poster
attacks unaccompanied by any defense--on Chen Yi (once
an officer of the MAC) and strong poster attacks--with
a notice of a coming mass meeting--on Nieh Jung-chen
(who has been more important as the coordinator of China's
civilian scientific/technological programs than as an
officer of the MAC). With the late March poster attacks
on Yeh Chien-ying, this brought under attack three of
those four marshals of the MAC as of early 1967 who had
apparently been held responsible for the PLA's unsatis-
factory performance during the "adverse current" (the
rightist resurgence) of early 1967, but who had seemed
to make a partial comeback since that time; presumably
the new wave of concern about a rightist resurgence was
responsible for the fresh attacks. The attacks were also
interesting in bringing to five--those three, plus Li
Fu-chun, and Yu Chiu-Ii--the number of close associates
of Chou En-lai publicly attacked since late March. Chou
was, of course, the principal administrator of the policies
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of the relatively moderate period from September to late
March, and was generally regarded as the leader (in some
sense) of those with a common interest in modifying or
deflecting policies associated with the militants. It
thus continued to appear, in early May, that a further
purge of military leaders and moderate figures lay ahead,
although there wasinot sufficient reason to conclude that
the next wave of the purge would be a large one.
There was an even more striking display of the
militants, and of the degree to which Mao's team had be-
come a family affair, at an 8 May reception for compon-
ents of the revolutionary committees. In the official
account, the officers of the central CRG, the old PLA/CRG
(now perhaps reassigned), and the 'Support the Left'
Group were grouped with Mao and Lin, although most of
them are not politburo members, and most of the polit-
buro members were dropped out of the elite group and
listed separately below. The account seemed clearly to
be making the point that the 14 figures in the Mao-Lin
grouping were to be taken as Mao's first team, his "pro-
letarian headquarters." After Mao, Lin, and Chou En-lai
came Chen Po-ta and Kang Sheng of the central CRG, then
Li Fu-chun* (the same order for the first six as on 1
October), then Madame Mao, Chang Chun-chiao and Yao Wen-
yuan of the central CRG (with the Madame concurrently
on the old PLA/CRG), then Hsieh Fu-chih and Huang Yung-
sheng of the MAC and 'Support the Left' and perhaps the
political work group, then Wu Fa-hsien and Yeh Chun of
the old PLA/CRG (Yeh Chun now officially second) and
perhaps the political work group, and finally Wang Tun,g-
hsing of the central CRG and the security services. In
other words, Mao's first team consisted of himself and
Lin, their wives, the party police chief (Kang), two
military leaders in addition to Lin (Huang and Wu), three
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*Li seemed the only incongruous figure--that is, the
only one believed not to be highly active in promoting
the "revolution" and not regarded by Mao as fully reli-
able.
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propagandists, two government leaders (Chou and Li) and
two more policemen (Hsieh and Wang). There is no way to
make this list come out as predominately moderate.*
The same group (less Chang Chun-chiao, absent in
Shanghai) was again displayed on 20 May as the first team.
Essentially the same group was displayed again in early
June, but this time with the odd man--Li Fu-chun--excluded
and listed below.
The Scale of the Purge
It remains true that the scale of the purges of
the PLA leadership--from the very top level to the level
of provincial commanders--is not generally recognized.
The purge of the PLA has not been on the same scale as
the purge of the party, has normally struck only a few
officers at a time, and has been less publicized, but
cumulatively it has been formidable. A brief review
follows.
As for the principal guiding body, the Military
Affairs Committee (MAC), Chairman Mao and de facto Chair-
man Lin Piao have remained in place, but, of the other
seven known officers when the "revolution" began, one
was purged at once (Lo Jui-ching), another by the end of
*Shortly thereafter, on 16 May, the three central
journals--People's Daily, Red Flag, and Liberation Army
Daily--published a joint editorial on the second anniver-
sary of the central committee circular which "formally"
.launched the cultural revolution. It was appropriately
militant, denouncing several discredited party leaders
by name as "renegades" and enemy agents, reaffirming Mao's
policy of "putting destruction first," pointing again to
the dangers of the "right-deviationist trend of trying
to reverse correct decisions," and calling for a continua-
tion of "attacks on the class enemy."
