Cultural Revolution group
The Group Cultural Revolution (actually Central Group Cultural Revolution ; Chinese 中央 文革 小组 , Pinyin zhōngyāng wéngé xiǎozǔ ) was founded in May 1966 as the successor organization of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the Group of Five and was initially directly on the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China assumed. The group consisted mainly of radical followers of Mao , including Chen Boda , Mao's wife Jiang Qing , Kang Sheng , Yao Wenyuan , Zhang Chunqiao , Wang Li and Xie Fuzhi . In the years that followed, it played a central role in the Cultural Revolution and for a time became the de facto power center in China - a function that was otherwise held by the Standing Committee of the Politburo . The members of the group were also involved in many major events of the Cultural Revolution.
Prehistory and origin
Group of five
During a Politburo meeting in January 1965, Mao called on the leaders of the Communist Party to initiate a "cultural revolution" in China. The assembly established a body known as the "Group of Five" to initiate the Cultural Revolution. The group was chaired by Peng Zhen , who was fifth in the Politburo. Other members were Lu Dingyi , Wu Lengxi, and Kang Sheng; the latter was the only reliable Mao supporter in the group. The group of five was initially little active. It was not until the spring of 1966 that she began censoring publications by Yao Wenyuan and other radicals that had turned an academic discussion about Wu Han's drama Hai Rui will be relieved of his office into politics. Mao, who himself had encouraged this discussion, found the work of the group of five to be of little help. After he returned to Beijing in the spring of 1966 , the group was formally dissolved in a circular from the Central Committee:
"The Central Committee has decided [...] to dissolve the 'Group of Five Entrusted with the Cultural Revolution' and to set up a new Cultural Revolution group directly under the Standing Committee of the Politburo."
Cultural Revolution group
The group of five was disbanded immediately, and Peng Zhen was charged with obstructing the Cultural Revolution. Shortly after May 16, he was removed from office and control of the capital was taken over by Mao's followers. Chen Boda was appointed head of the new "Cultural Revolution Group", which reports directly to the Politburo Standing Committee. The group initially consisted of 15 to 20 people, including Yao Wenyuan, Zhan Chinqiao, Qi Benyu , Wang Li and Xie Fuzhi. Mao's wife Jiang Qing became vice chairman, and Kang Sheng advised the group. Although Chen Boda formally headed the group, it became Zhou Enlai who chaired its meetings; Zhou held a powerful position here and was able to speak for the entire group without having to coordinate it with her.
Role in the cultural revolution
The Cultural Revolution group was supposed to lead the Cultural Revolution and had been given much of the power and political prestige of the Central Committee and the Politburo. When the People's Liberation Army was ordered to restore order in China on September 5, the order was signed by the Cultural Revolution Group, the Central Committee, the State Council, and the Military Affairs Commission. In addition, the group theoretically had power over the People's Liberation Army; some army commanders soon developed so much political power that they could often act independently of the group. Until 1969, the group had the entire Diaoyutai complex available for their offices, a residential complex in Beijing that was built for foreign visitors in 1959 to mark the 10th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China . Mao also had the group (as well as Lin Biao and Zhou ) approve all of his documents, but not from other members of the Standing Committee. The Cultural Revolution group thus gradually took on the political stature and importance of the Standing Committee.
The Cultural Revolution group steered the course that the Cultural Revolution was to take throughout the first few years. With Mao having his back on her, her orders carried considerable weight. After armed clashes broke out in Wuhan in July 1967, Jiang Qing gave a speech suggesting that the Red Guards arm themselves, which led rebel groups to appropriately acquire weapons equipment from the People's Liberation Army. Wang Li and other radicals in the group demanded - again on a cue from Jiang Qing - the removal of " revisionist elements" from the People's Liberation Army. However, with its radical concept of the Cultural Revolution, the group found resistance in Zhou and his supporters, who, with all their devotion to the revolution, took a more conservative view and were more interested in stability and the preservation of at least some form of government.
