ANNEX: MAO'S CHINA, 1962-71

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• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
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ANNEX: 'LAO'S CHINA, 1962-71
"11"trliWNDWIl TO R1iC I P i IiNT5
This paper -- des i pncd to be an Anne;; to an on-
Roinp ,;tttdv of recent developments, in China, "ino's
Chin;1, 1971-72 -- was originally completed in *.11'611, 1971.
1~iii lc it w:s in the cootdi.nation process, it overtaken
by the spectacular events of September and 0:: t;-',c?r 1 rll.
The study has profited from the views of Chin;, spe..i~:'sts
in a number of ('IA offices, but it remains an ui'conrdin;Ited
paper, offered only as a survey of the hack!round c'f those
t i 1 h;.zv events :? - an that. backnrou;td apn('arcd to one
i ;I~?:?t in mid-';Immt'I? 1971. It is beist' di.:?~ctair;;,tcci
11 I({ -11,-c of the naper I'() 0i i ( h i t 1s t(7 be ;I I) r,:?.c'z ,
iu .1 i'r?+y colll';s;,Ut: ili tht it;I. it' ho 11:Iasi:t'tl f(r
C?'.' i i PU)W r.tthc i tfill :; Ir-
e : ( ' 1 1 10 ft ( , ! : . . 4 c ? 1 1 t ial iv ;t:: drn c(1
T) it i ruin r.h;;r,c+e lit the tense', of the 1'crh: ;i
It;at?c Iiec. r ad(lt?d tc- t C I ?t : ~ ~'.(
tI ;'( 1!~'}IdL'ril!< llli~.(u''.c'l1 to later' de'vc-loprIttti'1 1)11
1. it. (II--nc?nt Is; inadc? with honefit of hired:..;;h, ? it
Y. .o ii1d.c;:t(:d:
Althou'Ot the p.iver doe:: not add tip tttc fr,,.tors
it cowl. idcr:, into ;1 vrotIh(?',v of what as s11;!'.i '.:? (:( 11)
-- thy dc.'.,1litrit.iorr of ilic PLA ??- it is bel i . t'. I th.::
the };;rpLr is of sorit: value in its prc:?,ent;stiori or . :?.,(
of tli:u' f'r.tIc,r:'.: the ,outint:cd d0'1in.11,CL of "~,:c? "i
tt.ril i'rl the cent r?;11 I (it, rshi.n ( so t hat (~t?('It t fi, 1,Ul.t r
fur 1c';,tlt: rs of the Pi .1 c:oul(1 he pur~;eci), the ;i; rc it r1 1.1
to Lin Pi;st! i:1 the I,roccss of Paity-16wi 1Jin . tht
t'nhn:t:(cl roIe of i'itno f'sic??1ai. as a credihIt' ait(rtia? isr
err, titt.? :L:r i,7cr Ili Ix tiitc of' pu1 is it'... pur:'.e(i !I-
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those three top leaders and the curious mixture of
leaders below their level, and the unprecedented degree
of domination of the governing apparatus (below the
topmost level) by career military men. It now (in
December 1971) appears that the very features of the
Chinese scene which seemed in summer 1971 to testify
to Lin Piao's increasing strength -- his domination of
the central and regional military leadership through his
proteges, the domination of the re-emerging Party
apparatus by these and other PLA leaders, and the
apparent absence of effective civilian control of this
military-political leadership -- were taking shape in
Mao's mind as evidence that yet another designated
successor had over-reached himself and "failed the test."
DD/I Special Research Staff
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? ANNEX: MAO'S CHINA, 1962-1971
Contents
Summary and Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i.
Preparations for the Cultural Revolution, 1962-65 . A-1
The First Steps
The Promise of a Purge
The Beginning of the Purge
The First Stage of the Cultural Revolution, 1966. . .A-7
The Entrapment of Party Leaders
The Formation of the Cultural Revolution Group
The Rise of Lin Piao
The Red Guards
"Revoltit i.onization" in Foreign Affairs
The Widening Purge of the PLA
The Zip;:. and Zags of 1967 . . . . . . . . . . . . . .A-15
The "Revolutionary Committees"
Restrictions an the PLA
Troubles with Mass Organizations
The CRC's New Initiative Against the PLA
The Repulsion of the CRC's Initiative
The Apogee and Plummet of the 'Ultralef.t' 5/16 Group
The "Constructive" Stage and the Soviet Threat,1968 .A-2S
Mao's 'Great Strategic Plan' and the CRC
Another Rejection of a Larger Purge
More Violence, and Mao's Crackdown
Military Domination of the Revolutionary Committees
Some Radical Policies As Well
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.7rll.AKL' 1
The Ninth Party Congress and the
Rise of Chou Ln-lai, 1969 . . . . . . . . . . . . A-35
Moderation of Some Radical Policies
The Sino-Soviet Military Clashes
The Ninth Party Congress
The Soviet Threat and Domestic "Anarchy"
A Larger Role for Chou 13n-lai
Party-Rebuilding and the Demise of the CRG,1970. . .A-4S
The Pursuit of the 5/16 Group
The Disappearance of the Cultural
Revolution Group
Mao's Call For an Anti-US United Front
Other Interesting Developments
The Lin-Chou Takeover of Party-Rebuilding,
and Some Movement Toward "People's Diplomacy"
The Snow Interviews, Autumn-Winter 1970-71. . . . . A-S4
Mao's Role
Lin's Role
Chou's Role
"Struggle" in the Leadership
Policy toward the U. S.
The Mao-Chou Line, But Lin's Apparatus, Spring 197].A-65
A Domestic Mix and Party-Rebuilding
"People's Diplomacy"
The Leadership
More Purges to Come
Apparent Prospects, Summer 1971 . . . . . . . . . . A-81
Mao
Lin Piao
Chou lin-lai
The Politburo Standing Committee
The Full Politburo
The Central Party Apparatus
The Central Government Machinery
The Provincial Party Apparatus
The Leadership in Sum
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.OVA-Anr, L
MAO'S CHINA, 1962-1971
Summar and Conclusions
As of summer 1971, Mao Tse-tung's China was
composed of a complex mix of leaders at all levels,
pursuing a complex mix of policies. It seemed to be
Mao's mix -- or, at least, a mix approved by Mao. But
it was not a smooth mix, and it was not the mix that
Mao had had In mind when he had launched the Great
Proletarian Cultural Revolution more than five years
earlier. Some of the most fervent radicals had been
casualties, the leadership below Mao's level was
dominated by military figures and included few
"revolutionary" young people, and some of Peking's
current policies were such as would have been denounced
as "revisionist" a few years earlier by Mao himself.
The curious mixture in the leadership began at
the very top, whcre since 1966 Mao, Lin I'iao and Chou
En--lai had been stable as the Big Three. Mao as chair-
man of thu Party had remained the dominant figure, the
prime mover -- a man himself predisposed to a generally
radical and militant course but demonstrably willing
(as it 197!) to change course when the realities of the
world forced a retreat or offered new opportunities.
Ile was a leader who had set out to produce a radically
new Communist man but had come to rely primarily on
professional and relatively conservative military men to
govern China -- a situation unique among Communist
regimes, and one about which Mao himself had shown
some cmbarras--ment. Lin as the Party's only vice-
chairman remained Mao's designated successor but also
remained an en ig,,m , a career soldier who had professed
allegiance at the top of his voice to Maoist dogmas but
had clashed with Mao's civilian radical proteges --
and a watcher in the shadows whose influence on policy
was impossible to calculate but ho had seemed to he the
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main beneficiary of the course of Party-rebuilding in
recent years. And Chou as the Premier and more
recently the Party's de facto secretary-general war,
Mao's principal execu five nand' a credible alternative
successor -- a man who for many years had been the symbol
of comparatively "moderate" policies and was now
presiding over the implementation of both "radical"
and "moderate" policies and building a new Party apparatus
designed to be responsive to himself as well as to Lin.
Immediately ! low this top level, in the Politburo
and in the other central organs of the Party, the mixture
was one of proteges of Mao, Lin, and Chou, men who had
long served with these three principals and had been
given preferment by them in the Cultural Revolution.
Although Lin and Chou were themselves Man's longtime
proteges, below that level those regarded as "Mao's
men" had often been and perhaps still were in destructive
conflict with Lin and his group and with Chou and his
group -- a conflict representing the convolutions of
Mao's own "thought," his mixed and sometimes incompatible
intentions. "Mao's men" (incluling his wife) were a
group of radically-inclined civilians like Mao himself,
a group temperamentally better suited to the "destructive"
than to the "constructive" stage of the Cultural Revolu-
tion. This group had recently been diminished by the
purge or demotion of the two most important of them
-- Chen I'o-ta and Kang Sheng -- who until 1970 had been
the fourth-and-fifth-ranking Party leaders. Lin's
proteges (including his wife) were the military leaders,
men who in general were much less, radically-inclined
than Mao and less than Lin himself: men who had been
tinder heavy pressure in the "destructive" stage of the
Cultural Revolution but who now constituted the strongest
group in the Party Politburo, who surrounded Lin in the
Party organ next in importance (the powerful Military
Affairs Committee, which controlled and directed the
entire military establishment), and who dominated most
of the other leading bullies of the re-emerging Party
apparatus and government machinery in Peking and through-
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out China. Chou's proteges were fewer -- appearing in
some of the central Party organs which he was assembling
and in the government machinery which he headed, especially
in Party and government bodies concerned with foreign
affairs; but Chou had visible influence with Mao and
seemed also to get on very well with the military
leaders of Lin's group.
At the provincial level and below, the leading
Party and government organs were composed of a mixture
-- a "three-way alliance" -- of military figures, old
Party cadres, and representatives of mass organizations
such as the notorious Red Guards. The leadership in
Peking had had and still was having a very hard time
trying to induce these components to work together.
Mao himself had expressed only qualified satisfaction
with the leadership down through the provincial level,
describing the military dominance as "temporary" and
stating that the true "revolutionary successors" he
had sought to produce were to be found at the county level
and below, a generation away from leadership of the
regime.
The domestic policies pursued by these ill-
matched assortments were carried out under the equally
ill-matched rubrics of "struggle" and "revolutionization"
on one hand and of "unity" on the other, as Mao insisted
on having it both ways. These policies included on one
hand a continued disruptive purge of the Party at all
levels and of society as a whole, the Maoist reindoctrination
of all Party cadres and the sending-down of tens of
millions of people to the countryside, the radical
transformation of the educational system on Mao's lines,
and a continued Maoist emphasis on ideological incentive
in production. But on the other hand thy included the
rebuilding of the Party around military men (rather
than rehabilitated Party cadres, as Mao originally
intended) and the downgrading of the revolutionary mass
organizations from which Mao had expected so much, a
return to law-and-order and the reorganization of Chinese
society a, a whole an military lines, the indroctr.ination
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of everyone with Victorian as well. as Maoist virtues,
and a retreat. from the most extreme economic experiments
together with an attempt to strengthen the economic
base by rational. measures.
Similarly, foreign policy was still conducted
under the rubric of "struggle" against the "social
imperialist" USSR and "imperialist" US, and was still
called "revolutionary"; Peking had made no important
concession to either of the two principal powers on
any disputed matter, and Chinese support of guerrilla
wars and revolutionary forces was still an important
component of policy. But Mao and Chou had downgraded
the cuunter-productive "revolutionary" diplomacy of
the Cultural Revolution period in favor of building an
international anti-American united front and had given
new importance to "people's" diplomacy, had entered
into talks with the Russians to reduce the threat of a
Soviet military attack, had welcomed "friendly" Americans
to China and had gone so far as to invite President
Nixon to visit.
The most critical of those policies, both for
China and the outside world -- those which had determined
the character of the Party leadership (apparently
for years to c'mc), and those adopted toward the USSR
and the US -- were impelled by events which Mao had
not foreseen. And they took some years to mix in
Mao's mind as a coherent set of policies. Mao had
surely not anticipated the enormous role -- as of summer
1971 -- of the PLA and its leaders. lie had heavily
purged the military leadership -- as well as destroying
the Party in 1966-67, but by August 1967 had been
forced to recol;nine the extent of his dependence on
the PLA as an alternative governing apparatus, and --
perhaps influenced by Lin Piao -- had rejected an effort
by some of his l icutenants to conduct another large-
scale purge of the PLA. Also by late summer 1967, Mau
had been forced to recognize the losses inflicted by
his "revo, Itit ionary" diplomacy, and probably influenced
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by Chou lin-lai -- had downgraded it sharply. In consequence,
in autumn 1967 and early 1968 several secondary leaders
of the Cultural Revolution Group -- a special organ
which had been set up to give guidance to mass organizations
and to conduct the purge of the Party and the PLA --
were purged for their association with these repudiated
initiatives and policies, both domestic and foreign.