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1966 (Ho Lung), another was soon dropped (Chen Yi), and
the remaining four (Nieh Jung-chen, Liu Po-cheng, Hsu
Hsiang-chien, and Yeh Chien-ying) were displaced as active
leaders by the four rising figures added in early 1967,
although so far as is known the four marshals are still
members of the MAC standing committee. Moreover, two
of the four added in 1967 (Hsiao Hua and Yang Cheng-wu)
have since been purged. The effective leadership seems
to amount to Lin Piao, Hsieh Fu-chih, Su Yu, and the
recently-added Huang Yung-sheng; Wu Fa-hsien is an un-
reported but possible fifth.
The PLA's Cultural Revolution Group, the special
organ formed to conduct the purge, has suffered the normal
fate of purging instruments--to be purged itself with
every shift in the line. Of its four chairmen in its
short life, in 1967'two were purged (Liu Chih-chien and
Hsiao Hua) and a third (Hsu Hsiang-chien) was removed
and demoted, and of, its other eight known officers five
have been purged (Yang Cheng-wu, Hsu Li-ching, Kuan Feng,
Hsieh Tang-chung, Li Man-tsun). The only surviving of-
ficers--if the group itself has survived--have been-Madame
Mao, "advisor" and de facto chief, Wu Fa-hsien (chairman
since August 1967), Wang Hsin-ting and Chiu Hui-tso; Yeh
Chun (Madame Lin Piao) has obviously moved from lowly
member to rank behind Wu Fa-hsien in this group or its
successor, and others (e.g., Li Tso-peng, Chang Hsiu-
chuan, Liu Hsien-chuan) may'have been added to the of-
ficers. However, as noted, the PLA/CRG may have been
disbanded in February and its officers reassigned to the
central CRG and the MAC's political work groups.
As for the foremost conventional military organ,
the Ministry of National Defense, Minister Lin Piao has
prospered, but, of the other eight ranking officers when
the "revolution" began, three deputy ministers and the
head of the general office were purged by early 1967 (Lo
Jui-ching, Hsu Kuang-ta, Liao Han-sheng, and Hsiao Hsiang-
jung). Since that time, the Ministry's leadership has
apparently been stable--Lin, Hsiao Ching-kuang, Su Yu,
Wang Shu-sheng, and Hsu Shih-yu; but others may have been
added.
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The General Staff (which coordinates combat opera-
tions) lost two chiefs-of-staff to the purge (first Lo
Jui-ching, then Yang Cheng-wu), and of the other ten prin-
cipal officers when the "revolution" began at least five
have been purged (deputies Chang Ai-ping, Peng Shao-hui,
and Yang Yung, and operational directors Wang Shang-jung
and Lei Ying-fu) and another deputy has long been missing
(Chang Tsung-hsun). The effective officers are the new
chief-of-staff, Huang Yung-sheng; the new deputies Wu
Fa-hsien and Wen Yu-cheng, and (apparently) the old
deputies Li Tien-yu, Wang Shu-sheng, Wang Hsin-ting, and
Han Hsien-chu.
The General Political Department, as an organ
responsible for political control and surveillance, has
been wiped out, although the department nominally exists.
Its director (Hsiao Hua) and at least two of its deputy
directors (Liang Pi-yeh and Liu Chih-chien) are known
to have been purged, two others (Fu Chung and Hsu Li-
ching) have apparently been purged, another (Yuan Tzu-
chin) has long been missing, and only one.(Li Tien-yu)
has appeared in favor (and not in this post).
Of the 13 principal figures of the seven principal
service headquarters* as of late 1965--the commanders and
political officers, with one dual--six are known or be-
lieved to have been purged. Of the Air Force, commander
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In sum, of the 65 top positions in the central
military leadership, the occupants of at least 35 of these
positions--at least 28 individuals--are known or believed
to have been purged, and several others have been dis-
placed as active leaders. Half of the 28 purged officers
of the central leadership were military professionals, and
half were political specialists.
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ers who have survived were exposed to the kind of "rebel"
attacks which had preceded the downfall of political
figures. It is not known whether these attacks reflect
an intention on the part of the militant leaders in Pek-
ing to bring down these regional and provincial figures
at a later date. Some observers believe that Mao's team
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military leaders outside Peking,
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The first and fundamental conclusion is that Mao
Tse-?tung has been the central figure in, and the source
of basic policies for, the "cultural revolution"--the
man in charge, if not always in control of events. At
the heart of the revolution is Mao's conviction of the
absolute correctness of his "thought," central to which
is his belief in the power of the fanatical revolution-
ary will, and Mao's, obsessive concern with developing
"revolutionary successors" who will be vehicles of that
will and faithful to that "thought." The "revolution"
has exhibited throughout such features of Mao's char-
acter as his boundless vanity, his increasingly paranoid
suspicion, and his ;vindictiveness.
