Short's epilog is a mixed bag. It was written in 1998 or 1999 so some of his ideas about "capitalism" in China may be dated, especially in the Xi Jinping era.

About a month after Mao's death Hua Guofeng arranged to have the Gang of Four arrested and removed from power. Within two years Deng had been both rehabilitated and had ousted Hua from power.

Short says Mao was correct in his view of Deng Xiaoping. Deng "was a 'capitalist-roader all along -- and the moment he was in a position to do so, he began dismantling the socialist system Mao had built and putting a bourgeois dictatorship in its place. There was indeed a bourgeois class within the Communist Party and the country did indeed 'change its political colour.'"

The problem with this assessment is that at the time of Mao's death and Deng's rise to power, there was no bourgeoisie in China capable of coming to power. Neither Deng nor any other CPC leaders or functionaries owned the means of production in China-- which were basically state owned or owned by communes. In terms of a Marxist understanding a bourgeois dictatorship in China would have been impossible. Even today, while a bourgeois class has come to exist in China, it is far from having control of the state apparatus.

Deng and the CPC embarked on a program to modernize China simply because the anarchy of the Cultural Revolution (and the general backwardness of the country) had left the economy in shambles. Socialism requires an advanced modern economy to have any chance of ultimate success. The CPC under Deng made an orthodox decision to open up China and use the market (ultimately controlled and directed by the state) to overcome feudal backwardness. This was a process initiated by Mao himself when he invited Nixon to visit.

In 1981 the CPC rendered a verdict on Mao's role. It was the same verdict he himself had rendered on Stalin-- i.e., he was 70% correct and 30% wrong in what he had done. Short spends a lot of time going over the question of how many people died as a result of Mao's policies. The numbers who died under Hitler, Stalin, and Mao are compared. No comparison to the number who died as a result of imperialism, colonialism, and capitalist wars waged in the third world is attempted.

These numbers are all contentious and ultimately meaningless and unverifiable. Great historical transformations are not the result of this or that individual. Revolutions and wars are like hurricanes and earthquakes. They break out as a result of forces and pressures that build up over time and are ultimately independent of the human will. Is Lincoln responsible for all the deaths of the Civil War? Is President Johnson, this one foolish individual, the cause of all the deaths from the Vietnam War?

Neither Stalin, Mao nor Hitler ever personally killed anyone.[It is actually obscene to compare Hitler with Mao or Stalin neither of whom planned and carried out genocide]. Would their policies have been possible without the mindset of the people who followed their leadership and shared their values: a mindset created by the previous history of Russia, China and Germany and the development of capitalism and imperialism. Is Adam Smith responsible for all the deaths due to the transformations brought about by the wars over markets and resources waged by the invisible hand?

These two sentences from Short point up the confusions. Mao's "rule brought about the deaths of more of his own people than any other leader in history." "The overwhelming majority of those whom Mao's policies killed were unintended casualties of famine." The fact they were unintended, Short says, "puts him in a different category from other twentieth-century tyrants."

Individual leaders must of course accept responsibility for their actions. But the contexts that they are forced to confront cannot be ignored. That is why when all is said and done, Short is correct to conclude that, "A final verdict on Mao's place in the annals of his country's past is still a very long way off."

This view is the view of most of the Chinese themselves. It is echoed in the special issue of Beijing Review of October 5, 2006 on the 30th anniversary of Mao's death ["Mao Today: How does his legacy still influence China?"]

His legacy is really "in flux." One article tells us how "the little red book" is used by the new Chinese capitalists for inspiration! One was able to get market share from foreign capitalists "by adopting Mao's military tactic of 'using the countryside to encircle cities.'" It seems many Chinese companies urge their workers to study Mao for his "spirit of rebellion" and innovative thought. This information comes from a section entitled "Mao as business guru." If US corporations want to remain competitive, I suggest their CEO's start reading Mao at once!

Elsewhere the article says the poor read him because they want to regain the social benefits lost in recent years. A university professor is quoted: "Mao is still the most popular among the farmers, many of whom face growing hardship 'Through holding memorial activities for Mao, the farmers hope the gap between urban and rural areas will narrow.'" Mao as a god!