Mao did not admit, however, that these things had been
done in the spirit of his own "thought"; and the primary
leaders of the CRG, all of them his own proteges,
remained in his favor.
The change in Mao's attitude toward the CRG --
in which his wife was a leading fieure -- proved to be
gradual and reluctant. When in March 1968 a small group
of PLA leaders offended Madame Mao and the CRC, Mao did
not hesitate to purge them. Moreover, while lie
supported Lin and Chou in successfully resisting a call
from the leaders of the CRC for a larger purge of the
military leadership at that time, he gave those same
CRG leader:, the principal roles in Party rebuilding.
The first substantial change in his attitude may have
come in July 1968, when he made clear his severe dis-
appointment with the misbehavior of mass organizations
-- guided by the CRC -- in what was by then the "constructive"
stage of the Cultural Revolution. lie indicated at the
same time his general satisfaction with the performance
of PLA leaders as the heads of provisional organs of
government, and may already have been thinking about
naming these military men concurrently -- as was done
in 1970-71 -- to the leading posts in the new Party
apparatus then being rebuilt.
A large new factor came into the picture in August
1968, when Mao was clearly shocked by the Soviet invasion
of Czechoslovakia. lie had now to consider the possibility
of a Soviet attack on China. By Noveml,er 1968 Mao was
ready to make a small overture to the incoming US
administration.
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The bloody Sino-Sovict military cla,:hes of March
1969 greatly stimulated each of these trends in Mao's
thinking -- his disfavor for the violently disruptive
young revolutionaries and their sponsors, his regard
for the well -disciplined I'LA, and his hatred and fear
of the USSR. His felt need to avert a Soviet attack
and tc prevent the formation of any Soviet-American
alliance against China became the strongest element in
his policy. fie was to define the USSR -- not the US --
as his "principal" enemy, and to justify both his talks
with the Russians and his overtures to the US as a means
of containing this enemy.
Lin Piao was chosen in the sprint; of 1969 to
reaffirm Peking's support of revolutionary forces but
at the same tim' to profess Peking's return to a more
flexible foreign policy -- including "peaceful coexistence"
-- and Peking's favor for negotiations. In September
Peking agreed to begin talks with Moscow about the
border, and in December agreed to resume the Sino-
American talks (and, for the first time, in its Warsaw
Embassy). In the same period Lin's PLA was directed
to restore public order in China -- which meant the further
> suppress.c:n of unruly mass organizations.
The related decision to rebuild the Party apparatus,
around I'LA leaders -- on whom Mao was now doubly
dependent, both for the governing of China and for
repelling any Soviet attack -- was apparently made final
at about this time, autumn 1969. This decision to
concentrate power throughout China in the hands of military
leaders was probably resisted by the leaders of the
CRC, who stood to lose the most from it. In late 1969
and ;arly 1970 the Central Committee launched an "invest ig: t ir,n"
of an extremist mass orl'anization close to the CRC
(an investigation which was to lead k o primary officers
of the (:IRG); the CRC itself was put out of business
altogether; and Mao took Party-building out of the hands
of certain officers of the CPC and placed it in'thr hand:
of Lin Piao and Chou tin-lai. Lin's role was apparently
to be supervisory, while Chou as do facto secretary-general
was to put together a new Party apparatus for Mao's and
Lin'.-,; approval.
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oinVJ I A.
The fragile trend toward improving Sino-American
relations was interrupted in May 1970, when Mao felt
? compelled to denounce new US initiatives in the Indochina
war. lie called publicly for a united front of the world's
people -- including the American people -- against the
US government. This concept did not exclude the possibility
of dealing directly with the US on such matters as
Taiwan, and Mao soon reaffirmed his willingness to do
this.
This range of Mao's policies was ratified by a
Party plenum of August and September 1970. That is,
tl4e plenum criticized and demoted those CRC leaders
who symbolized repudiated domestic and foreign policies,
it (apparently) approved the enhanced roles of Lin and Chou
at the expense of the CRG leaders, and it endorsed the
initiation of "people's diplomacy" against the US --
the mobilisation of American popular npinion against the
Administration.
The veteran China-watcher lidgar Snow, interview-
ing Chinese leaders in late i970 and early 1971, found
Mao to be the man "in overall charge," playing his
preferred role as the formulator of basic policies,
withdrawn from the day-to-day administration. Snow
fo'nid Chou to have greatly enhanced status as Mao's
chief executive, "running the country" on a day-to-
day basis. Sr:,w was impressed -- rightly so -- by Mao's
dependence on Ch-au and the military-dominated apparatus.
But there was a striking lack of reference to Lin 1'iao
in Mao's remarks to Snow -- an omission which, in
retrospect, may have meant that Mao even then was
begin.ting to think about Lin in a new way.
In talking with Snow, Mao stated clearly, and
Chou confirmed, that it was Peking's policy to continue
to explore the possibilities for an iml>rovement in Sino-
American relations (Mao said lie would be happy to receive
President Nixon), but that Peking expected such improve-
ment to derive from popular pressure on the GS Government
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to make concessions to Peking. Both Mao and Chou
emphasized the issue of Taiwan, demanding US abandon-
ment of Taiwan as the price for a substantial improve-
ment in state relations.
After the time of the Snow interviews, Peking
continued to carry out a mixed bag of domestic policies,
radical and moderate, doctrinaire and pragmatic,
deriving from Mao's earlier pronouncements or attributed
to new directives from him. Party relations with Moscow
remained broken and the Sino-Soviet border talks remained
substantively deadlocked, but relations between the two
governments improved a bit and the border itself remained
quiet. In spring 1971, Peking made a striking initiative
in "people's diplomacy" toward the US with the invitation
to the US pingpong team and several journalists to
visit China, and in then inviting President Nixon to
visit China Peking clearly saw new opportunities
either for early gains at the government -tc -government
level or for mobilizing popular pressure on the US
Administration later if no gains wer^ made at the
government level. In all of this, Peking seemed much
more confident of its position than it had seemed even
a year earlier -- confidant that its domestic situation
was in hand, confident that a Soviet attack had been
averted, and confident that it stood to benefit greatly
from current international trends even without. making
substantial concessions.
In many of Peking's policies, and particularly
in the skillful conduct of foreign policy, the influence
of Chou En-lai on Mao was apparent. Lin Piao remained
in the background, and the degree of his influence on
Mao was quite uncertain. Lin's strength had to be
inferred -- from the media's treatment of him and
especially from the course of Party re-building, in
which professional military men long indoctrinated by
Lin, many of them his longtime proteges and friends,
had come to occupy most of the important posts. This
new apparatus, however, looked to be equally responsive
to Chou.
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As of summer 1971, Mao's Cult continued to flourish
in China, and he visibly dominated gatherings of. Party
leaders. All basic policies were still being attributed
to him, and he was reliably reported to have over-ruled
some recent decisions made by his lieutenants in carrying
them out. lie was thought to remain capable of purging
any other Party leader or small group of leaders, and
of putting an end to any given "moderate" policy - such
as current foreign policy ?- should he decide that it
was no longer productive. But it seemed doubtful that
Mao could successfully conduct another Cultural Revo-
lution, another great purge of the governing apparatus
-- which by this time consisted largely of PLA officers.
Mao seemed to recognize the importance of retaining the
good will of the military leaders, in order to remain in
power and to get his policies carried out.
As of summer 1971, Lin Piao was expected to
succeed Mao, if Lin's precarious health did not fail
beforehand. While it had long been recognized that Mao
was unstable and that none of his lieutenants was truly
secure, it was thought probable that Mao would not change
axis mind about Lin without good cause and that Lin
would be careful not to give him cause.
Chou En-lai, by summer 1971, seemed organizationally
and personally in a good position to succeed Mao if Lin
were to predecease Chou. However, Lin and Chou appeared
to he working well together, and it was thought probable
that, if Lin were to succeed, they would continue to do
so. Chou was expected to have a very strong influence
on Lin, holding Lin to a generally moderate course.
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Mao, Lin, and Chou were expected to continue to
use the Politburo Standing Committee, the organizational
core of power, to reach collective decisions and to
supervise the Party apparatus. It was thought that if
Chief-of-Staff Huang Yung-sheng, Lin's longtime protege
and Chou's app..rcnt friend as well, were not already
a de facto member, he would probably be added to replace
the demoted CRG leaders. The full Politburo was expected
to remain less important than the Standing Committee,
but to continue to be used for discussions and perhaps
even as a voting body. Proteges and friends of Lin and
Chou were expected to continue to dominate the Politburo.
As of summer 1971, the strongest known component
of the central Party apparatus was Lin Piao's Military
Affairs Committee, composed almost entirely of his proteges.
It was thought possible, hot'ever, that Chou En-lai was
putting together a de facto Party secretariat at the same
level to help him to co`arcTinate the political and economic
work of the apparatus and to work with the MAC. Any such
secretariat was expected to include some onetime CRG
leaders still in favor, some military men, and some of
Chou's deputies in the governmental structure, and, under
Chou's leadership, to prove more responsive to the
Politburo Standing Committee than did the old secretariat.
The visible portion of the central Party apparatus
below the level of the Politburo Standing Committee,
the MAC, and any new secretariat -- that is, the network
of central departments -- was dominated by military men,
and most of the rest of it was expected to be. The
same trend of military staffing was evident in the
central government machinery, although Chou's proteges
were running the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
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The provincial Party apparatus showed the same
pattern of domination by military leaders, apparently
reflecting Mao's concern for an effective governing
apparatus and his decision to put Party-building in the
hands of Lin and Chou. Twenty of the 29 provincial and
major municipal committees were headed by career PLA
officers, and Lin's proteges either headed or were
among the leaders of all of the most important of them
-- those that contained military region headquarters.
In sum, as of summer 1971 Lin and Chou seemed to
be working together, under Mao's leadership and with
Mao's blessing, to build a new Party which would be
responsive to them both as the leaders of a post-
Mao team or to either one as the principal survivor.
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ANNEX: MAO'S CHINA, 1962-71
Preparations for the Cultural Revolution, 1962-65
In the period 1962-65, Mao Tse-tung became con-
vinced of the need to make the Chinese Communist Party
apparatus more responsive to his policies, and to design a
program to produce "revolutionary successors" in the
Party leadership and to reinstil "revolutionary spirit"
in the masses. fie took several steps in that period to
prepare for a Cultural Revolution -- that is, for a purge
and reconstruction of the Party, and a reindoctrination
of everyone.
By January 1965 Mao had decided to replace Liu
Shao-chi, the Party's senior vice-chairman and Mao's
designated successor, with Lin Piao, long Mao's favorite
military leader and the chief of the military establish-
ment (PLA) -- which Mao and Lin had been developing as an
alternative power structure to the Party apparatus. By
the end of 1965, Mao had apparently decided which of his
lieutenants he was going to purge in addition to Liu
(including the two ranking officers of the Party secre-
tariat, Teng ifsiao-ping and Peng Chen), and which other
of his lieutenants he was going to elevate in addition
to Lin (including Chou En-lai., long the regime's premier,
Chen Po-ta, long a factotum for Liao, Kang Sheng, the
head of Mao's personal. political security force, and
Madame Mao, a specialist in "culture").
The Ste s: As is now well known, Maoist
sources assert t at !`ao began to think about his Great
Proletarian Cultural Revolution -- and the great purge
which was to be central to it -- as early as January
1962. At that time, Liu Shao-chi, the Party's senior
vice-chairman and long `Mao's designated successor, is
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SEE; Rli'1 ?
said to have criticized (at a Party conference) some of
Mao's policies which had suffered disaster in the Great
Leap Forward and "people's communes" programs. Mao, Lin
Piao, and Chou En-lai are said to have stood together
at that conference in opposition to Liu and others, in-
cluding Tong Hsiao-ping, the Party's secretary-general.