In conducting the "revolution" Mao has exhibited
certain unstable and irrational practices which, parti-
cularly since 1957, have come to pervade his style of
leadership. He constructs fantasies and insists that
others act as if these were the real world. He establishes
as policy contradictory aspects of his "thought" without
explaining how the contradictions are to be reconciled,
and he issues equivocal directives which permit him to
shift at will without admitting a reversal of course.
He defines his own position (when decisions must be made)
automatically as the true center between the errors of
the "right" and the "extreme 'left, " and, when these
practices acid policies lead to disaster, insists that his
great losses have really been gains. The purge through-
out has also exhibited, on a grand scale, such features
of Mao's past campaigns as setting traps for leaders he
has already decided, to purge (i,e., giving them jobs which
cannot possibly be done right), and setting "tests" for
those he is undecided about while providing no clear
criteria for passing those tests. He finds scapegoats
for his own errors, and creates new opponents by his
arbitrary behavior and decisions. He relies primarily
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on ignorant fanatics to carry out his program, thereby
affording opportunities to ambitious underlings to ad-
vance themselves and destroy their enemies under the pre-
text of being faithful to Mao and to his "thought." And
he punishes cruelly those he feels have "failed" him.
The role that Madame Mao has come to play in it-
self.argues strongly that Mao has dominated and continues
to dominate the leadership.- It is most unlikely that any
other leader would have given the Madame such position
and authority. The role of the Madame in the "revolution"
has illustrated both Mao's increasing isolation and his
"revolutionary" contempt for such isolation, which is
really a contempt for other leaders. He appears supremely
confident that no matter how much the others are alienated,
they will not or cannot effectively combine against him
and prevail. The most interesting question of the "revo-
lution" is whether he is right abort that.
Inherent Instability
The fact that it is the regime in power that is
conducting the "revolution" in China does not necessarily
give'the situation an inherent instability. Theoretically
the leaders could manage the affair. As Mao says, there
is no necessary conflict between the desire to purge and
the desire to build. Bad institutions and bad men can
be brought down, and good institutions and good men can
be found or developed to replace them. But in the present
case of China's "cultural revolution," the defects in the
character of the principal figure, and the irrationality
of his thought and practice, make it impossible for the
"revolution" to follow an orderly course or to arrive at
a stable end. Mao can accept periods of relative modera-
tion and quiescence (all of his campaigns allow for these),
and he can engage in some construction. concurrently with
destruction (as he in fact has done, since early 1967),
but he is heavily committed to carrying the revolution
through "to the end"'--which seems to mean, in practice
the continuing purge and weakening of the very structures
he is seeking to build. This has already happened to the
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central CRG and the PLA/CRG, special organizations formed
by and for the "revolution." It is beginning to happen
to the new revolutionary committees, and will probably
happen to any new party apparatus formalized at the Ninth
Congress. The destructive process may not occur on the
scale of 1966-67 (which was a time of outright anarchy,
rather than instability), and, in fact, each convulsion
might be weaker and might claim fewer victims. But Mao
apparently wants the process to continue on~a scale suf-
ficient to keep China in a state of turmoil. And as he
further disrupts his already severely disordered. society,
he further cuts away his already narrow base of support
among those capable of contributing substantially to the
constructive features of his program (i.e., people like
Chou En-lai, Li Fu-chun, Nieh Jung-chen, and Chen Yi,
as distinct from the theorists and fanatics like Chen
Po-ta, Kang Sheng, Madame Mao, and most other officers
of the special groups set up to conduct the purge). A
high degree of instability is evident in the tension
among individual leaders and in the pronouncements of
the party press. Instability is apparent in the leader-
ship's current line that it must chart a precarious pas-
sage between the right and the "ultra left," constantly
in danger of attack from either extreme, and constantly
threatened by those who pretend to be supporting Mao but
are really "double-dealers." In such turbulent seas, so
the line goes, only the "great lelmsmari' can be sure where
the boat is and where it is supposed to be going.