I will conclude with a quote from Gao Hua of Nanjing University: "Mao's phenomenon is the outcome of China in a transitional period, from an imperial country to a republic . At the turn of the new century, China is facing new challenges , which requires new thinking and new systems. So all the reflections on Mao should be future-oriented."

FINIS

Coming up beginning Wednesday: Lenin: Materialism and Empiriocriticism.
This is a 23 part exposition of Lenin’s major work in philosophy to run three times a week on Monday, Wednesday and Friday

We are now coming to the end game. The minor pieces have been swept from the board and the major pieces remain to be carefully placed around the King. After the Ninth Congress (1969), Short tells us that in the PB there were two antagonistic players with about equal support-- namely Lin Biao (1907-1971) and  Madame Mao, Jiang Qing (1914-1991).

They had basically the same politics, so their struggle was over raw power, "to win the Chairman's favour." Mao thought he could control the situation, but, as Short will explain, the rivalry between Lin and Jiang "would blow apart all Mao's carefully laid plans to ensure that his policies survived him."

Short now tells us how Lin Biao fell from power. After Liu Shaoqi was removed from the scene there was no one who was "Head of State. "Lin tried to get Mao to take that post. Mao got it into his head that Lin was trying "to kick him upstairs" into a ceremonial post and trying to take the actual ruling of China himself.

In August 1970 at a CC plenum, Lin gave a speech praising Mao as a "genius." The next day Chen Boda (1904-1989) an ally of Lin, attacked Zhang Chunqiao (1917-2005) an ally of Jiang Qing for being covertly against "Mao Zedong Thought." Chen then proposed Mao for Head of State with Lin as deputy Head of State.

This however backfired, as Mao considered Zhang as one of his allies, not simply the ally of his wife. He denounced Chen (who was soon purged) and definitely refused to become "Head of State." In fact the post was abolished. "In formal terms," Short writes, "Lin himself emerged unscathed." But, Short says, he made a big mistake not to have "made a groveling self-criticism" to Mao about how his allies, led by Chen, could have acted the way they did.

Mao became suspicious of Lin and decided to reduce some of his power as Defense Minister. By August of 1971 Mao was ready to act. He took a special train to Wuhan and stopped along the way to talk to political and military leaders about the Chen Boda affair of the previous year. He suggested that Lin Biao was also partially responsible for the factional fight Chen had tried to start.

Word of these meetings got back to Lin and his followers in September. Lin's son Lin Liguo  (1945-1971) was active in convincing his father that they should flee to the Soviet Union before he ended up like Liu Shaoqi (1898-1969; rehabilitated,1980)! So Lin and some of his family fled in a military aircraft which was only partially fueled!

The flight was reported to Mao but he ordered the air force to do nothing. "The skies will rain;" he said, "widows will remarry; these things are unstoppable. Let them go."

They got as far as Mongolia before the fuel ran out, then the plane crashed and everyone was killed, Lin, his son and wife, his driver and another five people. Sic transit.

Short is a little hard on Mao in the aftermath of all this. He tries to read Mao's mind, a risky procedure for any biographer. All we know is that Mao became very depressed and was bed ridden for two months "with high blood pressure and a lung infection." Short says this was "psychosomatic." and he was really just unable to handle the fact that Lin had fled instead making obeisance to him. Short himself later makes remarks that indicate that Mao's illness was far from self induced. He says for instance that Mao was suffering from "congestive heart failure" and a few months later when he passed out it was due to his still infected lungs. Neither of these are "psychosomatic."

Mao was, however, in a funk. First Liu and now Lin. It seemed to be bad news for anyone Mao chose to succeed him. Throughout the Party and in the country, except for zealous Red Guard youth, Short says the fall of Lin produced a "general cynicism." What changed the situation was the announcement that President Nixon was going to visit China-- this "after" as Short says, "twenty years of unblinking hostility."

I'm not going to go over all the backdoor dealings that led up to this meeting. It began, as some of you might remember, with Ping Pong Diplomacy, when a US Ping Pong team was invited to China (a thaw) and culminated with Nixon's trip in February 1972.

The trip resulted in two major changes in the world configuration of forces. It signaled that China had come of age as a world power and was going to be integrated into the world system (it eventually replaced Taiwan on the UN Security Council, veto and all) and it meant the end of Mao's phantasy that China would be a beacon unto the nations as the new world revolutionary center.