That Mao at least by mid-1962 had begun to think
about Liu and Tong in a new way -- that is, as his op-
ponents, not his lieutenants -- is suggested by the ap-
parently authentic text of a Mao speech to a group of
Party leaders in August 1962. fie expressed bitter resent-
ment of the "revisionist" domestic policies forced on him
by the collapse of the Leap Forward (policies which he
was later to attribute to Liu and Tong). He was also
strongly critical of the way the Party apparatus in
general had been conducting its work, in contrast to the
good work of Lin Piao's Military Affairs Committee (MAC).
At this meeting Mao indicated that he had special trust
in Kang Shen; and Chen Pu-ta -- two longtime proteges to
whom he had given many special jobs -- as well as in
Lin.*
At a Party plenum the following month, Mao ended
the period of retreats in domestic policy. He also
discussed the threat of "revisionism," and called on
senior comrades to admit their "mistakes" (admissions
which were later to prove the key to survival for many
leaders). lie also called for the formation of two
"special examination" groups -- apparently for the in-
vestigation and evaluation of Party leaders, an operation
which may have been assigned to Kang Sheng but remained
CR-ang a n Mao 'a foremost specialist in poli ti oa 1.
security work, and was also a longtime friend of Madame
Mao 's. Chen had been Mao 'a foremost "theorie t " and
writer, and had prepared the ground for some of Mao'o
policies and investigated the' implementation of them.
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obscure. Mao also revealed his awareness that the arts
in China had been used to state the positions of his
opponents.
In the early months of 1963, Mao drafted a ten-
point program designed to restore collective controls in
Tura? areas and initiated other-campaigns to correct
the "revisionist" policies of recent years. Later in
1963, in an unmistakable expression of his distrust of
the Party apparatus, Mao issued his call to "learn from
the PLA," and PLA officers soon began to take over the
agitprop function in government organs.
The Promise of a Purge: In June 1964 Mao made
known his concern a out tla problem of developing "revo-
lutionary successors," and is said to have asserted that
there were "conspirators" in all of the departments and
provincial committees of the Party.* In July, the Party
set forth a 15-point program to cleanse itself of revi-
sionism, and pointed publicly to the threat from the top
level of the Party. The Party newspaper, Peo le's Daily,
soon called for a purge of the Party.
At about the same time, Mao named Peng Chen
-- second-ranking to Teng Ilsiao-ping in the Party- secre-
tariat -- to look into the condition of Chinese "culture"
meaning the threat posed by writers critical of .Mao's
policies and by their high-level sponsors. hang Sheng
was named to I'eng's five-man group.
The Party issued in September 1964 a revised draft
of Mao's ten-point program of spring 1963, a revision
. here r. 5Fe in the prey: at th;.L tirre of
creased -,-
favor for Chou En-1-ai, and of some tencinnn 1)e-
tween Chou and the Liu-Tony partnership, althouoh oil
three wcrc still officially Mao's "close r+o-rrradr.-. "
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or,vw%r, .i
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concerned about). At the same time, the Party journal
Red rlaZ, spelled out in ominous terms Mao's principles
or Tuag'ing "revolutionary successors."
Mao is said to have denounced Liu's "bourgeois
reactionary line" at a working conference late in 1964.
which was pessimistic about China's situation and which
blamed basic-level cadres (not the leaders whom Mao was
By January 1965, Mao had decided to replace Liu
with Lin Piao. A Party work conference at that time
sharply criticized positions Liu had taken in Party
meetings, and promised action against those "in
authority" in top Party posts. By this same time,
both Mao and Lin had apparently come to distrust also
Lo Jui-ching, the chief-of-staff, who had been their
joint protege.
Pcng Chen apparently fell from favor in or about
mid-July 1965. The operations of Peng's five-man group
reportedly gave Kang Sheng an opportunity to discredit
him to Mao -- with good reason -- as a protector of Mao's
critics and opponents.* By this time, Kang had apparently
become the principal figure in Mao's personal political
security apparatus, working outside the re:gurar Party ap-
paratus, perhaps through the "special investigation groups"
forecast by Mao in 1962.
*Late?,- Vn 9 .5, Chou Fn-lai, whose relations With Lir,
Shao-chi and Ten; Ilr,iao-ping were already unfriendly,
was reported to have quarreled publicly with Pcng Chen.
Chou seems to have read Mao'e mind wonderfully well.
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The Beginning of the Purge: The Cultural Revolu-
tion began uno icia in September 1965 at a Party
conference where Mao called for an investigation of a
playwright whose work had implicitly criticized Mao's
policies; Mao again, as in 1964, pointed to "revisionism"
in the Party apparatus, including the Central Committee.
Then in early November Mao planted in the Shanghai press
an article by Yao Wen-yuan (a young man who was to rise
high on the Revolution) attacking the playwright-critic
who was to serve as the symbol of all opposition to
Mao. Lin Piao's Liberation Army Daily immediately en-
dorsed the line taken ln the article. Lin, Chou En-lai,
Chen Po-ta, Kang Sheng and Madame Mao were all apparently
apprised of Mao's intention to conduct a large-scale purge
of the Party.
Leaving Peking together in late November, Mao and
Lin took sanctuary in or near Shanghai, under the pro-
tection of a Military Region Commander (Iisu Shih-yu) in
whom they had confidence. They began the great purge in
the next month, by summoning to their retreat and arrest-
ing Lo Jui-Ching, the second-ranking leader of the PLA,
and Yang Shang-kun, director of the Central Committee's
staff office, two of the men best qualified to lead a
potential resistance group.
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The First Stage of the Cultural Revolution 1966
The first year of the Cultural Revolution saw several
spectacular developments: the rise of a special Cultural
Revolution Group, outside the Party apparatus, to conduct
the great purge that lay ahead; the entrapment and subsequent
purge of the principal leaders of the Party apparatus, in-
cluding Mao's then-designated successor; the rearrangement
of the Party hierarchy and the installation of Lin Piao
as the Party's only vice-chairman and Mao's newly-designated
successor; the explosive appearance of the Red Guards,
as the instrument to attack the Party; ';ao's first call
for "revolutionary" diplomacy; and the starring role of
Madame Mao in the first large-scale purge of the PLA.
The Entrapment of Party Leaders: By January 1966
Mao had selecteFihe core of what was to become the cen-
tral Cultural Revolution Group. He called together
Chen Po-ta, Kang Sheng, and Madame Mao (Chiang Ching)
-- who were to become the three ranking officers of the
central CRG -- together with a fourth favorite who soon
died. In February, Mao, Lin and Madame Mao set in motion
an investigation of the PLA that was to lead to the
formation of a special Cultural Revolution Group for the
PLA, a group which was to be dominated by Madame Mao
for most of its life.
In the same month (February 1966), Liu Shao-chi
and Teng Hsiao-ping, in Mao's absence, approved for dis-
tribution an "outline report" by Peng Chen's five-man
group which had been working since 1964. This report
minimized "class struggle" -- contrary to Mao's own
emphasis since 1962 -- and the offenses of right-wing
writers of the type denounced by Mao. Thus Liu, Teng
and Peng -- the three principal leaders of the Party
apparatus -- all fell into Mao's trap. Peng was ar-
rested in late March, while Liu was out of the country
(sent on a tour of Asian capitals, under the guard of
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another of Mao's personal security men, Wang Tung-hsing).*
Soon thereafter, an enlarged meeting of the Politburo
convened by Mao "took the initiative in the solution of
the Peng Chen problem." Chou Fn-lai, Chen Po-ta, and Kang
Sheng -- who were to be closely if unhappily associated
throughout the Cultural Revolution -- were sent to inform
the existing Party secretariat under Teng Nsiao-ping of
Mao's "instructions" and of Peng's "crimes."
The Formation of the Cultural Revolution Grou :
Before o filly launching the Cultural Revolution Mao sent
Lin Piao a letter (the official date is 7 May) which was
to explain -- or at least justify -- much that was to
happen in the next five years. This letter called for
the PLA to he turned into a "great school" in which the
PLA would master its military speciality but would also
study government and education and would become inw.'lved
In ;agriculture and industry and mass work. It seer!;
doubtful, however, that Mao foresaw that within th., next
year the PLA would become the do facto government of
China, almost overwhelmed by tfiis range of extra-military
activity. Neither, presumably, did he foresee the extent
to which the PLA would come into destructive conflict 25X1
with the leaders of the central CRG.
Sev'ra other important figures -- mainly propaganda
and political security specialists -- were seized at
about the name time, but they are not essential to this
atory.
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vi.vs.%L:. i
The Rise of Lin Piao:_/
Lin Pi.ao, 25X1
in the main speech at an enlarged meeting of the Politburo,
denounced several arrested Party leaders by name, spoke at
great length of the importance of preventing a coup, called
for resolute support of Chairman Mao and permanent adher-
ence to Mao's thought, and promised harsh punishment to all
of Mao's identifiable opponents.
In late May and June, Liu and Teng fell deeper
into Mao's trap. When Party committees in cultural and
educational institutions were reviled and physically
attacked by revolutionary students and teachers -- pre-
sumably primed by the new CI2G leaders -- the Party appara-
tus under Litt and Tenn, sent work-teams to the campuses
to restore Party control. Mao then sprang the trap:
in mid-July he personally criticized the operations of
the work-teams, and on 5 August, in a personal poster,
he told the young militants to "bombard the headquarters,"
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the Party apparatus itself. At that time, "bombardment"
was apparently meant to lead to radical reform, not
destruction.
While Mao was preparing to unveil the Red Guards
as the main instrument to attack the Party, the Central
Committee met in early August to approve Mao's design
for the Revolution and his rearrangement of the Party
hierarchy. Lin Piao told the plenum candidly that the
Cultural Revolution was conceived as a "general examina-
tion...and general reorganization" of Party cadres.
With PL,% and Red Guard units in attendance to enforce
Mao's will, the Central Committee issued a 16-point
decision giving official form to Mao's S August poster
-- that is, an authorization for the young revolutionaries
to attack Party leaders throughout China, attacks which
in the next year were to bring down most of the members
of the Central Committee itself.
This August plenum named Lin Piao as the sole
vice-chairman of the Party and thus the designated suc-
cessor to Mao, and confirmed Chou En-l&i as the third-
ranking leader. Three Party leaders were added to the
powerful standing committee of the Poli.tburo: Tao Chu,
a regional leader brought in to take over the propaganda
apparatus, and Chen Po-ta and Kang Sheng. Liu Shao-chi
and Teng lisiao-ping were demoted and effectually removed
from power.
The Red Guards: The Red Guards made their public
appearance in mi -Vugust, and began to "bombard" the
Party apparatus and everything else that displeased them.
Their general directive -- to "bombard" whatever they
liked -- came from Mao and Lin, but their continuing
guidance came from Chou En-lai and the officers of the
Central CRG, i.e. the three new members of the Politburo
Standing Committee and Madame Mao. Chou was never an
officer of the CRG, but he appeared frequently with those
officers and -- as befitted his Party rank -- was the
most authoritative spokesman for the Party leadership
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below the level of Mao and Lin. The Red Guards were not
always responsive to Chou, however, and in the months to
come some of them were to attack many of Chou's proteges
and friends and were to aim at Chou himself.*
The normal procedure for the Red Guard groups
which fanned out over China in the late summer and early
autumn of 1966 was to demand that Party leaders every-
where appear before the masses to admit their errors
and rededicate themselves to Mao. These demands were
often effectively resisted by local leaders with local
forces, and there was much conflict among and within
Red Guard organizations (all operating in Mao's name).
"Revolutionization" in Foreign Affairs: The Red
Guards romt.liie"start mi -Augustj werelargcly concerned
with the domestic scene. However, Mao himself in early
September foreshadowed the extension of the Cultural
Revolution into foreign affairs by calling for the "revo-
lutionization" of Chinese missions abroad and of Peking's
Ministry of Foreign Affairs. There were occasional re-
ports of attacks on foreigners, including diplomatic per-
sonnel, and attacks on the 'Ministry of Foreign Affairs
and its minister (Chen Yi) began in October.