Divisions in the Leadership
No large group of party and military leaders could
be expected to be united on an undertaking as extreme as
the "cultural revolution." Moreover, the revolution was
conceived to wipe out resistance--whether conscious or
unconscious--to Mao's will; thus additional resistance
and disunity was inevitable.
The picture that emerges, however, is not that of
a top leadership composed of a clearly definable "radical"
faction and a clearly definable "conservative" faction
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locked in a struggle for power or influence in which
changes in policy can be attributed to the."victory".of
one faction over the other. For one thing, all of the
principal leaders have been concerned with both the
destructive and the constructive elements of Mao's ven-
ture. For another, the groups described with these
terms have not been stable. ;Both loosely=defined groups
have been heavily purged, and the leaders of each have
sometimes taken the initiative to rehabilitate or to purge
or criticize lesser figures of the group (e.g. the Madame
purging the "ultraleftists" of the central CRG, Chou En-
lai.criticizing Chen Yi). But of greatest importance,
Mao has remained above both groups, has assigned their
roles to both groups and to their leaders, and has been
the ultimate arbiter as to which persons are to prosper
and which are to fall. In other words, the vacillation
in Peking's policies has reflected primarily Mao's own
unsteadiness and caprice as the "helmsman."
Nevertheless, with these caveats in mind, there
.have been important differences of disposition and incli-
nation among Mao's lieutenants--differences which support
the concept of "groups" and which have seemed to be sharp-
ening, In the course of the "revolution," those around
Mao have seemed to sort themselves out into (a) the true
Maoists, those who are temperamentally inclined to a
militant (even fanatical) course and have happily played
the leading roles in the purges, and (b) those who are
inclined toward order and stability and have appeared to
exercise a moderating influence when this has been pos-
sible. The first group includes Lin Piao,who is some-
times, like Mao, above the battle, and at other times
fully engaged in it. Included also are the five prin-
cipals of the central CRG (Chen Po-ta, Madame Mao, Kang
Sheng, Chang Chun-chiao and Yao Wen-yuan), Madame Lin
Piao (who has been with Madame Mao on the PLA/CRG), and
their followers at all levels, including the leaders of
some of the most militant Red Guard and "revolutionary
rebel" organizations. The second group is composed of
government leaders such as Chou En-lai, Li Fu-chun, Nieh
Jung-chen, and Chen Yi, men responsible for the practical
aspects of operating the government, and most of the.
military leaders below Lin Piao's level. This second group
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probably includesleven those military leaders who have
profited from the revolution like C/S Huang Yung-sheng,
and those forced into key positions in conducting the
purge of the PLA, such as Hsieh Fu-chih and Wu Fa-hsien.
The tension and conflict between these groups have been
increasingly evident, and there have probably been con-
scious efforts by members of each to limit the influence
of the other and to discredit some of its members.
The destructive component of the "revolution" has
thus far been dominant. This has given the militants the
opportunity to encourage Mao to continue along lines on
which he wanted from the start to go, and this closer
association with Mao has meant that the militants have
been in a stronger position than the relative moderates,
even in periods of relative moderation. While the mili-
tants have found it expedient to sacrifice some second-
level figures when their zeal has'been judged excessive,
the positions of the leaders has'seemed comparatively
secure; the relatively moderate leaders have been more
heavily attacked and have lost more supporters, and
only one of them--Chou En-lai, an apparently indispensable
man--has seemed comparatively secure. Beyond this, the
leaders of the militants have given an impression of
greater cohesion,jof working closely together toward agreed
objectives. The relative moderates have not seemed to
be a disciplined group with a "spokesman" (as Chou En-
lai is frequently described); They have seemed to be
organized only in the sense of recognizing a community
of interest... They have tried to reduce the damage in
periods of militant advance, have sometimes been able
as individuals to influence Mao in those periods in which
rapidly increasing disorder and the prospect of chaos have
made him amenable to influence (e.g., by Chou En-lai and
some military leaders in August 1967), and they have play-
ed leading roles in the administration of his policies
in relatively moderate periods.
Developments in the period from September 1967 to
the present (late'May) illustrate pretty well the rela-
tionship between the militants and the relative moderates.
In early September, in the face of greatly increased dis-
order, the principal figures of Mao's team (including the
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Madame) acted together to call off attacks on the PLA.