Nixon, who knew what he was doing, wanted to be open with China because he knew the US was going down in Vietnam and he hoped friendship with China would slow down or prevent other dominoes from falling! Short quotes from an article Nixon wrote a year earlier where he said the US should deal with China "as a great and progressing nation, not as the epicentre of world revolution." And this is what has come to pass.

A telling moment in the meeting between Mao and Nixon is recounted by Short. Mao said to Nixon, "People like me sound like a lot of big cannons. For example, things like 'the whole world should unite and defeat imperialism..." -- after this comment both Zhou Enlai  (1898-1976) and Mao "laughed uproariously." The giant Red Star over China was becoming a white dwarf.

Mao was also thinking of a new successor. Past experience would indicate this was not an enviable job. He decided on Wang Hongwen  (1935-1992) who ended up in the Gang of Four, a 39 year old CC member from Shanghai "whose General Headquarters had engineered the Cultural Revolutions first 'seizure of power' almost six years before."

Mao also realized that he had better start "rehabilitating" the "old guard" if he wanted to have stability and experienced people handling the country after he was gone. So he brought back "the number two Party person taking the capitalist road"-- Deng Xiaoping (1904-1997) -- as a vice-premier.

In 1973 the 10th Party Congress took place. This Congress put into motion Mao's plan for a "mix of radicals and veteran cadres to rule China" when he departed. Wang Hongwen was ranked #3 after Mao and Zhou Enlai. Later he put Deng in charge of the PLA. His grand plan was to have Deng run the government and Wang the Party with Wang having ultimate authority. Short says that Mao's plan was finally in place by the summer of 1974 but "again it would turn out to be a house of cards."

Now another bout of factional struggle broke out. Mao, Short says, was trying to do the impossible by melding together the radicals and the veterans. The symbolic union of this plan was the partnership between Wang and Deng. "The fatal flaw in the logic of Mao's arrangements," Short writes, "came from the tension inspired by his contradictory impulses towards radicalism and reason."

To use a crude dialectical analogy, the opposite trends symbolized by Wang and Deng were not really transcended in the new synthesis represented by the Tenth Congress. The synthesis was really held together by the force of Mao's authority so it was artificial, and exterior rather than an immanent synthetic growth and reconciliation from within the Party. Now Mao's health was failing, he was to be in a bad way for the last two years left to him. Whenever his hand was relaxed due to his ailments the two groups represented by Wang and Deng "grew into warring factions."

A month before the opening of the Tenth Congress, Mao had opened an initiative for a big campaign to attack Confucius. Ostensibly this was really to attack the remaining followers of Lin Biao. It was claimed that Lin Biao was an admirer of Confucius and, Short says, "of the feudal landlord system that the sage extolled in his writings." [Historical note: Confucius did not leave behind any writings nor did he "extol feudalism. What we actually know about his thought comes from the Analects, a work compiled by his followers-- Cf. my "Confucius: A Marxist Dialogue" archived on Midwestern Marx].

Short thinks that Zhou Enlai was the real target and that Mao was following the Chinese precept of "pointing at the locust tree in order to revile the mulberry." Confucius was not really the problem, nor was Lin. It appears that the real instigator of this movement was Jiang Qing and her manipulation of Mao.

Jiang Qing accused Zhou of "being impatient" to replace Mao. Mao thought this ridiculous and, Short says, told Zhou and Wang Hongwen that it was Jiang Qing who was impatient to be rid of him. Zhou was very sick with cancer and was beyond plotting against Mao. Since the 30s he had been loyal to Mao in any case. Probably due to his illness Zhou gave up his foreign minister role to Deng Xiaoping. Meanwhile, the struggle against Confucius "became a full-fledged national movement."

But Jiang Qing used this movement for her own factional purposes, which were to undermine Zhou and keep Deng from getting too much influence so that she might assume the real power after Mao was gone. Mao figured this out and struck back.

Short recounts that at the PB meeting of 17 July 1974 he stated that Jiang Qing "does not represent me, she only represents herself." He also attacked his nominal successor Wang Hongwen, who was a weak reed and instead of staying above the factional struggles had joined with Jiang Qing. Mao denounced Wang for being "in a small faction of four people." This was the origin of the famous "Gang of Four" [Wang Hongwen, Jiang Qing, Zhang Chunqiao and Yao Wenyuan (1931-2005)].