The extent of resistance to, and conflict among,
Red Guard organizations apparently disconcerted the leaders
in Peking during the early autumn of 1966. While they
were deciding what to do about it, they set up another
4T he Re Cuar s were rarely given (ao far as in known)
specific targets. They were told repeatedly to "inve. -
tigate" and evaluate. When in doubt, they were to submi t
their problem to a Red Guard reception canter in Peking,
which might pass it to the central CRC, which mi.~;ht pace
it to the Big Three of Mao, Lin, and Chou. The final
decision on a critical matter -- e.g. the removal of a
provincial first secretary -- was reportedly reserved to
Mae.
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Cultural. Revolution Group for the PLA alone. Madame Mao,
? later identified as the PLA/CRG's "advisor," may have been
its dominant figure from the start.
During October, regional and provincial Party
leaders were summoned to another Central Committee work
conference to hear self-criticisms by Liu and Tong
(rejected as unsatisfactory), and, more importantly, to
learn directly from Mao and IJ-a that they would be
subjected to another wave of Red Guard attacks and must
try to "pass the test." The test was to include an abasing
self-criticism, correction of past mistakes, and support
of the revolutionary masses. That is, they would have to
persuade Mao and Lin, through this process, that they were
loyal to them.
The Cultural Revolution moved farther into foreign
affairs in December. Diplomatic personnel began to be
recalled for reindoctrination, and Mao-books and Mao-
buttons soon began to be distributed through Chinese
missions abroad. The thrust of the Red Guard movement,
however, was overwhelmingly against the !'arty apparatus.
The Widen.in , Purge of the PLA: During the car]),
winter eta am filo - - in ffao's absence --
had the starring role in the Cultural Revolution. In a
single incendiary speech in mid-December, the Madame
denounced the second-ranking officer ot the Military
Affairs Committee (Ilo Lung, who was genuinely in Mao's
and Lin's disfavor), marled several second-level Party
leaders for "rebel" attacks, and called for the destruc-
tion of the regime's entire public security apparatus
(although exempting Minister of Public Security Ilsieh
Fu-chih). The Madame's speech was soon followed by the
purge -- almost certainly approved by Mao and Lin -- of
Ilo Lung and many other central and regional military
leaders, enough to qualify as a large-scale purge of the
!'LA in the space of a few weeks. At the same time, the
PLA took over the public security apparatus.
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Most of the other top leaders of the Party --
that is, Lin (who was out of sight), Chou, and the other
officers (besides Madame Mao) of the central CRG --
either approved of the full range of the Madame's activity
or were afraid to interfere with Mao's wife, in the
probably sound belief that she had Mao's approval. How-
ever, one top leader, Tao Chu of the CRC, who had ap-
parently been the do facto secretary-general of the
Party as well as its propaganda chief since August, was
soon purged for attempting to "restrict the scope"
of the Revolution. From that time on, the central CRG
as a whole appeared to be the do facto secretariat of the
Party, and Kang Sheng reportedly rep acrd Tao as the
de facto secretary-general.
Madame Mao's mid-December speech set off the
movement to "seize power" from below. This call,
continuing into January, apparently represented the
leadership's decision to destroy the existing Party
and pc" r.nment -,tructure:: rather than to reform them.
The violent assault on these structures led to their
rapid collapse and to anarchy and chaos. Thus in mid-
January Mao per:;onally directed Lin Piao to order the
PLA into action to "support the Left" -- which, at first,
meant to restore order and to be a de facto military
government in the name of the Left.
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The Zigs and Zags of 1967
The Cultural Revolution, on a comparatively
rightist course in early 1967 with the intervention of the
PLA, turned left in March as restrictions were imposed on
the PLA in dealing with refractory mass organizations.
It turned right again in June, with renewed calls for
order, and then ultraleft in late July, as officers of
the CRG tried to Initiate another large-scale purge of
the PLA leadership.
In foreign affairs, the movement in this period --
heavy criticism
of proteges and rien s of Chou En-lai's, and with "rebel"
supervision of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In the
months to follow, Chinese missions abroad were turned into
centers for the propagation of extreme features of Mao's
thought, leading to the international isolation of Mao's
regime. This trend reached its peak in August with a
"rebel" attempt to seize control of the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs and the burning of the British mission.
Although Mao himself had provided the atmosphere
in which "revolutionary" excesses in both domestic and
foreign policy were committed, in August and September
1967 he acted together with Lin Piao and Chou En-lai to
repudiate the ultraleft -- withdrawing the threat to the
PLA, and putting an end to the highly counter-productive
period of "revolutionary" diplomacy. In the final months
of 1967, several secondary leaders of the CRG were purged
for their offenses against Lin and the PLA and against
Chou and the Foreign Ministry; but the ranking figures
of the CRG, who had probably encouraged the secondary leaders
in the excesses of July and August, remained in Mao's favor.
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The "Revolutionary Committees": In January 1967,
while the PLA was restoring order, eF~Tcing called for the
formation of "revolutionary committees" as provisional organs
of power.* To function while the Party was being slowly
rebuilt, these were to be composed of )'LA officers, old
Party cadres, and representatives of mass organizations.
Party "core groups" were to be formed within these.**
The period from late January through March 1967
was almost too complicated to discuss. While the PLA was
taking the Cultural Revolution on a rightist course by inter-
vening to restore order, and the first of the new revolution-
ary committees appeared as early as February, one group in
the leadership tried to turn the Revolution even further
to the right by restoring old Party cadres to their positions.
This was the "February countercurrent," later denounced as
777
111! 111 e LZ eration
Arm Laity, also stopped stating publicly thata further
purge of the PLA was necessary, even though the purge
continued in an orderly way throughout the period of
dependenoe .)n the PLA. At the same time (January 1967)
the PLA/CRC was reorganized, and a prestigious old
commander was named to head it; however, Madame Mao was
now its official "advisor" and effectual chief, and in a
position to remain the PLA's worst friend.
**one Party "core group" -- in Shansi, headed by old
Part;. cadre Liu go-ping -- was identified as early as
February 1967; the head of another, a PLA figure, was
identified later in 1907. Mao's intention through 196?,
to judge both from appointments made in Z96? and from
Mao's remarks of late 1967, was to have moat of these core
groups -- and therefore moot of the Party committees
eventually to be rebuilt -- headed by old Party cadres.
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the model of an ultra-right initiative. At the same time
there was an ire, ortant leftist initiative -- heavy criticism-
of several 25X1
government ea ers, most o t em regar e as proteges and
friends of Chou En-lai. Members of militant mass organi-
zations which later merged with the extremely militant
S/16 Group -- the leader of the attacks on Chou in summer
1967 -- were active in these first attacks on Chou's circle
and in such related initiatives as the siege of the
Soviet embassy.
At the same time, a "revolutionary rebel" group in
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs began to "supervise" and
evaluate -- that is, disrupt -- the work of that Ministry.
In the months to follow, Chinese missions abroad (even
in Communist states) were to be turned into centers for
the propagation of various extreme features of Mao's
"thought," leading to counter-action by local governments,
retaliation by Peking, and the international isolation
of Mao's regime. Foreign Minister Chen Yi -- who object-
ed strongly to all this -- was to be a casualty of the
period. and not even Chou En-lai could restore him to
favor.*
Restrictions on the PLA: By mid-March, the Great
helmsman-Ha Concluded -t a t e Revolution as a whole
was veering too for to the right. The PLA, he decided,
had made many "mistakes" in sorting out the true Left,
had acted too vigorously against mass organizations and
had suppressed too many obstreperous ones. As a related
- Mao In Mara~__again contributed to the atmosphere
in which these things were done; he was quoted ac calling
for Red Guards to be "international" as well as
internal revolutionaries. He made other such remarks
in subsequent months, encouraging the whole spectrum of
"Red Guard diplomacy."
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trend, too many old cadres given preferment by generally
conservative PLA leaders were showing up in the new
revolutionary committees. Lin Piao in a 30 March speech
told PLA leaders that they would henceforth be restricted
in their use of coercion against mass organizations and
that PLA units would not be permitted to take any
important action as regards these organizations without
first getting instructions from Peking. In April, Mao
himself told a Party work conference that there should
be more young people in the new revolutionary organs,
and introduced a new kind of three-way alliance: along
with the existing alliance of the PLA, old cadres, and
the revolutionary masses, there was to be an alliance
of the old and middle-aged and young.
With this turn to the left, Peking initiated a
new stage of "criticism and repudiation" of Liu Shao-chi
(i.e. of the policies attributed to him), and together
with this a massive campaign of "struggle-criticism-
transformation" of all organizations in China. All of
these things -- Mao's and Lin's directives and the new
campaigns -- combined to encourage the mass organizations
to unprecedented violence in the months ahead.
Troubles with Mass Organizations: In May and early
June there were renewed calls for order, and on 6 June
a CCP Central Committee directive called officially for
an end to various offenses by mass organizations (assaults,
destruction of property, looting, unauthorized arrests),
and gave the PLA the responsibility for enforcing the
order. Mao did not yet, however, authorize the PLA
to use the necessary force, so mass violence of course
continued. A decision was soon made to send delegations
around China to negotiate agreements between contending
mass organizations.
Hsieh Fu-chih (still Minister of Public Security,
although the PLA had taken over his apparatus) was chosen
to lead the first of these touring delegations, accompanied
inter alia by a secondary leader of the central CRG. Soon
thereafter, Mao himself -- accompanied by C/S Yang Cheng-
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wu and others, including his personal security man Wang
Tung-hsing -- began a tour of several provinces of
eastern and central China. Mao was to remain out of
Peking for the entire summer, and thus in a position to
disavow later some of the extreme actions taken by some
leaders in Peking in the period -- even though these
things were done in the spirit of Mao's directives.
The CRG's New Initiative Against, the PLA: The
already agitate situation in China as o July 1967 --
with Red Guard organizations attacking anything they
chose, and proving in general unresponsive to calls for
order from Peking -- was brought to a boil in mid-July
by the Wuhan Incident. This was the failure of the
Wuhan Military Region commander to protect Hsieh Fu-
chih's delegation against local Red Guard organizations
which had refused to accept a ruling against them made
by the central CRG
and which roughed up the delegation and kidnapped one
of its membors. Mao, out of Peking at the time, very
probably approved the swift and harsh counter-action
taken by other leaders, but mar not have expressly
approved the threat -- developing at the end of July to conduct a larger purge of the PLA, and he sub-
sequently treated this threat as if it had been made
entirely on the initiative of certain leaders of the
central CRG.
The Wuhan commander was brought to Peking In
the week of the Wuhan Incident and was broken. At the
same time, Madame Mao -- possibly on Mao's explicit
order -- turned up the fire by calling for mass organi-
zations to be given arms (by the PLA) for action against
their enemies (whom they often regarded as including the
PLA). Lin Piao and Chou En-lai were both associated with
this new order
/although Chou attempted
to place restrictions on the use of these arms.. In
late July, many regional leaders and commanders of
armies were summoned to Peking to be warned in strong
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terms about disobedience to and evasion of orders from
Peking -- admonitions which were also to be expected.
but at the end of July Red Flak (the Party theoretical
journal supervised by Chen Po--ta and edited by two other
CRC officers) called unmistakably for another substantial
purge of the PLA. Whereas previous commentaries (in Red
Flag, Peo ale's Daily, and the Liberation Army Dail y) afi ~lc'
condemneis a b d"`is dful" of military ea ers in Me
Wuhan area and had argued that they were not representative
of the PLA as a whole, the Red Flag editorial broadcast
on 30 July call?d for the purge of a "handful" still in
K wer in the PEA leadershi . People's Daily, L e3fira on
yDai K, and 'e ing adfo in the next 10 days -- as
Tate---as 8 August -- repeated the Red Flag call for a
purge of the existing PLA leadership.
The Repulsion of the CRG's Initiative: Lin Piao
did not associate Ti mse f with t He late u y and early
August call for a larger purge. Lin set forth his own
position on 9 August in some tough "instructions"
to a number of central and regional military leaders,
in the presence of senior officers of the central CRC.
His emphasis was very strong on the need for avoiding
mistakes by seeking guidance from the Party center, in
particular from Chou En-lai and the senior officers of
the CRG, but he did not speak of any concomitant ne"d
for any purge of the PtA leadership beyond the Wuhan
group.