They authorized the PLA to use force to prevent seizures
of weapons, and they purged some of those who had most
aggressively harassed the PLA. For months thereafter,,
although there were militant initiatives and features,
the emphasis was on stabilization, the formation of a1-
liances, the ending of factional activity, and the build-
ing'of a new administrative apparatus. The mi.litants
seemed to be on the defensive, and there was speculation
that these changes might have been imposed on Mao by a
coalition of government and military leaders. By March
there was speculation that the position of the militants
had deteriorated so far that little remained of the "cul-
tural revolution" but the name. However, the central role
of Mao in calling for a "constructive" phase in September,
and his continued central role since that time was con-
firmed in early March, at which time a group of military
leaders directly challenged the militants of the central
CRG around Madame Mao. Mao immediately backed the mili-
tants, purged the military leaders, launched a nationwide
campaign against the "rightists," and stimulated militant
factionalism among mass organizations and even in revolu-
tionary committees. Since that time, Mao has repeatedly
displayed the militants as the dominant figures of the
team.
The PLA as an Instrument
The PLA as an instrument of the "cultural revolu-
tion" has suffered from Mao's style of work. It was or-
dered into action in January 1967 to 'support the Left'
without being told how to separate the 'left' from the
'right,' it was thereafter sharply restricted and rebuked
for taking its directive as a mandate to restore order,
and several of its top-level officers (of the MAC) were
set aside. It was then subjected to increasing attacks
by the "rebels," and, when told to restore order again,
it was not given the necessary authority. Many of its
judgments as to the support of the 'left' were again over-
turned in the summer of 1967, and it was threatened with
a large-scale purge. When this harshness toward the PLA
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led. again to increased disorder and disruption by mass
organizations, the-PLA was told again in September to
take action, but it was given very limited authority to
use force; and, twice burned, it held to a narrow, "self-
protective interpretation of its orders. After it had
achieved some success in restoring order during the
autumn of 1967, Madame Mao again (perhaps involuntarily)
stirred up the "rebels" against it. When disorder again
increased, Mao's team in Peking failed to back local PLA
commanders in using even the amount of force authorized
in September. Finally, while Mao's team in Peking helped
to reduce disorder, during the winter of 1967-68 by cam-
paigning against factionalism and showing signs of favor
for some of the regional and provincial military leaders
attacked by the "rebels;" the collision of three PLA
leaders in March 1968 with Madame Mao and the central CRG
was followed by fresh criticism of the PLA and fresh in-
citement of the "rebels."
In the course of these events, the PLA has lost
some degree of the control it had over its own affairs.
Loosely responsive,in the past to party organs like the
Secretariat and the General Political Department, it must
now respond to several special organs in addition to the
MAC--the central CRG, the PLA/CRG and/or the three poli-
tical work groups, and the 'Support the Left' Group. This
has also made for confusion.
The PLA has been periodically held up as a model
and praised by Mao, and others (including the Madame), and
it has gained in power, having been in military occupa-
tion of the main centers in China since early 1967 and
having dominated the revolutionary committees (local ad-
ministrations) formed since that time. However, it has
never seemed to have the power--either at the center or
in the regions and provinces--to successfully defy the
central party leadership dominated by the militants; the
leaders in Peking have seemed able to reorganize and purge
the military commands at will.
Moreover, its increased political power has been
gained at the expense of its military capabilities. It
was much too small (2.5 million) to replace the party
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(20 million), it has been spread thin, its military train-
ing and weapons program have been disrupted, its combat-
readiness has declined, and its morale has probably suf-
fered.
On balance, the PLA leadership has probably been
left with a greater sense of resentment than of pride.
This situation contains elements of serious danger to Mao.