After this meeting, the Gang of Four, instead of learning from Mao's rebuke, redoubled its efforts to undermine Zhou and Deng. Mao began to think of Wang, his number 2, as a fool. As a result he promoted Deng and gave him more authority, saying he was "a person of extraordinary ability with a firm ideological standpoint." After January 1975, the CC meetings were no longer chaired by Zhou [too sick] or Wang [Mao was going to dump him] but by Deng [but not for long!].

Nevertheless,Mao still dreamed of a unified leadership. So he wanted one of the radicals to have power too, as "a counterweight to Deng." Wang was a fool, so he was out. Jiang Qing "was the kiss of death" as too many of the rank and file were against her. Yao was too inexperienced. That left Zhang Chunqiao, so he was appointed Second Vice -Premier [Deng was First] and head of the PLA General Political Department.

Since it was obvious Zhou was very sick and on his way out, the anti-Confucius movement tapered off. Instead the Gang of Four concentrated on Deng. Mao, however, wanted a united party and a program to modernize China to prepare for the 21th Century. He and Zhou, Short writes, drew up a program "for modernising agriculture, industry, defense and science and technology before the end of the century, so that our national economy will be ... in the world's front rank."

Deng and his allies went to work to get this new program off the ground and up and running. His work was attacked by the Gang of Four as "empiricism" -- "a code-word for Deng's emphasis on solving practical problems rather than giving attention to politics and ideology."

Mao, who wanted unity in the Party now, attacked the anti-empiricists as "dogmatists" and stated that both sides were examples of Revisionism. He also soon realized that Zhang would not be a good successor so he decided on a more neutral figure, Hua Guofeng (1921-2008).

Meanwhile, the Gang of Four kept up its anti-Deng struggle. At this time, Deng made a slip. The message Mao was getting was that once he was gone Deng would renounce the Cultural Revolution.

So Mao asked Deng to give a report and judgment of the CR. Deng thought it was 70% correct and 30% wrong (Short says this was his usual formula in evaluating things [very mechanical it seems]). He "politely declined' the assignment. Mao surmised that Deng did not want to go on record saying anything really positive about the CR.

This led to Mao's opinion that "the capitalist-roaders are still on the capitalist road." By the end of 1975 Deng had not lost his positions, but "for all practical purposes ... had been stripped of his responsibilities."

[It is interesting to note that Deng did eventually come to power, rejected the Cultural Revolution and, many think, firmly put China on the capitalist road. Yet the road he took fulfilled Mao's program to put China in the front ranks of the world's powers. What road China is on is a matter of dispute.]

In early January 1976 Zhou Enlai died. There was a spontaneous outpouring of grief from the Chinese people that took Mao and the Gang of Four leadership by surprise. A low key funeral had been planned but the people staged unofficial demonstrations of grief. On Jan. 15 Deng gave the official eulogy "but it was to be his last public appearance."

In April, Hua Guofeng became First Vice-Chairman of the CPC and the Premier of China. It was obvious that Mao was failing (he died five months later) and the Gang of Four was not happy with the idea of the chairmanship going to Hua. Short says, however, that it was the "arrogance and stupidity" of Jiang Qing which would ultimately lead to the downfall of the Gang.

Mao died on September 9, 1976. The journey of a thousand li that had begun on December 26, 1893 was over. It lasted 83 years, 8 months and 14 days.

Next Up: Epilog

Having decided that a new rectification movement was necessary, Mao sent his wife, Jiang Qing (1914-1991) to Shanghai to lay the groundwork for the new struggle. This is a truly Byzantine plot as it unfolds in Short's book and I will only go over the highlights.

The target of Mao's plot was Liu Shaoqi (1898-1969) the head of state and the putative successor of Mao himself. To remove him from the scene will take a complicated plan.

Peng Zhen (1902-1997) was First Secretary of the Beijing Party and "deputy head of the Central Committee Secretariat, the core of the [CPC's] national machine." One step above Peng was Liu. One step below him was Wu Han (1909-1969) a historian and Beijing deputy mayor. He was also a playwright and wrote "The Dismissal of Hai Rui." Hai (1514-1587) was an official under the Ming Dynasty who defended the peasants against the imperial system.