Lin may have played an important role in getting
that line withdrawn. The original threat to the PLA may
have been in accord both with Mao's sentiments and his
own at the time, but Lin, after consulting his proteges
and friends among the military leaders and examining the
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reports of Red Guard excesses in late July and early
? August, may then have taken the initiative to ask Mao
to make clear that the menacing line was not approved.*
Whether as a result of Lin's initiative or not, the
decision to retreat from that line was apparently made
within a day either way of Lin's 9 August speech. The
line last appeared on 8 August. It did not appear
thereafter even in contexts in which it would be
expected; for example, in subsequent discussions of
disgraced military leaders such as Peng Te-huai and
Lo Jui-ching, the call for further action against such
scoundrels was confined to Party leaders.
In any case, whether on Mao's initiative or on
Lin's, the line was clearly withdrawn by 11 August.
Chen Po-ta and Madame Mao, speaking to Red Guard groups
on that date, both backed away from the S/16 Group and
from the call for another purge of the ILA. Possibly
because the new line ?- forbidding threats against and
attacks on the !LA -- was not known to come from Mao
himself, it was not immediately effective; it proved
necessary to reiterate it in stronger terms on
4Mao` fimce might have taken the initiative. He
had access to the same alarming reports that Lin had,
and may have seen some alarming developments on the
spot. For example, it may have been at just this time
that Neu Shih-yu, the commander of the military region
in which Mao Was staying, was forced to flee for hie
life, first to Shanghai where Mao was, then to Peking
with Mao. There is a smaller possibility that Lin
took action to end the threat to the PLA without
consulting Mao at all, and presented the chairman
with an accomplished fact.
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1L' UK111-
1 September.* During the last three weeks of August,
the incendiary remarks made by Madame Mao in late
July and by Red Flag and other media before 9 August
continued to-Fie ti1en by militant mass organizations as
an authorization for renewed violent attacks on one
another, on the PLA, and on government organs. More-
over, the secondary leaders of the central CRG who were
later purged were charged with having continued -- in
their own persons ?- to organize and incite attacks on
the PLA and on government organs. The PLA, in Mao's
absence, was not yet given the authority it needed to
restore order.
TheApogee and Plummet of the 'Illtral.cft' 5/16 Group:
Among the primtargets of'vio ence BY mass organizations
in August were the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Chou's
protege Chen Yi, the foreign minister. 25X1
demonstrations against foreign missions an the in as.ion::
of some of them continued through August, actions in which
the 5/10 croup was prominent. The most spectacular such
_..''l~faa did not go -on the publia record until 2.1 raof of th rr t
'7`/171'r: t: t rr d to
L d ?; e c, r; rrr 7 .f c~ c < r a ? -
nel Iar ;~~) .~no1,1, and 7,7 tor
t r1 Con;7 c'e Wu
a ""7 oc! r"lren ihr
c rtr,:arl.
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81.1""(11 1 ;,
r
The silo w lntel-virr;:;, Autumn-Winter 1970-71
1icll;rtr Snow, an American journalist who for 35
years had been presenting Mao and Mao's pol icics in a
sympathetic I ight, but had some times also been a good
source of information on the Chinese leadership, made
an extended visit to China in the autumn of 1970 and
early winter of .1970-71., his first. since 1965. Snow
had ;several ta11;s with Mao and a 1o111', interviel". with
Chou, and "saw" (without interviC1;'1)11;) Lin. Snow
ri1 ht.1.y concluded that Mao was the man in overall
charge and rightly emphasized the day-to-day managerial
role of Chou (who was almost constantly at center stage
in 1)CLi 11g). Snow m:inil;ti zed '-- probably prematurely ---
the importance of Lin (who was then out of public. view)
Jn general, the things that Snow was told by Chou
and other:; \'ere consonant. t,~:ith what. had boon previously
observed and reported, added some 1. ight to the picture
of the Icadet':,bip, and graphic;cIi .illu:t.r;tted 1'e};ink's
hope or ix h.iAmerican 1')uh1.iC Opinion against the
US Government' S Chilta po] i.cies.
Mao's Role: Snow agreed with other foreign
obscrvers ii)io t~td~seen Mao since mid--1970 that Mtio
seemed to be in good mental and physical condition for
his ago, 77. These observers had described Maio as
vil;ctrour, alert , lively, quick-witted, and so on;
while some persons who subsequently observed ,'MM;lo
suggested some physical clcterioration since the time of
the Snow intcrviews, Mao seemed to Snow (and to some
later observers too) to be physically fit and mentally
sharp.
Snow concluded that. as of early 1971 M. -o was
clearly "in overall charge." Mao himself defined his
Y
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role to Snow
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Snow did not slpcc i f;call.) acic3t'csti
the hey quest ion -- in a: sensing Mao's role -- of
whether Nl;to could alter a gig c:ra policy whenever he
chose: or cou]d m;al.c or break ally given leader. 11o1w;ever
devc.lopmcnts he fore, durinsg and after Slim, w's visit --
for c::;unpl e, the h;andl ing of foreign pot icy and of the
Cases Of (:hc:n 1'o-ta and }at)c' Shen) -- raadc it: clear that
Mao could indeed CO so, and that he was indeed, as Snot;
thuu};ht , the m;an in char} c ."
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Lin'S Role
The of a visible ro.lce for Lin did not really
permit: any conelusion as to Lin's status at t11at time.
Lin was su1)posccl to be preparing to succeed 1',1ao, not Chou;
that is, his role was not supposed to be th,at...of an
administrator but of a design..'.tcd successor ,assisting
Mao in the forawIation of policy and in the stincrvisi.on
of the work- o tli0..Party, government, and military
structure:: in Carrying. out that policy -- a role perforried
as the Party's only vice-chairman, second-ra.nking (to
M;:o) 111Cr;b'2r Of the Pal ithero Standing Commit.t.ee, and
do facto chief of the ;`1l1 itary Affairs (,'ommittee, In
lii ; U1)Crv 1SUry r0.1Ct Lin as WO 11 1S 111;ao would 1) e sU11er-
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Si (A] ] ",1'
vising Chot1's work in rebuilding the party.
Treatment of Lin in Chinese media -- one of the
principal means of judging, the status of any Chinese
leader - Continued to indicate
that Lin w;t: the sec:on r;tn}:.i11}; figure. Chinese officials
continued to refer to Vice??Chairman Lin's "instructions"
and to the "demands" of Lin as well as Mao, to call for
the people to rally around Vice-Chairman Lin as "deputy
leader" as well as (:hairman Mao as "leader," and to hold
up "Vice-Chairman Lin as our brilliant example."
Apart from Mao, no Chinese leader except Lin was invoked
by name, and Mao-Lin badges (in addition to Mao-alone
l7;ccl4cos) were appeari11";.
:1 Ncvcrthc1ess, in retro:.prct, it is possible that
thc::llack of rcf~ r~.uc to l.:in, in Rio's talks rrith Sno.?.,
i.nd.i'cated that Mao li d begun to think about Lin in a
new way, much hcc h;!d begun to think about. Lill shao-chi
in a new way in 19G2 - four years before he !,urged Liu
-- as a mall not. dual i ficd to be his successor. Thi 5
re-evaluation of Lir., if it indeed began this early,
would not. necessarily have been reflected in the process
of pa)- I v - rebuiiding, i f Mao 1w ere not yet sure of his
re-c>va.luati.on or did not want it to be kncsti;n, and, it
need not have becon reflected in the media, as it had
not been in Liu Shao-chi's case.
Chou' 12u] c : It was understandahl e that Snc'w
was es}icc:'i.i.l_I ,Til;itiress;ed with Chou. Although 73 or
near it (almost tell years older than Lin), Chou was
holding to ;1 schedule that would wear out many a
younge man, and was perform ills; with his unfailing
into]] i ,cnec and grace, two qualities 11 c: possessed in
greater measure than any other Chinese leader.
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SI 01:11.'1
Moreover, there had been, in the mont hs before Snow's
visit, a strikin;c;~incrcase in (;boo's stature, both
organ.i -.at ionaIiy and in terms of his infItic nce on poI icy.
lie had apparently become, as previously sut;c;crsted, the
do facto sccretary'-l;ciicral of the ;'arty, absorbing
t)ic-greater Dart. of the roles played previously by Chen
Po-ta and tang Shenk.
Mao had rcgardrd (and spoken of) chow as ''my'' premier,
the rd l i acbl e i nstrlir.en i of hi.,-, will. To keen it this
way, Chou very probably was clearing hi:-. most. .important
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SI?C;.R Fo'II
doc.i,;iona with M;,o, ti,ith respect both to the implementation
of pol icy and the staffing of the Party and g0VC I'll met1t
apparatus -- just as Lin had earlier assured Party
leaders that he felt free to make minor decisions on
his own hut always got Mao's approval for the major
ones. *
Chou may have been exorcising very strong influ-
ence on Mao during Snow's visit, Lin's role, after all,
was hidden, and it was impossible to judge how much he
personally contributing to Mao's thinking. Chou's
hand was readil.y visible, in several of the domestic
policies and foreign policy initiatives developing from
the Ninth Party Cong,ress. One could be pretty sure that
Chou in general. liked the way in which Chinese policy
was devc:lop]n;, aft:cr that Congress, whereas one. could
only surniso that the same considerations that impelled
Mao and Chou to move in that direction moved Lin too,
or, at least, that 1?:ll:.:t'(.'vCr was all right l?:i..ll Mao was
all right with l,i. f,ii(.llful servant Lin.
PI'2.02' Lu S)I(" 1.J'a t?i?ci.t, there WCv^ C)IU
f2,07I Chou thlat? he aiearad his ?);;portant dcc;.t)CY.^
with 1)oth 1:a0 and L?)?, a)IC;, ? )l d??::
f ' CI?iaaioua and )I F:'.^t ^f
IJ
?.t11 r.)?~,,;. ii )l aat C11ou had omr't'1,7c;z t'h ~?
h?:mI ,'?7..,l' ar,cl 1. t'
r - fril:' I :i r Lc 0.~, cppr~:t?(z? (pr~,r:Itlr,u?i.
1ao ~, 1)c); iL'1,' Lin"..) of a dI'a?r't? 02, 01'01 a,-,,
1)n v?'r- cr.')IC7?z1d?.)IR it .
:Tice: I t'' Of JIC i?)7t'J v)IG'.'J b i)1? i. , ChL,,<
ltaa r1^;d t l;at C0pta ;i daa?'a cin,. r?:ada b,l hi?r?t l.1' and
(.i 'r'1_ ,,,, l1
,.rd by !? rla, and C1: , JIB;
? c.u
been d-,*Y.( r't l';i to C07Ielad.^
IJ'1:2 11!%:l t t?;ilr) r QJ)7:?'' ?C7. ji 2a CO)IG'C1I!iTl)1 (`
that all t.lii.a ht: is `crce
' . , but. that not '((?);
t ll(r i.). ) r a:: i. On of c 1
1 f C)'i!i")'a t))i 112 C., t. ..~
i t it n o t hr a, i ci,' r! J' t l~ I a Ii)ri I c)'. `
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Policy Toward the US: D}cto took the, lead, in
i i tall:; akai, 1; .ti cl,ir. ifyinl; Peking's policy
toward the US: to continue to explore the possibilities
for an improvcmCnt in Si.no-American relations at the
gov'ernn;n'nt level (at; in late 1969) , but to emphasize
initiatives which would mobilize the American people
against their govcrtuncnt (as suggested by Mao in his
May 1970 stat.emcnt and reportedly "decided" on by the
August-Septeriber 1970 Party plenum) . Mao made much
claarer his view -- almost certainly Chou's too --
that improvc.mc.nt in relations at the govcrnmn-lit level
would be most t il;cly to derive from cytItal-^tr I~r(~s,~urc on
t hc: US governulcnt .
