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China The Militant Phase, 1966-68
By mid-1965 Mao had gradually but systematically regained
control of the party with the support of Lin Biao, Jiang Qing
(Mao's fourth wife), and Chen Boda, a leading theoretician. In late
1965 a leading member of Mao's "Shanghai Mafia," Yao Wenyuan, wrote
a thinly veiled attack on the deputy mayor of Beijing, Wu Han. In
the next six months, under the guise of upholding ideological
purity, Mao and his supporters purged or attacked a wide variety of
public figures, including State Chairman Liu Shaoqi and other party
and state leaders. By mid-1966 Mao's campaign had erupted into what
came to be known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, the
first mass action to have emerged against the CCP apparatus itself.
Considerable intraparty opposition to the Cultural Revolution
was evident. On the one side was the Mao-Lin Biao group, supported
by the PLA; on the other side was a faction led by Liu Shaoqi and
Deng Xiaoping, which had its strength in the regular party machine.
Premier Zhou Enlai, while remaining personally loyal to Mao, tried
to mediate or to reconcile the two factions.
Mao felt that he could no longer depend on the formal party
organization, convinced that it had been permeated with the
"capitalist" and bourgeois obstructionists. He turned to Lin Biao
and the PLA to counteract the influence of those who were allegedly
"`left' in form but `right' in essence." The PLA was widely
extolled as a "great school" for the training of a new generation
of revolutionary fighters and leaders. Maoists also turned to
middle-school students for political demonstrations on their
behalf. These students, joined also by some university students,
came to be known as the
Red Guards (see Glossary).
Millions of Red
Guards were encouraged by the Cultural Revolution group to become
a "shock force" and to "bombard" with criticism both the regular
party headquarters in Beijing and those at the regional and
provincial levels.
Red Guard activities were promoted as a reflection of Mao's
policy of rekindling revolutionary enthusiasm and destroying
"outdated," "counterrevolutionary" symbols and values. Mao's ideas,
popularized in the Quotations from Chairman Mao, became the
standard by which all revolutionary efforts were to be judged. The
"four big rights"--speaking out freely, airing views fully, holding
great debates, and writing
big-character posters (see Glossary)
--became an important factor in encouraging Mao's youthful followers
to criticize his intraparty rivals. The "four big rights" became
such a major feature during the period that they were later
institutionalized in the state constitution of 1975
(see Constitutional Framework
, ch. 10). The result of the unfettered
criticism of established organs of control by China's exuberant
youth was massive civil disorder, punctuated also by clashes among
rival Red Guard gangs and between the gangs and local security
authorities. The party organization was shattered from top to
bottom. (The Central Committee's Secretariat ceased functioning in
late 1966.) The resources of the public security organs were
severely strained. Faced with imminent anarchy, the PLA--the only
organization whose ranks for the most part had not been radicalized
by Red Guard-style activities--emerged as the principal guarantor
of law and order and the de facto political authority. And although
the PLA was under Mao's rallying call to "support the left," PLA
regional military commanders ordered their forces to restrain the
leftist radicals, thus restoring order throughout much of China.
The PLA also was responsible for the appearance in early 1967 of
the revolutionary committees, a new form of local control that
replaced local party committees and administrative bodies. The
revolutionary committees were staffed with Cultural Revolution
activists, trusted cadres, and military commanders, the latter
frequently holding the greatest power.
The radical tide receded somewhat beginning in late 1967, but
it was not until after mid-1968 that Mao came to realize the
uselessness of further revolutionary violence. Liu Shaoqi, Deng
Xiaoping, and their fellow "revisionists" and "capitalist roaders"
had been purged from public life by early 1967, and the Maoist
group had since been in full command of the political scene.
Viewed in larger perspective, the need for domestic calm and
stability was occasioned perhaps even more by pressures emanating
from outside China. The Chinese were alarmed in 1966-68 by steady
Soviet military buildups along their common border. The Soviet
invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 heightened Chinese
apprehensions. In March 1969 Chinese and Soviet troops clashed on
Zhenbao Island (known to the Soviets as Damanskiy Island) in the
disputed Wusuli Jiang (Ussuri River) border area. The tension on
the border had a sobering effect on the fractious Chinese political
scene and provided the regime with a new and unifying rallying call
(see The Soviet Union
, ch. 14).
Data as of July 1987
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