Jiang Qing went to Shanghai [February, 1965] to get the literary critic Yao Wenyuan  (1931-2005) [later, along with Jiang, one of The Gang of Four] to attack the play as a secret attack on Mao by a cabal of capitalist roaders. The article was published in the paper Wenhuibao in Shanghai [November, 1965]-- the first shot of The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR). An unmitigated disaster!

Meanwhile, throughout 1965 and early 1966 Mao had been arranging his forces and little by little isolating his targets. Peng Zhen sensed that he might be the real target behind the critique of Wu Han and had, since he was the head of a "cultural revolution group" formed by the CC to fight revisionism in the arts, helped formulate what came to be called the "February Outline" [1966]. This stated that there was a great battle going on between "Mao Zedong Thought" and bourgeois views but that the battle was to be fought by the clash of ideas and not by "political means" [i.e., purges].

However, by April Peng had become isolated and Mao decided to purge him since he was judged to be really too bourgeois for his position due to the way he had conducted himself concerning Wu Han's play. Peng and a few of his top associates were removed from power for "taking the capitalist road."

By the middle of May Peng et al were out, the "cultural revolution group" he headed was dissolved and a new one created by the CC was led by Chen Boda (1904-1989) who in1969 became #4 in the leadership, purged 1970 (how brief is glory).

So, by Spring 1966, Mao had set up the mechanism to begin a great purge of capitalist roaders (the Cultural Revolution) "put in place a headquarters to direct it " [the new group headed by Chen] which bypassed "the Politburo and mainstream Party chain of command."

Since Liu and Deng (Deng Xiaoping,1904-1997) were the real targets, as well as their allies on the CC and PB, it was necessary to mobilize forces outside of their control if they were to be brought down. The students, from the mid-level through the university level, had many complaints. Mao turned to them for support [as well as to millions in the countryside] against the "party bureaucrats." "In retrospect," Short writes, "it is hard to understand how Liu and Deng could have so fundamentally misjudged Mao's intentions."

The reason Liu, Deng and others were caught, not off guard, but by being blindsided was that the idea Mao "had decided to unleash the masses against the Party itself was too far-fetched for any in the Politburo to believe."

Now the plot thickens. The students, having been stirred up, began their own revolutionary movement (encouraged by Chen Boda) against authority. They began taking over universities all over China, but especially in the Capital. Liu, the Head of State, consulted with Mao, and he and Deng then sent in Party "work teams" to restore order and dampen down the student protests.

For those of you who were around and politically active in July 1966, who can forget the great picture, in all the papers, of Mao's heading bobbing up and down as he swam around, near Wuhan, in the Yangtze River. This was to show that, at 72, the Chairman was still fit. A "metaphor," as Short says, "for throwing himself back into the fray." The bare chested Putin pictures were a similar ploy.

In August, Mao called a plenum of the CC to lay down the basis for carrying out the GPCR. He criticized the "work teams'' being sent to the universities which he called "an act of suppression and terror." Liu was getting attacked for doing what he thought Mao had approved. He made a self criticism.

By the time the plenum ended there was a new PB reflecting Mao's wishes. Liu had been replaced in second place by Lin Biao (1907-1971) as "Mao's sole deputy, with the title Vice-Chairman." The Premier, Zhou Enlai (1898-1976)  remained # 3 but the Head of State, formerly ranked # 2, Liu Shaoqi was now # 8, behind his aide, Deng at # 6.

At the end of the plenum there was a rally for over a million Red Guards (the youth of China) who had come to Beijing. When Mao appeared the crowd went wild, his mere presence triggered "scenes of delirium among the young people" reminiscent of old newsreels from Germany in the 30s. Right cat, Left cat it makes no difference if it catches the mice.

The Red Guard them pledged to eliminate all Mao's enemies and destroy all manifestations of the nine "black categories"-- i.e., landlords, rich peasants, counter-revolutionaries, bad elements [rather broad], Rightists, traitors, spies, capitalists, and "stinking intellectuals." Young people all over China went on rampages of violence. murder, and torture killing old people and young. In some places the victims ranged "from a six-week old baby (the child of a 'reactionary family') to an old man in his eighties."