Snow in his pubi.i ::he'd art..icl c:; rctp()rtcd that 1`1r,o
"pl a(; 'd M J1,11 hopes" on the American people (cis his M iy
1970 stat.ement. had sttc.gcsted) but did not expect a
.evolution in America in the near future. He quoted
Mao to t.hc' effect that Peking (mcanti;hii ) was con-~id.cring
admitting to China Americans of all political inclinations,
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and that he (Mao) would be happy to receive President
Nixon. Mao tool: note that the Taiwan problem -- the
central issue in Si.no-American relations -- was not
of Mr. Nixon's making; but one created by earlier ad-
ministrations,
Snow reported publicly Chou J,.at-tai's rcrtark;. in
extension of Mao's, Chou too expressed "friendl%- feel-
inl;a for the Anct?ican peeople'' (hckins, had always
profs :,. c c'. those i, said that American "i ricnd of Chin;:"
would always bo welcome (unlike Mao, he did not
s
uJ;+;cst
that all kinds of Americans would he welcome), and noted
the Possibility of an American "revolution" without
ins}ic;at inJ, any early expectation of it.. Chou too thought:
that, the encouragement of domestic (as well as intcr?-
nat i ona 1) pressu e on th US govcsrui ent was the prof i tab] c
line in the short: or run, and he t.oa emph :.i~cd the
probieem of Taiwan. Ile was pleased with in l'ekirig's
international position and with the progress ivc isolation
of :fuel of the US and Japan on the Tait;an is:,uc,
but recogni:,cd that the US position was the crucial
one . C}iou dc:--c.1- ihod the '1'a it?;an prohl cm as the reason
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1.1 , %.).IN I , .1.
why Sino-American talks had made` so little progress
in their 15 years, and insisted that the US recogni::c.
Ta iwan as an inalicnahie part of the People's Rcpub ] is
of China and wwrithdraw its forces from Taiwan and the
Taiwan Strait, after which China and the US could
co-exist on the basis of Peking's "five, principles."*
Chou again insist.cd (a lint from the Bandung period)
that the status of Taiwan was not negotiable,
being; an "internal." affair, but that Peking was willing
to negotiate an American withdrawal . He emphasi zed
that any improvement in Sine -Americ;.in relations at
the government 1evcl depended on the "earnestness"
with which lt'a:;):i.n,;ton approached the Taiwan problem.
In sum, Snow found Mao to be in pretty good
shape and still the dominant figure, Chou to have a
much larger and more important role than in 1965,
and Mao and Chou to be united in prophesying, success
for. ''people.':; ciip1omacy'' town rd the US in the next
year or ti:e while ett :ittg; hard conditions for an
iml-ro; ci < lit in state relations.
called for a 1/, withdra',?a7; t1:2
point on 11:' rcco,r,-?i.tion of Tai:.tan a;? on in a7,:r>;a. c part
of thr P1'C had b(-c?: implied but not ,ado cxpl.icit.
In cffret , thu: , Chou war here a. king
price.
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TheMao-Chou Din li))t. Lin' , 111 ' tus 5Lrin>> 1971
During the spring of 1971, Poking continued to
carry out a mixed bag of domestic policies, radical and
moderate, doctrinaire and pragmatic, which either derived
from Mao's earlier pronouncements or were attributed to
new directives from hin, Some of these were almost
certainly the product of the thought and influence of
Chou En-lai. Party rebuilding around PLA leaders
proceeded steadily, with the main beneficiary appearing
to be Lin Piao. A striking initiative in "people's
diplomacy" -- in which Chou's influence seemed especially
strong -- raised hopes for an improvement in relations
between Peking and Washington, but. Chinese conditions
for an improvement on the state level remained hard.
The status of several Chinese leaders seemed to hc,
clarified in the period, while that of other:; remained
to :c'I'ta i)) or became so.
A 1)or)o l is Min ;),d Party hOwiId inn it was poc
s.i.blr, as_dcriu)i: G& Ad- i.n Peop,ln"s Paiiv or) the fifth
anniversary of Mao's '7 May-UrcGt iVE;'`'to treat most
of the regime's domestic policies under the rubric of
"revolut.ionization" as defined by Moo. The ''reveluticm-
ization of the PLA" referred mainly to its saturation
in Mao's thought, its involvement in all kinds of non-
military activity, and its preparation:, for ''people's
War." 1he "educational rovolul.ion" included the ;Maoist
content of the courses, the non-intollectuc:l or even
anti - int cl l ec?tual character of teachers and students,
the combi))n.tion of study and labor. The "ideoloc,icni
revolut ioni at ion of the people" meant the class
strugg1c, the emphasis.; on ideological incentives in
promoting production, the "struggle-criticism-transforna..
tion" with its examinations and purges, and the re-
education of cadres and intellectuals in the 7 May
schools and the countryside. And in treating Party-
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;i11;('1t1;'1'
rebuilding, it was possible to emphasize No's standards
for "revolutionary successors," the concurrent purging
of the Party and the rigorous examination of candidates.
But China's reconstruction could be viewed in
less dramatic terms, even by some Chinese officials.
The Chinese leader:; could be seen as concerned mainly
with restoring order (militarizing Chinese society in
the process), rebuilding the educational system to
reduce the distance between the intellectuals and the
masses, indoctrinating everyone with old-fashioned
virtues such as hard work and self-reliance and self-
sacrifice, steadily strengthening the military est.ablish-
mont, at temptini, to strengthen the economic base through
administrative decentralization and regional self-
sufficiency (with "preparations against war" now
important chieFly as an ideological incentive to pro-
mote production), streamlining and restn.ffing the
cents!, I yovr)?=-nt, and - ? most ii er. t ant .l )' -- rebu i.l d i ag
the Party Opp::?otu._ around rsilitacv Ieadors believed to
be )q)-al hut l:no.;n to he conservative.
Party roboilding proceeded steadily, if not quite
as rapidly as expected (the last four provincial commit-
tees were not formed until late August). Whatever the
role of Chou En-isi in this process, -- as do fa lu
secretary-general he probably assembled the'sc 00i.?:tres
for the approval of Mao and Lin -- the main beneficiary
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still seemed to be Lin Piao,* The trend apparent early
in the year -- the priming of military leaders to head
the majority of the new provincial and major municipal
Party Commi ttces, and all. of the most important of them --
was strong throughout the spring. The related trend -- of
the increasing movement of military figures into key
positions in the re-emerging central Party apparatus and
central. governmental machinery -- also continued through
the spring, although the military did not seem to domi.nate
the central structure of power to the degree that they did
the structure nut; iciO. Peking, **
G'livri-w>ur. the main beneficiary of one important campaign.
The investigation, pursuit: and extermination of the 5/16
Grc'uj> -- who ihcr viewed in torn., of "c lae. c etrugr 1 e, )) Za'1-
a))d'?t>rdr.l', or ri z:f'n ;r ta;:en b;p Cliou end hi,-
on, ~; nc?;`ctfc,
07c.r t:crr.,:?:: cc>nt?inucd intc r:;iAvel.?>. It z,, acs
017d JI'voyr, the
top of the Party ~o br .7 c Part,, end
tion3. It. pr[bi?ro o.+r+1 m.i1 it;i7')' f'luures. -- but the PLA 1eadrrs
who had .ovally supisr,t'ted Mao and Lin at that time
could not be expected to acquiesce now in another large-
scalc: purge. It svem ?d likely that if the present
leaders of the PLA were to see another purge on that
scale shaping up, they would make common cause against
Mao -- rind that they would prevail. Since mid-1907, Mao
himself had seemed to show a good sense of his dependence
on 1 ho 1'(.:',, and s reeled to have no wish to conduct another
large-:?i?;+It purge of it.
Assuming that Mao dad not live long enough to
try to carry out his threat of ;another Cultural
Revolution, the prospect seemed to be for Mao to continue
as the dominant figure so long as his health held.
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While there was no Stalin
vi.siblc in the current Chinese leadership, a Chinese
leadership under a deteriorating Mao could not be
expected to behave like the leadership tinder a healthy
and awe-in:.piring Mao; various "radical" features of the
currc wl' scene could he expected to diminish.
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S]Wl:.1 I.1'
Lin Pico: There way, a reasonable doubt at to
whether LiiT7'-igh.i-le second-ranking, was truly second in
importance. This doubt derived from Lin's long disappear.
antes, the poor impression he made when he did appear,
the possibility that he was seriously ill, and the
relative difficulty of demonstrating Li.n's influence (as
distinct from Mao's) on policy -- whereas Chou En-lai
was furiously active and seemed almost tireless,
dazzled almost everybody, and, on his record, was
easier to associate with the relatively moderate
policies since the Ninth Congress than Lin was.
But the disappearances in themselves did not.
really matter, as that was Lin's style, just as it was
Mao's, and Lin was thought to be working with Mao most
of the time that he was out of sight. The poor impression
did not seem to greatly matter, either (many effective
leaders, c.g.Stal in, were not physically or socially
impressive), unless it did indeed reflect a serious
ills. This scericd the most onc.ertn in factor in the
ca.lculat .icons: of tlt:.>5c observers (including the present
writer) who bel:tcted that Lin would indeed be Mao's
successor.
It had sowctime y been possible to see Lin in
action -- acting effectively and decisively, even
repelling initiatives by other lenders. For example,
Lin had givens impressive performances at the August 1966
plenum that reorpani7ed the leadership, at the October
3.PO h >, cnnferenee that told regional and provincial.
1ea0r:, what r.uuld he demanded of them, in the period
following the Wuhan Incident in which the central CRG
had sought a larger purge of the PLA leadership, in the
period of the Yang Cheng-wu case in which CRG l.cadcrs
had again called for a larger purge, in the entire course
of reor;ani zing the PIA, and in the course of l'arty-
rchuildinq after Mao had given him (and Chou) this
respensibi.1 it.y.
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S1.?CR 1!,'1'
Lin 'S influence since 1968 had been more often
visible in personnel appointments than in policy. As
a result of these, appointments, Lin's position in the
structure of power seemed to be very strong and growirg
stronger. As argued in previous papers, Lin over-
whelmingly dominated, through his proteges, the central
military leadership in Peking and the powerful military
region headquarters (the only regional authorities).
Arid he had more recently come to dominate through his
proteges the most important of the provincial Party
committees, and several of the less important, and other
proteges and comrades were moving increasingly into key
positions in the contra) Party and government structures.
This (lid not scorn to be coincidental.. Lin seemed to
be working deliberately -- with Chou Iln-lai's apparent
consent and assistance, and with Mao's presumed approval
-- toward a position in which he could dominate
the decision-making process and policy-implementing
machinery 'after Mao's death.
It'was tho::g;tlt that there would he neater
limi?tationn on lain Piaao as Mao's succes or than there
were on Mau. Lacking ;tea's charisma, Lin would probably
be unable to go as far in a radical direction as Mao had
gone and still could go. And there would be the same
basic limitation: Lin like Mao would be heavily
dependent on his PLA comrades, and in a poor position to
undertake any large-scale purge of them in a now
Cultural Revolut ir,~i? Lin's choice of both allies and
enemies hi:. sees,iiagly good relations with Chou
and conservative military men, and his seemingly poor
relations with the radicals of the CRC -- suggested
that he was not so predis=posed to radical pol icies
as Mao. And he had shown an even stronger sense of
his dependence on the PL:1 -- as witness his behavior
in the wake of the 1h1'uhan Incident and the Yang Cheng-
wu ra:;c. It was thought even possible that. Lin had
departed from Mao's policy on those occasions -- not
in the sense of defying Mao (nobody had got away with
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S1, G.v1"I I
that) , but in heading off two initiatives which Mao
did not oppose and would have let develop. If so,
Lin's military comrades had additional reason to be
loyal. to him.*
The prospect for Lin seemed to be the sane as
for Mao: that he would dominate the Party, within more
restricted limits than those on Mao, so long as his
health held.
'~ 1'hc~re lead Leon come development in the prevent 25X1
writer'.- sense of Lin Piao. In the fi.r:;t examination:
of the rcerirri (Ztt4'.~?, Lin had looked like a true klaoi:;t
in hc;t~h ::ence of t1v term:, not only loyal to Mao
per,-c>>tcz1 "c;;, but predi'; po;.cd to be rodicu1 and militant
to the Lamo de=rma that Mao himself was ::o predi.; posed,
and seeming to chow little concern for his military
comrades. In the second examination, l.'oking Zees at
what Lin had said and more at the pattern of his
relationships (e. g. his apparently clear preference
for Chou and his mi l i t ar comrades over the radical;;
of thr. {'h"r"), it )v.'d doubt f'ul that Lin was in
fact as j: acit:rp rc-a to bc? ro.di?cal and militant as Mao
was. rn the third examination, with the benefit of
additional materials, the record acemed to support a
probability judgment: Lin was not as radical and
militant as Mao was. Moreover., bin's behavior, at ?thooe
times when the CRC leaders rcuoht a larger purge of the
PLA, teemed to give him relatively good marks in
protecting his military comrades (those he believed
loyal to Mao and to hims?elf) against the initiativcr, of
thou: more radical and militant- than himsc Z f.
