How the cultural revolution was used to attack Moa's political and class enemies

The attacks on Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping: Why were they removed from their posts?

• President Liu and Party General Secretary Deng were removed from their posts for ideological reasons

• The pragmatic approach they had used to good effect in extricating China from the Great Leap Forward was tolerated by Mao as a means to an end, but when they continued to advocate pragmatic policies

• Mao became convinced that the future of the revolution was not safe in their hands

• However, he could not act against them while both remained popular in the Politburo, and by entrusting Liu and Deng to oversee the ending of the rural crisis, Mao had ceded some of his grip on power to them

The attacks on Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping: Mao clashing with their views

Liu and Deng supported pragmatic economic policies and were less committed than Mao to a collectivist approach, which is why they had no qualms about allowing the restoration of private farming. Mao, however, continued to put great faith in advancing the revolution by mass mobilisation campaigns from below, unlike Liu and Deng, who preferred a top-down approach, where policies were imposed from above. This difference, which became clear during the Socialist Education Movement of 1963-64, was to resurface when student unrest took off in 1966.

The attacks on Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping: accusations against them

By late 1964, Mao was accusing Liu of taking the 'capitalist road; and Deng of acting independently, and although on the surface they appeared to be working together, once Mao felt he had built up enough support outside the Politburo, he was looking for the opportunity to strike against them.

The attacks on Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping: Mao’s support

By the end of 1965, Mao had the support he needed. He knew he could count on Lin Biao and the PLA, Jiang Qing and the Shanghai radicals, Chen Boda (who had control of propaganda) and Kang Sheng, the security chief. It was at this point, therefore, that he instigated the attack on Wu Han, to see if the power of Liu and Deng in Beijing could be shaken.

The attacks on Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping: Denunciation during the cultural revolution

In October 1966, following a Red Guard demonstration directed specifically at them, they were both formally dismissed from their positions within the government and Party. Wall posters appeared, naming and denouncing both Liu and Deng for betraying the revolution. The position of president, which Liu had held, was left vacant until being officially scrapped in 1969.

The attacks on Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping: impact on Liu

• Liu and his wife, Wang Guangmei, were dragged from their house and beaten by a jeering mob

• Liu was then forced to undergo a series of brutal struggle sessions, before being imprisoned in conditions deliberately intended to break his already fragile health

• He had diabetes, but when he also contracted pneumonia, he was refused permission to go to hospital

• He died in November 1969

The attacks on Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping: impact on Liu’s wife

• Wang was subjected to a humiliating interrogation before being paraded before a large crowd wearing a necklace of table tennis balls and a revealing skirt, which she was accused of having worn on a recent trip to Indonesia in order to seduce President Sukaro

• She was sentenced to death, but the verdict was not carried out because Mao intervened to save her

The attacks on Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping: impact on Deng

• Deng was less harshly treated, but was also subjected to public humiliation before being sent to perform corrective labour in a tractor factory in Jiangxi province

• He survived the experience and, thanks partly to his links with Zhou, he was rehabilitated into the Party in 1973

• His son, however, was left permanently paralysed when Red Guards threw him from an upstairs window

The attack on Lin Biao: Lin’s role in the party

• Lin had played a pivotal role in the Communist victory in the civil war, after which he had slowly risen up the political pecking order

• Only Mao stood above him in the army command structure after he replaced Peng Dehuai as defence minister in 1959, and he had used this power to politicise the PLA, abolishing ranks and using The Little Red Book to increase the level of political indoctrination

• Lin was the principal architect of the personality cult, and the PLA played a significant role in orchestrating the huge 1966 rallies

• Under Lin's guidance, the PLA became an even more radical force, which Mao could use to advance the revolution, and Mao showed his gratitude by insisting that Lin become his designated successor when Liu fell later that year

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The attack on Lin Biao: Lin being swept along with the tide of events

• It was only with reluctance that he was forced to accept elevation in 1966 only because the decision was passed by the Party Central Committee, and to refuse it would have been to end his career completely

• Although he was a central figure at the Tiananmen Square rallies, and undoubtedly helped to drive the Cultural Revolution forward, by urging the Red Guards to attack the 'four olds' and by working so closely with Jiang Qing, his role was mainly reactive - endorsing whatever Mao said, slavishly flattering him, but rarely taking the initiative after 1966