There is nothing one can really say. The GPCR was one of those great outbursts of human cruelty and violence that transcends religion, cultures or politics and reveals a side to the species that can only lead to despair. It's a black spot on Mao's reputation and that of his followers that can never be washed away. Mao even condemned people who had potted plants in their homes, or who kept birds, dogs or cats as pets: "legacies of feudalism."

Like some others in history, the Red Guards particularly disliked books. As a young man Mao had said "all the anthologies of prose and poetry published since the Tang and Song dynasties [should] be burned. Now was the time. Here is an eyewitness account of what happened in the city of Amoy (one of many such incidents) in September of 1966:
"All the books that had been removed from the city libraries ...
were there -- the yellow, the black, and poisonous books. Most
of them were old hand-sewn volumes. 'The Golden Lotus' ... 'The
Romance of the Three Kingdoms', 'Strange Tales from a Chinese
Studio'-- all awaited burning. Shortly after 6 p.m., 50 kilograms of
kerosene were poured on the piles, which were then set afire.
The flames leapt three stories high ... [They] burned for three days
and nights."

Short says that later, "old books were sent to be pulped. In this way, many unique copies of Song and Ming dynasty texts were lost forever." And this can't be blamed on the Japanese-- it was self-inflicted. It’s lucky for the great heritage of Chinese art that Chiang took the national art museum's collection to Taiwan with him when he fled.

As the movement grew, the Chinese press began to laud the miracle working power of Mao's "Little Red Book" [which no one dreamed of burning]. Reports were published of "how medical workers armed with it had cured the blind and the deaf; how a paralytic, relying on Mao Zedong Thought, had recovered the use of his limbs; how , on another occasion, Mao Zedong Thought had raised a man from the dead." This last one even tops Oral Roberts! Too bad they didn't send a copy to the Lenin mausoleum.

But was this really getting rid of the Old to bring forth the New. This was not something Mao just thought up. It was an exaggerated form of Emperor worship which had a long history in China. The GPCR was in reality a recidivist revival of the worst aspects of the very feudal and exploitative culture the revolution was supposed to have overthrown. The author of "On Contradiction" was now unmindful of the unity of opposites. The dead hand of the past was truly weighing heavily on the present.

Zhou Enlai put it succinctly: "Whatever accords with Mao Zedong Thought is right, while whatever does not accord with Mao Zedong Thought is wrong." That's the thesis. We know what the antithesis is. Today we see the synthesis working itself out.

Nevertheless, Short points out that both in the CC and the Party, radical supporters of the GPCR were in the minority. The radical students who made up the Red Guards were used to attack provincial party leaders and as they increased in numbers began to replace the party with Red Guard organizations.

This culminated with the Shanghai party committee being replaced by the Red Guards who wanted to rule Shanghai as a commune based on the model of the Paris Commune. Short says this was the logical outcome of the whole GPCR, which was to give power directly to the masses. But Mao was not willing, when push came to shove, to actually get rid of the Party and let the masses rule through direct democracy "with free elections and unrestricted political activity."

"There must be a Party somehow," Mao said. "There must be a nucleus, no matter what we call it." The Shanghai Commune was not to be, the model of the Paris Commune was given up [February, 1967]. This was the high tide of the movement. Since the Commune was the logical end point of the ideology of the GPCR and it had been rejected, the GPCR could only retrogress. Short says Mao was in "ideological retreat" and the movement now was one of "raw power" between Mao and the moderates of the Party grouped around Liu and Deng.

Meanwhile, different factions of the Red Guards began fighting one another, and the GPCR committees started to attack some of the old cadres in the PLA. Mao could no longer (after Feb. 1967) trust the PB and it became defunct. Instead he ruled through an enlarged Standing Committee of the PB and through the Cultural Revolution Group now run by Zhou Enlai.

In August of 1967 the Red Guards decided it was time to purge the PLA of capitalist roaders. No emperor in his right mind attacks the Praetorian Guard. As he had in February with respect to the Shanghai Commune, Mao again put his foot down. The PLA would not be drawn into the political struggle. By this time too, ultra-left units in the Red Guards were attacking other Red Guards and had also burned down the British Legation and attacked other foreign missions. Mao was angry about this because it looked like China could not "meet its international obligations." He thus wanted to keep the PLA as a "disciplined force".