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Chou fin-lai : A good case could be made for
Chou raLTicr n as the successor: on the grounds
of his intelligence, his wide experience and great
ability, his popularity (even with Lin's proteges and
comrades), and his strong positions in the Party apparatus
and government machinery. But Chou had apparently
made the fund,vnental decision of his life more than 35
years before, at the Tsunyi conference: to support
Mao, rather than to bid for first place himself. And
he had indeed supported Mao ever since, at every turn.
As another observer had said, there had never been,
and there was not now, a "Chou faction," in the sense
of a Chou-led group seeking Chou's advancement at the
expense of Mao.
To judge from his behavior in the Cultural
Revolution (especially the course of Party rebuilding)
Chou extended that decision to include Lin: to work
feitlifully for Liri, to do his best for him.
The Lin-Chou relationship had seemed to be a
g,pod one. They were temperamentally different types,
and there was nothing in the record to indicate a close
personal friendship. But the record seemed to show that
they had worked well together: that after 1966 (when
certain difference, had been apparent) they had played
mutually supporting roles in the Cultural Revolution,
and had cooperated closely in Party-building, giving
preferment in genera] to those with records of successful
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SI X1I:1E,' l'
leadership rather than to ideologues and exhorters.*
In matters of policy, Li.n's predispositions, if less
radic?~I than Mao's seemed more radical. than Chou's, but
Chou was expected to exert a very strong influence on
Lin through the frill range of policy, and to have virtual ly
a free hind in the conduct of foreign Policy. In other
words, Lin appeared to recognize his dependence on Chou
for manal'emeht just as he recognized his dependence on
the PLA for power. Chou's influence, like that of Lin's
military comrades, seemed likely to move Liii in a moderate
direction -- that is, toward the right side of the range
of Maoist policies to which Lin had sworn fidelity.
Thus the prospect for Chou seemed what it had
always been: to remain the indispensable man, with
strong influence on the chairman.
if Lin and C1,;,u had eer,
t~rrk7:r.,~ QCIai.1',^t each other, there sht-uld have been Or.
ei n of it. 217 the I>1' ^I ions two or t1121ee ?,earn, when each
had had direct access to Mao and thus an opportunity
to argue that the other was trying to build an "indcpendcn
kingdom. " But in fact Chou's role had been enhanced,
and ha had apj;'arently bean using this larger role, in
Party-building, to put together the kind of Party that
would br Mr,. -!t urn. fu? to Lin as, the nucc ssor, This
c ot'1(' to be regarded by i'?-ac as an
"i?td(:pf--:ndvnt kingdom" (premature pvwa),, in this case),
but Mao seamed to want to leave his designated successor
in the strongest possible position.
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s]?,CR E':r'
The. Po Iit:huro Staticl.inj;Conimi-ttec: As suggested
above, T1aohail alwciys; secincdto be at trc center of
the decision-making process, as he told Snow: pointing,
the direction and signing the directives; and with the
dominance to carry other Party leaders with him at
whatever point he made up his mind. Iiowever, Mao
had probably not reached Iii.s most important decisions
in isolation; he had consulted Lin Piao (believed to be
almost constantly with him) and Chou En-1ai (lii.s principal
executive), he had operated through the standing committee
of the Politburo, and he had sometimes worked through
the full (voting) Politburo.
The organizational. core of power in China was
the Politburo standing comniittce, not the full Politburo.
This was because the standing committee was empowered to
act or the Politburo when the Politburo was not in
session, and the Politburo was not often in session, In
practice, this meant that the Politburo standing committee
made those dcci sion s which the Party's officers
(Mao and Lin) had not already matic, including the
decisions as to which policy matters to pass on to the
full. (voting) politburo for a vote or for discussion.
In other words, the Politburo did not even consider a
policy matter unless the Politburo standing committee
wanted it to do so. The Politburo standing committee
also set up and supervised the entire Party apparatus,
including the Military Affairs Committee which for some
years hr;d bc- n the most important. component of it.
Between the end of 1966 and the winter of 1909-70,
the Po] itburo standing committee had consisted of the Big
Three of Mao, Lin and Chou, plus Chen Po-ta and Xang
Shen};, the two ranking leaders of the central CI:G. Tllis
meant that there were four left-iticlincd leaders (Mao, Lin,
Chen and };ant;) and only one right-inclined leader (Chou)
in the organizational core of porker. As it had turned
out, however, Chen and hang had takers up positions which
Mao defined as ultra-left and unacceptable, and they it
decline was almost certainly due in part to opposition
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which they offered in the meetings of this standing;
cominittc'e to the pol ic. icn; fclvorcd by 14,10, Lin rind Chou.
Thus since the winter of 1969-70 or tlrcrc:lbout:s the
effective standing c:olmnit.toc had consisted of 14,10, Lin
and Chou, whethar operrtt.irlg; formally as the three
remaining active members of the standing; committee or
just meeting; informally as three old comrades who had
worked well together for more than 35 years. Chen
Po-ta had probably been officially dropped from the
standing; committee, and Kang Sheng, while perhaps
nominally still a member, was probably not active in
th:i s role. Char and Kang; probably had been or were
soon to be replaced by one or two other figures.
The composition of this standing committee was
an important matter, particularly under a leader less
personally dominant than Mao. The rcpiaccment or
replacements for Chcn and Kang would presumably be
drrawr1lfrorl the four or five next-rrrtr);irrg figures on the
POl.i.t}DIur'o -- thclt is, from among Madalnc Mao (of the old
cent l;; 1 }lu:culg; Tung;- n;hc. ng, (Li nn' s C/S) , Chang
Chun.?'chlao and Yao I'l?cai-yti:rn (the two officcrn: of the old
C0nt:':c1 (:RG nc?:t -rrrnl:.it-g; to Ch it, Kang; and Madame Mao),
and perhaps Li Ilsion-nian (Chou's principal vice-
premier) . The leading candidate looked to be Iluang
Yung-shcng;, a Longtime protege and friend of. Lin Pi.ao
and apparently close to Chou En-lai as well. There
seemed better than an even chance that 11u;ing; was
already a do facto mcrber of the standing committed.
The FullPal i.thtaro: i'he role of the full.
Politburo, as suggested above, was whatever Mao, Lin
and Chou wanted it to be. They did not heave to call
it into scs ;ion at. all, they did not have to submit
policy questions to a vote, and they could probably
revcrn;e any vote by mal::ing; clear their cli spl~rln;tare
with it Mid rCSUbilittlrlg the question. It'hiIc thcrc
was no record that the Politburo had ever actually voted,
it may have, and it seemed 1ikc.ly'that Mao had scianrtirnc:
used it as a genuine di:;c'asn;ion grcup and had bci?rl
influenced by it.
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\).I 0\/.ISJ.4 I.
As previously argued, tlhe Pol i tburo was probably
of greater importance as a sounding-board and discussion
group than as a voting; body. It was well-composed to
discuss almost any political or military matter, but:
only Chou and L.i Ilsien-nien were qualified to speak to
economic matters; it may have been Lill 's intention to
add some younger economic special i.sts (ex-PI.A leaders).
The Central Party Apparatus: Peking had told the
world very~~L-t.lc~,il~out ~LrTic 'r-eii Trging central Party
apparatus below the Politburo level.
The best.-known component was tl'e Military Affairs
Committee (MAC), which was responsive directly to the
Politburo standing committee and which controlled the
PLA, Apart from Lin Piao as the de facto chief (Mao was
the chairman) and three vice inactive), the
officers of the MAC had not been identified for more
than three years. Ilowever, the key figures (the MAC
standing comm i ttce members) were believed to he more or
less tho reported in 1.961), with one dropped and one
added, Of the nine in add .1 t ion to Lin himself, seven
were Iongt ime proteges of L.in -- associated with him in
their early careers, given preferment by him after he became
the military chief in 1959, an'] chosen for his cl i to team
in the (:u].tural Revolution. Some of these men had long been
close to Huang Yung-sheng as well.
The only )'arty organ below the level of the Polit-
buro standing committee with the potential to be as power-
ful as the MAC already was would be a now Party secretariat.
As noted previously, the cent.ra- Cl,,(; had reportedly functioned
as the do facto secretariat after mid-19(6, but the new
Party c:oiis:titution of 1969 had made no provision for a new
secretariat and the CRC had gone out of business in or
about winf.er 1009-70.
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'there had been no chic to whether Chou 13n-lai as
the do facto secretary-general of the Party was working
wit11^'cino 1icr de facto secretariat -- each member of which
would have the responsibility for one large area of
concern -- or was simply working through the re-
emerging central departments of the Party, keeping
the work of coordination in his own hands. If a do facto
secretariat existed, it was thot.ght to include some those leaders of the old central CRG still in favor
(e.g. Yao WC11-yuan, a propaganda specialist, and Wang
Tung-hsing, a political security specialirt), some key
figures of the MAC (e.g. Ych Chien-ying, a military-
political coordinator and Chou's longtime friend, and
IN Pa-hsien, the head of special organs for political
security work in the PLA during the Cultural )1evolution),
and the longtime economic coordinator Li 11sien-nien (Chou's
vice-premier and personal friend).
The only other Party organ rcgar.cicd as directly
responsive to the Politburo standing committee in recent:
years had been a do facto political security directorate
-- never demonstrated-t.a _'exist -- under Kang Sheng,
llsich Fu-chih and Wang Tung-hsi.ng. With the decline
of Kang and incapacitation of Ilsich, and especially if
a dc facto secretariat existed, this directorate (if it
ex ted of all) may well have gone out of business.
The most important of the central departments
-- that is, of those Party organs operating just below
the level of those that reported to the Politburo
standing committee -- was still the General. Political
Department, concerned with indoctrination and surveillance
of ;A he PLA. Answerable to the MAC administrative
unit and to Chou En-lai, its officers -- Director Li
Te-sheng and six known or conjectured deputies -- were
of course career PLA officers. Li, not a longtime
protege of Lin Piao, was apparently chosen to head, this
very sensitive department on his excellent record in
the Cultural Revolution.
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Only a few of the other central departments of
the Party had been reported as active again, and only
a few of their officers had been identified. 11owever,
of the few identified and reported officers and of the
many other persons known to be working in the central
apparatus in unspecified posts, there was a very high
proportion of ILA officers.
The staff office was known to be operating, with
broad responsibilities in the Party's administrative
and political security work. Its director was perhaps
still Wang Tung-hsinlg, Mao's man, but its only recently-
identified officer was a PLA leader, Yang Tc-chung.*
Another PLA leader might have taken over the section
charged with the physical. security of Party leaders.
The director of the staff office was likely to head
concurrently any resurrected Party committee for organs
subordinate to the Central Committee.
No nci,' political security department (a current
version of the old social affairs department) had been 25X1
idc'nt i f i ed , although the. "spec: i al inye s tiga t ion cgroups"
called for by Mao in 1962
were presumably Hart o such a department. it 25X1
might have been formed by degrading the political
security directorate discussed above. Wang Tung-hsing
may have been heading this department, whether concur-
rently with the staff office or not. Other possibilities
as officers were two of the few security specialists,
surviving the Cultural rcvulution (Yu Sang and Feng Ilsuan).
The once highly important organization department,
all of the leaders of which were purged in the Cultural
Revolution, had not been surfaced but had been reported
in operation. Its director was said to be a little-
known PLA officer from the northeast (Kuo Yu-feng,
possibly a protege of a Lin protege). Another officer
was said to be Kant; Sheng's wife, Tsao I-ou, who may have
headed the higher Party School concurrently
'ang k)rc cup ---c(Iucntly identified as atilt the director
of the at(zf f of,ficeC.
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DEJUIS.L' .L
The propaganda department, all of the leaders of
which h:-cl been purged, was another department which
had not been surfaced but seemed to be in operation.