• Despite the obvious dangers to the stability of the PLA, he had allowed students in military academies to overthrow their military teachers during the radical period of the Red Guard movement, and had failed to support those PLA leaders who demanded a crackdown against the Red Guards in February 1967 - more evidence of his reactive rather than proactive approach

The attack on Lin Biao: poor health

• he often used health problems to explain why he delegated so many tasks to others and was reluctant to take on new responsibilities

• Among the wide range of ailments he suffered from was an acute fear of water, which prevented him from washing or eating fruit

• As he got older, he became more difficult to engage with, becoming distant and detached, even reclusive

The attack on Lin Biao: commander in chief

Once the radical phase of the Cultural Revolution was over, the PLA as a crusading force was less important to Mao, which made Lin's backing as its commander-in-chief less vital. However, Mao's decision to remove him was taken not because Lin had outlived his usefulness, but because he had become too popular.

The attack on Lin Biao: 1969 amendment to the Constitution

The 1969 amendment to the Constitution had confirmed Lin as Mao's successor, by which time he had the support of a substantial section of the Politburo. Mao, fearing that Lin might combine his military and political support to become a Chinese Bonaparte, began manoeuvring to undermine his position.

The attack on Lin Biao: Jiang Quing

• had fallen out with Lin over the extent of her interference in army matters

• In typical Mao fashion, he began his attack indirectly, by undermining the position of some of Lin's allies

• This started with Chen Boda, who was arrested and forced to make a self-criticism for factional behaviour

• As in Soviet Russia, being accused of belonging to a faction was regarded as potentially treacherous

• It was assumed that anyone doing so must be plotting with allies against the leader

The attack on Lin Biao: Military Affairs Commission

Mao continued his attack by gradually packing the Military Affairs Commission with his supporters, and then reorganising the Beijing early 1971, it must have been obvious to Lin that his position was untenable, but precisely what happened next remains unclear, because many of the official records that would have thrown light on it were destroyed immediately after Mao's death.

The attack on Lin Biao: how he died

The official version of events is that Lin and his son, Lin Liguo, were planning to assassinate Mao and then seize power in a military coup. When this was discovered, Lin and his entourage attempted to flee and take refuge in Russia, only for their plane to crash in the desert in Mongolia, killing all on board. While there seems little doubt that there was a plot being hatched, Lin's own contribution remains unknown. It may be that Lin Liguo, who was a high-ranking air force officer, instigated it, with his father only a reluctant participant. When details of the plot were passed to Zhou Enlai by Lin Biao's daughter, all chance of its success disappeared, hence the desperate flight towards Russia. It seems likely that the crash was an accident caused either by the pilot flying too low to avoid radar detection, or because they set off in such a hurry that they had taken on insufficient fuel

The attack on Lin Biao:

While the outcome of the affair removed a rival that Mao was in the process of purging anyway, it plunged him into a long period of depression, and his health never fully recovered. Not only was Lin the only political leader who had attempted to resist being purged, it was also difficult to package the news of his treachery without casting doubt on the credibility of the whole regime. Lin had been regarded by the public as Mao's principal supporter; he was his designated successor and he commanded the army. If Lin was revealed to have been a traitor, what else should the public disbelieve about the regime?

For this reason, news of Lin's fall was not released until 1972, and the following year, Jiang Qing launched an extensive media campaign to discredit Lin by accusing him of being a Soviet spy, who was masquerading as a man of the radical left. The public were called on to 'criticise Lin Biao and Confucius, the implication being that Lin was a modern reincarnation of Confucius and his reactionary ideas. For many Chinese, the fall of Lin Biao marked a turning point in their relationship with Mao, who came to be regarded with increasing scepticism. Inevitably, those who had been close to Lin were purged.

The attack on Lin Biao: Mao’s successor after Lin

Lin's fall also reopened the question of Mao's successor. There were no obvious candidates: Zhou was considered too old and too moderate to be entrusted with carrying the revolution forward; Jiang Qing had too many personal enemies; Zhang Chunquiao, another member of the Gang of Four, had shown leadership qualities, but had too narrow a support base. In this situation, factional rivalry increased, as potential candidates jockeyed to put themselves in a strong position from which to move when Mao died