While all of the above was going on, the movement to get rid of Liu Shaoqi was also intensifying. In May, 1967 Liu's book "How to be a Good Communist" was attacked in the press as "a big anti-Marxist-Leninist and anti-Mao-Zedong Thought poisonous weed." Short quotes Mao himself as saying it was "a deceitful work, a form of idealism opposed to Marxism-Leninism." It is, of course, a perfectly orthodox Marxist work, and shows how low Mao could stoop in his efforts to defame one of his comrades who had the temerity to differ with him over how to best execute agreed upon goals to establish socialism.

By August, Liu was forced to resign as Head of State and he was placed under house arrest. The Central Case Examination Group was building up a case against Liu (completely fabricated.) This group was under the control of Mao but was formally chaired by Zhou Enlai (the Tallyrand of the CPC) but actually run by Kang Sheng (1898-1975).

Kang Sheng was a Beria type who had been on the PB since 1935 and served as, Short says, Mao's "hatchet man" both in Yan'an and during the GPCR.. He was posthumously expelled from the CPC for "political crimes." But this time he was trumping up charges against comrades close to Liu in order to discredit him. Charges that "Mao, Zhou Enlai, Kang himself and the rest of the leadership" knew were false, but were expedient.

It should be noted that the majority of Chinese communists were not GPCR enthusiasts and that Kang was able to carry out Mao's wishes only because, in the last analysis, he had the PLA behind him. In order to get "evidence" Kang relied on torture to force comrades to denounce others.

Some statistics of what went on:
Hebei- 84,000 arrested, 2955 "executed, tortured to death, or committed suicide."
Guangdong- 7200 arrested, 85 beaten to death.
Yunnan- 14,000 party members (cadres) executed.
Inner Mongolia- 350,000 arrested, 80,000 beaten and maimed for life, 16,000 killed.

All this, and much more is described in the book, to build cases against Liu and people who might support him. "None of these cases," as Short points out, "had any basis in fact." This by the way, is an important fact for progressives today to be aware of. Most importantly so that they can avoid involvement with groups that praise and support the GPCR as some sort of principled Marxist revolutionary struggle. It was more akin to the future Pol Pot (1925-1998).

You can be sure Marx, Engels and Lenin would have been disgusted to think that this movement was carried out in their names. Perhaps Mao's rating should be 30/70 instead of 70/30. Terror and torture, not against class enemies, but against your own people and class were the hallmarks of the GPCR.

Towards the middle of 1968 Mao decided to restore some order. By this time, Lin Biao was his heir and China was basically under the control of the PLA (i.e., a military dictatorship). The army was used to put down warring factions of the GPCR throughout China. By September the core of the old CPC had been "smashed" and it was time to consolidate the Red Guard bands and committees together with what was left of it into larger groups (the better to control them).

Short quotes Zhou Enlai: "We have finally smashed the plot of the handful of Party persons in power, taking the capitalist road." It was time to begin winding down the more extreme elements in the GPCR.

In October of 1968 the 12th Plenum of the CC was held in preparation for the next Party Congress. There were not enough CC members left after all the purges to make a quorum so Mao just added extra delegates, PLA officers and Red Guard leaders as necessary. Liu was definitely gone by now.

Mao was a moderating influence at this Plenum. He protected what was left of the old guard from the more radical faction and even prevented any attacks on Deng Xiaoping (whom he had always liked). Short points out that Deng had never been personally attacked (i.e., by name) during the height of the GPCR. Mao had once said that Deng "has a great future ahead of him." Although he was later arrested, as we shall see.

The Ninth Congress was held in April 1969. Only 20% of the delegates were party veterans from the old CPC. The Congress was held to ratify the new leadership and officially end the GPCR. "Officially," Short writes, " the Cultural Revolution had been an outstanding success. Mao was credited with raising Marxism-Leninism 'to higher and completely new stage' [new, yes-- I don't know about 'higher’’], creating a guiding philosophy for 'the era when imperialism is heading for total collapse and socialism towards worldwide victory.' I remember reading Peking Review in those days, compare it to the Beijing Review of today to see how accurate this assessment may be.

Liu Shaoqi died towards the end of 1969 as a result of being denied proper medical care after contracting pneumonia (he was kept in a cold unheated room and not allowed to be hospitalized). After Mao died Liu was rehabilitated for being the good communist that he was.

Up Next: Chapter 16 “Things Fall Apart”