Yao Wen-yuan of the old central CIW had been surmised
to supervise or head this department; if not Yao, the
head was probably a PLA officer. Snow had found PLA
men to dominate the propaganda apparatus at every level
encountered, and, of a group of six recently-identified
directors of central propaganda organs likely to be
officers of the propaganda department, four were PLA
officeers. *
The international liaison department, dealing
with foreign Communist Parties and highly important
in the conduct of foreign policy, was known to be
operating, headed by Keng Piao, a longt .~.ane protege of
Chou En-lai. Most of the apparent deputies were old
cadres, but some were PLA officers.
The relatively unimportant united front depart-
ment had been the first to be surfaced, but none. of its
officer.. had been identified. The likely candidates were
mostly old cadres.
None of the departments of the "production" area
of the central. Party apparatus --? e.g. economic planning,
finance and trade, industry and commerce, rural wort. --
had been identified or reported. The experience of the
PLA in supervising and performing such tasks in recent
years -- together with the trend in staffing government
ministries -- suggested that most of the officers of
"production" departments would be military men.
'lhou Ti-Zvi oa: later to coy that Yea crcpcrvieed
all propaganda organ;-; thin could have been from above
or within this department.
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There were about 1.50 persons working in the
central Party apparatus whose names but not posts had
been given by Peking, and whose departments had not
been otherwise identified or surmised. Of these,
more than half of those whose backgrounds were known
were PLA officers.
Thus the visible Party apparatus below the level
of the Politburo, the MAC, and any de facto secretariat
was dominated by military men, and mast. oTthe rest of
it: was expected to turn out to he. Apart from the
officers of the MAC, few of these military men were
known to be longtime proteges of Li.n Piao. But ].in
and Chou seemed to be acting together to assemble a
central. Party apparatus which would be reliably responsive
to Lin as Mao's successor, or, if Lin too were out of
the picture, to be responsive to Chou and Huang Yung-
sheng as the likely successors.
The Central. Government Mnchincrv: The central
government macnxner} sho; cil` the saute _ifipact of the PI.A
and seemed headed in the same direction. here again,
Chou En-lai had not used his dominant position as
Premier to give the leading positions predominantly to
his own proteges or to restore former proteges who fell
in the Cultural Revolution, but had assembled a stripped-
down machine in which military men held most of the
leading post.:.
The trend toward military domination of the
government machinery had been evident since the start
of the Cultural Revolution. The MAC had long had control
of the Ministry of National Defense and of the National.
Defense Scientific t; Technological Commission (R & 1) of
advanced weapons), and early in the Cultural 12cvolut ion
had taken possession of the National Defense Industries
Office (production of all advanced weapons), coordinating
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the work of all of the ministries of machine building*;
and military control. commissions had been given "super-
visory" authority over almost all central government organs,
including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Chou En-tai
as premier had been hyperactive, without PLA supervision
except through Lin Piao on the Politburo standing
committee, and with Li lisien-nien as his principal deputy.
None of th^:- old staff offices, coordinating the work
of the var3.ous kinds of ministries, had been reported
as back in business. Many of the ministries had been
merged, and some ministries and commissions had been
abolished. As things stood in August, some 26 ministries
and commissions had been reported by Peking as active
again. Of the 26, the leading groups of two, National
Defense and Foreign Affairs, were well known. Lin
dominated the former directly and through his proteges,
and Chou dominated the latter through his proteges,
although several PLA figures had been added to the MFA
The heads of l;? others had been identified. of
25X1
those, .vcn were PLA officers, who (judging from the one
observed case) retained their PLA affiliation and wore
their uniforms. Many other military men appcared in
the lists of functionaries of unidentified departments
of the State Council (central government), and many
of these were expected to appear in key posts in the
ministries and commissions thus far surfaced and yet to
be surfaced. In sum, as was found to be the case with
the central. Party apparatus, most of the visible central
government ri;ehinery below the level of. Chou and his vice-
premiers was dominated by military men, most of the rest
was expected to be, and Chou seemed to be assembling a
government machine which would be responsive to Lin as
well as to himself.
hA ycur^ r, t:ho ND10 was returned to State Council
:but the 1MiAC kept conirol of the mini; try
conccrned with
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51;UKL .L'
The greatest interest in the central government
machinery was of course in those key positions which
it was expected -- would be announced by the NPC
in the near future. It was possible that Mao would
decide to be chairman of the PI1C again (a post which, it
was now Ialown, he sought to relinquish before the failure
of the Leap Forward, but which many observers had seen
as a demotion) or Lin might take it to further case
the transition. Several old-timers were eligible to
replace Chu '1'e as the head of the NPC standing committee.
But it did not seem Eo matter who held these ceremonial
posts. It seemed virtually certain that Chou would
continue as premier (there was no one else who could
do this job -- by far the most important in the government
-- anything like as well), and that a protege of Chou's
(such as acting minister Chi Peng-fei) would be named
Minister of Foreign Affairs, despite rumors that Mao's
man Yao.Wen-yuan would get this post. (Yao would
seem unsuited to flexible diplomacy.) Lin Piao was
expected to continue to dominate the Ministry of National
1)efen:,e, through a protege such 1I s lluang Yung-sheng if
Lin did not want to keep the post himself. If the staff
offices were resalrrect:cd, men close to Lin were expected
to appear at the head of at least those concerned with
machine-building (weapons) and with internal security.
As for specific ministries and commissions, proteges of
Lin were expected to head the Scientific $ Technological
Commission, the Ministry of Seventh Machine-building
(missile:,: a Lin protege was already in this post.),
and the Mini.1trv of Public Security. Aside from this,
it seemed that l.in could afford to give Chou a free
hand in naming the heads of staff offices and ministries
and commissions, secure in the knowledge that Chou would
name the best men he could find, whether PLA leaders
or old Party and government cadres.
The Provincial. Part} A; paratus: The provincial
Party apparatus -- that is, the new Party committees in
the 26 provinces and three major muni:.ipalities -- had
shown the same pattern of domination by the military that
had 1:, yen seen in the revolutionary committees that pre-
{ R" " 1,
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ceded t.heni and were now subordinate to them, and in the
visible portion of the central Party apparatus and
central government machi.nery. Of the 29 committees,
20 were headed by career PLA officers (12 commanders,
eight polit:i ail officers, all of whom had apparently
retained their military posts concurrently), seven by
old Party cadres (mostly serving as political officers
concurrently), and two by men who had devoted much of
their careers to security work of various kinds. In
most of the provinces :n which the first secretary was
an old Party cadre rather than a career PL/1 officer,
the next two ranking secretaries were career military
men. In only one case was there a representative of
mass organizations ;revolutionary youth) among the three
ranking secretaries of the new committee.
The composition of the secretariats of the new
provincial Party committees was not radically different
from the composition of the revolutionary committees
which they had displaced as the principal governing
bodies.. In the great majority of cases, the new first
secrctr4-y had been the chairman of the revolutionary
committee, and the other secretaries had been officers
of it. In most of the few exceptions to this pattern,
the old head of the revolutionary committee had
proved unable to deal effectively with factional activity
and had been removed from his post some months or
even years before the new Party committees were formed.
This question of the composition of the new Party
committees was almost certainly one of those that had got
Chen Po-ta and Kang Sheng into trouble. 1''hcrcas Mao
had originally envisaged rehabilitated Party cadres as
the leading elements of the new Party committees and
as late as spring 1969 seemed to be calling for an
upgrading of the position of representatives of mass
organi.:ati.ons, his main concern had apparently come to
be the establishment of an effective governing apparatus
at the provincial level, which meant the domination of
the new Party committees by military leaders and the
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virtual exclusion of the young revolutionaries who had
pers.istecl in "factional" activity. By autumn 1.969, the
central CRG was being asked to confirm in their leading
positions the military men whom they had most offended,
and to cut away their own political base. With the
assignment of Party-rebuilding; to Lin Piao and Chou
En-lai in late 1969 or early 1970, Chen and hang were
on the way out, and were finished by n'id-1970.
The new Party committees strikingly displayed
proteges of Lin Piao in the most important posts. Even
more markedly here than in his reconstruction of the
central Party apparatus, Chou seemed to be self-
abnegating and to be doing his best for the designated
successor.
Of the 29 provinces and major municipalities, 11
-- ten provinces and Peking -- contained the headquarters
of military regions (MRs). Of these 1.1 strategic
committees, seve1.1 were headed by protege:, of Lin Piao,
and in the other four cases proteges of Li.n ranked
second or third among the secretarics.* In seven of
these most important committees (Kiangsu, Kiwwangtung,
Liaoning, llupei, Fukien, Shantung, Sinkiang), proteges
of Lin, headed two (Ki.angsi and Tsinghai), old cadres
who had worked for Lin in the past and whom he may have
sponsored more recently headed two others (llonan and Hopei),
~In one of the; e four cases -- the Yunnan committee --
a longtime protege of Lin was scheduled to become the
first secretary of the new Party committee but died sud-
denly (possibly by assassination) in December 1370; his
deputy wac: then named first secretary, a protege of a
Lin protege was moved in from another area to take the
post of second secretary, and an "old friend" of Lin's
was named to the third spot.
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the proteges of Lin proteges headed two (Kwcichow and
Ile 11ungkiang) , and there were Liri proteges; among the
lesser figures of one of these (Ilopci) and four others
(Hunan, Kwangsi, Kirin and Tientsin). In eight of the
29 there were no visibl.c proteges of Lin's: Shanghai,
Anhwei, Chekiang, Shensi, Shansi, Inner Mongolia, Tibet,
and Ninghsia; in some of these cases, however, the leaders
included men singled out by Lin for special favor during
the Cultural Revolution. In only one case -- Shanghai --
was the new committee headed by someone who was a protege
of another primary leader (Mao), in this instance a
person probably uncongenial to Lin (Chang Chun-chino
of the old central CRG), but Shanghai ws not a base of
significant military power. While there was a striking'
absence of proteges of Chou En-lai in these provincial
and major municipal Party committees, this provincial
Party apparatus, like the central. Party apparatus and
central. government machinery, was expected to prove
responsive to Chou and others (e.g. Huang Yung-sheng) if
Lin were out of the p.ictuae.
The chief problem for Peking, with respect to
this new provincial ]'arty apparatus, s;een1ed to lie
in working out the relationship between the military
structure which had been the real governing apparatus
outside Peking for the past four years and the Party
structure which was eventually to replace it as the primary
instrument of command and control. For one thing, there
was no known party secretariat equivalent: to the MAC
to dir.Z---7j,-e party apparatus. At the provincial level,
Peking had of course reduced its problems in one sense
by giving the. great major=.ty of Party pests to PLA
leaders concurrently, but. it was uncertain which chain
of command-and-control they would obey. Moreover,
in the cases of those committees headed by old Party
cadres, it was at least questionable whether the military
leaders of the area who were in subordinate positions on
the Party committees Would accept the leadership of the
cadres rather than responding only to orders from the
MAC: and the MR commander:. Further, absence of a
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regional Party apparatus meant that the most important
figures outside Peking for some time to come would
continue to be the leaders of the MMR headquarters, who
could not be given orders by any provincial leader and
might regard themselves as entitled to give orders to
civilian provincial leaders.* However, whatever the
problems with chains-of-command and lateral relationships,
the provincial Party apparatus seemed to be one which,
in general, would work well for Lin and/or Chou.
The Leadership in Sum: As of summer 1971, Mao
was expected o continue to dominate the Chinese leader-
ship until his death or disablement, and to be able -- if
he so chose -- to reverse any of the current "moderate"
policies. He was not expected to attempt to carry out
another Cultural Revolution -- the only venture which
seemed likely to result in his overthrow. The Party,
governmental, and military structures were expected to
be generally responsive to him. Lin Piao was expected to
succeed, but not to dominate the leadership to the degree
that "lao had. Chou En-lai was expected to be even more
important to Lin than he had been to Mao, and to have even
more influence on Lin than he had had on "fao, holding
Lin more to the right than he had been able to hold Mao.
While there could be no guarantee that Lin and Chou would
work well together, they were expected to do so. The
military establishment which Lin had built was expected to
--5F-The corr,pcsiLon of the 11 1.11? headquarter:, was analyzed
in detail in earlier papery. It was concluded that nine
of the 11 were dominated by Lint; proteges and seemed
secure from Lin's putative point of view, and that of
the major 1:N only the Peking 1.11, still seemed to require
reor arziaati.on; since the time of writing, Lin :1'as thou