The PLA as an Object
In the first stage of the purge--to August 1966--
the victims in the PLA, like the victims in the party,
were primarily the pre-targeted, such as Lo Jui-ching,
who could not have done anything to save themselves short
of staging a successful coup. In the second stage--of
"bombardment" by the Red Guards, to January 1967--the
victims in the PLA, again like the victims in the party,
were primarily those regarded as having failed the "test"
(although some were really pre-targeted); that is, they,
handled the Red Guards poorly, or they resisted the dis-
ruptive impact of the "revolution" in their areas of con-
cern, or they were insufficiently militant as instruments
of the purge, or they had overly-close associations with
purged leaders. In the next stage--the early months of
1967, during which discredited party leaders outside Pek-
ing were removed from their posts in "seizures of power"--
the military victims were comparatively few, as Mao needed
the PLA's good will for the restoration and maintenance
of order; in this stage, however, a number of PLA leaders
made themselves eligible for later purging by being too
hard on the "rebels." The PLA victims in the next stage
--summer 1967--were some of those aggressive local mili-
tary leaders, plus the insubordinate Wuhan commanders,
plus those held responsible for the poor indoctrination
that led to this (all of the remaining officers of the
General Political Department). In the next stage--through
February 1968, in which the leaders in Peking were re-
penting their over-reaction to the Wuhan Incident and
attempting to soothe the PLA--the PLA was again given a
respite from the purge, while scapegoats were found among
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second-level civilian "militants" for the policies which
had offended the PLA as a.whole during the summer. In
the most recent stage, the high-level victims were those
PLA leaders who came into conflict with the central CRG
and with Madame Mao in particular. In all stages, some
PLA leaders, like some party leaders, fell as a result
(or partly as a result) of speculative ventures that
failed--that is, attempts to dislodge or discredit other
leaders who turned out to be more powerful.
Despite the 'inability of any individual to defend
himself successfully, there has apparently not been, in
any stage of the purge, any broad or coordinated effort
by any group of military leaders to resist the purge.
There has been maneuvering for survival--trying to de-
flect attacks, trying to evade or blunt directives, play-
ing for time, and so on--but, so far as is known, there
has been no attempt to coordinate resistance outside
Peking or to stage'a coup in order to depose Mao and get
rid of Lin Piao and the other militants of the central
CRG. The reason may be that Mao has never taken on a
large enough group of PLA figures at, one time--that is,
he has brought them down in small groups, months apart,
and has periodically reassured the PLA that he did not
intend to carry out a large-scale purge; the one threat
of such a purge, in late July 1967 (part of the over-
reaction to the Wuhan Incident), was soon withdrawn.
Nevertheless, the various small, separated purges
of the PLA have added up to a large-scale purge--more
than half of the central military leaders (half of whom
were military commanders), and about half of the regional
and provincial military leaders (but mostly politicals),
or, overall (including armies), an estimated one in four
of the PLA'.s military commanders and half of its political
officers. It seems certain that many or most of the re-
maining PLA leaders do. not regard those who have fallen
as guilty as charged, and that there is much resentment,
as well as fear that such arbitrary criteria will be ap-
plied to themselves. Some of this feeling is doubtless
focussed on Madame Mao, as she has had the starring role
in carrying out the purge of the PLA, has led the attack
on the leaders of almost every group purged, and has
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accused them of offenses against herself personally; but
most PLA leaders surely recognize that she has been act-
ing as Mao's instrument, and some may surmise that Mao
has been using her to deflect resentment from himself.
Thus, while Mao has succeeded in purging a large
number of his real and fancied opponents in the PLA as
in the party, in so doing he has almost certainly in-
creased the ranks of the alienated. This accumulated
resentment of the -treatment of the PLA both as instru-
ment and as object, when combined with the well-founded
fear of purges still to come, makes the PLA (the party's
"gun") an explosive weapon. To topple Mao himself would
probably require his assassination or a'military coup,
rather than some form of defiance from commanders outside
Peking.
Mao's Narrowing Base
Thus far, Mao seems to view the results of the
"cultural revolution" as worth their staggering cost in
terms of social disorder. economic dislocation, popular,
demoralization, and disruption of the military establish-
ment. As he seems to view the situation, he has success-
fully purged those whom he wanted to purge, even though
the numbers.go far beyond his earlier calculations. As
he sees it, he is separating the true believers from the
revisionists, and creating "revolutionary successors" from
the young. He also seems to believe that he is building
a new and better governing apparatus, and that in so doing
he is making additional contributions to Communist doctrine
and practice.
To an outside observer, however, the dominant im-
pression of the past two years is how narrow Mao's base
of support has become--much smaller, one would think, than
even Mao believes it to be. This consequence of the
"revolution" is clearly illustrated by the composition
of the small group which Mao and Lin began in May to pre-
sent as their first team. The team consists mainly of
Mao and Lin and eight others who have risen in and on the
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"cultural revolution" and have been in charge of the
special instruments of the "revolution"--the two wives
(both former actresses), three propagandists, and three
policemen. It includes only two military leaders in
addition to Lin (Huang Yung-sheng and Wu Fa-hsien) and
only one or two government leaders (Chou En-lai, and Li
Fu-chun sometimes): Of the 13 or 14, only four or five
(Mao, Lin, Chou, Kang Sheng, and Li if included) were
on the first team when the "revolution" began.
The status Qf Madame Mao both illustrates and con-
tributes to the narrowing of Mao's base in the central
leadership. Part bf the problem is the deterioration of
Mao's judgment. Ten years or even five years ago he would
not have imposed his wife on other leaders; he would have
found someone else to do the job. The same point can be
made for Mao and Lin as a partnership, by pointing to the
role of Madame Lin,as well; Lin's wife may soon have, if
she does not already have, a role second only to Mao's
wife in conducting the ongoing purge of the PLA.
There seems no doubt that other party and military
leaders--including some on the first team--resent the
status of Madame Mao (and the emerging status of Madame
Lin, although she is not yet on the same level and is
not yet accorded the same veneration). It was bad enough
when Mao alone had,to be treated as infallible and sacro-
sanct: now there are two of them, and the second is, if
anything, more irrational, suspicious, vain, and vindictive
than the first.
Although Madame Mao and other members of the first
team have defended and praised one another, there is
evidence of disagreement between the Madame and some of
them on the conduct of the "revolution." The military
leaders on whom Mao's position--the position of the entire
first team--directly depends are probably those who most
resent Madame Mao, and Madame Lin as well. The "revolu-
tion" in itself has given the military leaders much addi-
tional reason to dislike and distrust both Mao and Lin.
And nothing could be better calculated than the roles
of the two women in purging the PLA to provoke additional
resentment--to the point of alienation--on the part of
Chinese military men: as Chinese, as military, arid as
men.
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In addition to the narrowness of Mao's base among
central leaders, it is hard to believe that the military
figures who dominate most of the revolutionary committees
throughout China are truly reliable "revolutionary succes-
sors," or that the rehabilitated party figures are. It
is not credible that military and party leaders who have
been put through what these men have in the past three
years would come out of it as dedicated servants of the
man who put them through it. While they may be so awed
by or frightened of Mao that they will try to do what he
says (when they understand what it is), they would seem
to be poor material for "revolutionary" programs. Mao
himself may see them this way, and may plan to replace
them when he has developed more promising leaders among
the young.
Mao has made some stupendous mistakes in recent
years. The "hundred flowers" campaign ended by alienat-
ing the intellectuals whom it was originally designed to
enlist, and led to the systematic attacks on Mao and his
policies which persuaded him that another "revolution"
was necessary. The "great leap forward" was another and
worse disaster, setting the Chinese economy back by some
years. The dispute with the Soviet party and thereafter
with other parties further damaged the economy, left China
without an important military ally, and left the Chinese
party with the Albanian and New Zealand parties and a
number of quarreling splinter groups as political allies.
In the present case, the "cultural revolution" too has
been a disaster for China on at least that scale. It is
not clear whether it is to be a disaster for Mao person-
ally--that is, will lead to his overthrow by others led
by the military--but his position seems to be in greater
danger than it has ever been.
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China's political situation will remain unstable.
So long as Mao dominates the leadership, his personal
instability will be the central reason for this; he will
work toward fantastic ends through irrational and often
conflicting policies, will periodically redefine the
"correct" position in terms to protect himself, and will
purge those who have failed him. Moreover, his team is
mismatched, and there will continue to be tension and con-
flict among its elements. If Mao dies or is set aside,
a period of even greater instability is likely.
The revolutionary committees are also inherently
unstable, and there will continue to be conflict among
their three elements, each contending with the other two.
This will lead to periodic purges', and may become serious
enough to force Mao to prolong or return to a de facto
military occupation of much of China.
A Ninth Party Congress may yet be held in 1968,
although Mao's spokesmen have seemed to be retreating
from this. In any case, the militants are likely to be
predominant in the new politburo and secretariat. While
these militants are likely to dominate the process of
constructing the new party apparatus throughout China,
a conflict may be building in the camp of the militants
.--between the central CRG on one hand and Lin Piao on the
other. That is, if Kang Sheng and Madame Mao are to run
the new secretariat (taking over from the central CRG),
they presumably have an interest in keeping military
leaders--who now dominate the revolutionary committees--
out of key party posts throughout. China, and getting
their own followers in; but Lin Piao, looking ahead to
the succession, may want military leaders to occupy key
party posts concurrently.
Mao's team seems likely (as it has been implying
in recent weeks) to carry the purges further. This would
mean'to take harsher action against the former leaders
already disgraced (Liu Shao-chi et.al.), to bring down
some of those "rehabilitated" in the course of the revolu-
tion, and to discover "hidden" counter-revolutionaries
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among party and military leaders not yet touched. (If
not, it will probably mean that Mao is being blocked.)
In any case, so long as Mao continues to dominate the
leadership, there will be periodic purges; his style. of
work requires that, with every upsurge of the "revolu-
tion," some of those who opposed it must fall, and, with
every retreat, some scapegoats must be found for "excesses."
It is idle to prophesy which individuals will fall; ex-
cept for Lin Piao and Madame Mao (the fall of either of
whom would probably mean that Mao himself was on the way
out), no one seems entirely secure, not even the other
leaders of the central CRG or Chou En-lai. Several of
the central and regional military leaders seem particu-
larly insecure, in the wake of the Yang Cheng-wu case.
The greatest danger to Mao's own position will
continue to lie in the threat he poses to others, in
particular his further purges of the PLA. The worst
of all mistakes would seem to be to give Madame Mao a
really free hand. Apart from the possibility of assas-
sination by an isolated individual with a grievance,.Mao
might,provoke PLA leaders (other than Lin) to combine
against him--in the form of a coup, planned in Peking
and carried out either there or on one of Mao's tours.
He might provoke this by taking action which would be
seen as presaging the general decline of the military,
or by again threatening the PLA (as in July 1967) with
a large-scale further purge of central and regional lead-
ers, or, conceivably, by threatening Chou En-lai, who is
probably regarded by PLA leaders as being at least as much
their champion as Lin Piao is. (A coup against Mao would
probably be also a coup against Lin Piao as the foremost
Maoist.) Mao's base of support seems already so narrow
that he might be unable to protect himself if other key
figures--who seem at best to be qualified supporters of
the old man--come to believe that their survival is at
stake. To spell it out: he might have so few support-
ers left among the military that none of those who were
approached to join a coup, or who learned of it through
other.means, would tip him off. (This is essentially
what happened to Khrushchev.)
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Mao may die or become disabled at any time. In
this event, instability would be expected to increase
in the short term ?as it always does in a Communist suc-
cession. And it might increase greatly, if the succes-
sor tries to carryout the revolution along Mao's lines
"to the end." That is, the designated successor (Lin
Piao) will probably in fact succeed to the post, he may
really be as dediclted as he seems, and he may surround
himself with otherlmilitants, but there is probably only
a handful of Chinese leaders who genuinely share Mao's
vision--which is essentially that of unending "struggle,"
with brief periodslof remission--and who would cooperate
to that end. (In other words, Mao has failed to produce
any significant number of reliable "revolutionary" suc-
cessors"; Maoism without Mao is not viable.) On this
reading, Lin either would change or would lose control
of the forces around Chou En-lai and of a large part of
the military, and there would then be a serious "strug-
gle for power" (thus far, under Mao's domination, a
secondary feature of the "revolution"). Lin's assets
among other leaders, in a struggle along these lines,
would not be overwhelming; even if Lin has the coopera-
tion of the other militants (of the central CRG), these
are almost certainly not held in high esteem by other
leaders (Madame Mao herself would not be an important
factor; she might not even survive Mao), and, moreover,
they have probablylnot yet developed a strong base of
supporters. Thus tin's effective support would have to
come from elements of the PLA and of the police (control
of which is now divided between the central CR'G and the
MAC), supported by,armed Red Guard and "revolutionary
rebel" organizations. Ranged in opposition would be
other elements of the PLA and of the police, supported
by other mass organizations. A struggle could conceivably
continue for years. But it seems more likely that Lin
Piao would modify the "revolution" (in the course of which
he might have to dispose of some of the other present mili-
tants in order to preserve his own position), and that
he in turn would be succeeded by a group of leaders who
would modify it further. Thus Mao's virulent doctrines
would become attentuated and die out--until such time,
perhaps, as another group'of leaders were to despair of
solving China's problems by conventional means and were
to turn back to the fanatical old visionary.
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