The Cultural Revolution group also performed a few other functions. Her "Art and Literature Group," headed by Jiang Qing, took over the duties of the Ministry of Culture, which was dissolved in May 1967. The group also worked with the group case study ( Central Case Examination Group together), a company founded in 1966 organization, the crimes and mistakes examined, the high-ranking party members were accused. Virtually all members of the Cultural Revolution group also belonged to the Case Study group.
The members of the Cultural Revolution group also played a special role in two important events of 1967: the Shanghai Commune and the fighting over the city of Wuhan.
Shanghai Commune
Two of the members of the Culture Group have played significant roles in Shanghai Commune. As secretary of the Shanghai Party Committee, Zhan Chunqiao had close ties to this city and was therefore sent to Anting in November 1966 to mediate a dispute between workers' groups. At the beginning of January 1967, he traveled again to Shanghai with Yao Wenyuan, who also belonged to the Cultural Revolution group, in order to establish a new order there after the overthrow of the old party apparatus. At the beginning of February he became head of the newly established Shanghai Commune. Since the legality of the leadership of this commune was controversial and the party headquarters was just changing its general view of communes , the Shanghai commune was dissolved after just under a month.
The fighting over Wuhan
Although the Cultural Revolution group had banned the use of force, in July 1967 the city of Wuhan became the site of the armed clashes of two major rival rebel groups: the “Millions of Heroes” and the “ Wuhan Workers' General Headquarters ”. The latter group, which was 400,000 strong, was besieged by the "million heroes". These were supported with weapons and soldiers by Chen Zaidao , a local commander of the People's Liberation Army. Zhou Enlai ordered Chen to abandon the siege, and when Chen ignored this, Wang Li and Xie Fuzhi were dispatched to Wuhan to resolve the crisis. On July 19, they ordered the People's Liberation Army to no longer support the “million heroes” but rather the “General Headquarters”. The attempt failed: Xie was arrested by the People's Liberation Army the next morning, and Wang was kidnapped and ill-treated by the “million heroes”. Zhou sent more People's Liberation Army units to Wuhan, which eventually forced Chen to resign, and Xie and Wang returned to Beijing as heroes.
Fall and end
During the first two years of the Cultural Revolution, tensions grew between the Cultural Revolution group and the People's Liberation Army because the People's Liberation Army increasingly suppressed the rebel groups and Red Guards sponsored by the Cultural Revolution group. In October 1967, the People's Liberation Army had grown so influential that the Cultural Revolution group went under. In November their radical party newspaper, Red Flag , stopped showing. After many armed conflicts broke out between rebel groups, other groups and the People's Liberation Army in the summer of 1967, leading members of the group were named as scapegoats for these problems. Individuals, including Wang Li, have been linked to the May Sixteenth Corps , a group that allegedly infiltrated the Cultural Revolution to create anarchy and usurp power. While Wang and others within the Cultural Revolution group probably actually formed a May 16 faction , there is little evidence that they planned a seizure of power.
The overthrow of the Cultural Revolution group was also attributed to the fact that Mao became more moderate in his conception of the Cultural Revolution from February 1967 onwards. Those forces that remained connected to the original goals appeared to be so far left that they could be marginalized because of their radicalism. In September 1967, Mao had some radical members of the Cultural Revolution group, including Wang Li and Guan Feng , arrested; As part of a new campaign against the “ultra-left”, almost everyone else was arrested at the end of the Cultural Revolution. Jiang Qing was not interfered with until Mao's death in 1976.
The Cultural Revolution group continued to exist after the arrests in 1967, but played only a minor role in the Cultural Revolution. For example, in October 1968 the remaining members were invited to attend the Twelfth Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee, where Liu Shaoqi , who had been president until then, was officially expelled from the CCP . The group was never officially dissolved, but ceased to exist soon after the CCP's Ninth Congress in the spring of 1969.
literature
- Jacques Guillermaz: The Chinese Communist Party in Power, 1949-1976 . Westview Press, 1976
- Roderick MacFarquhar, Michael Schoenhals: Mao's Last Revolution . Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006, ISBN 0-674-02332-3
- Maurice Meisner: Mao's China and After: A History of the People's Republic Since 1949 . Free Press, 1986
Individual evidence
- ↑ Meisner, p. 331
- ↑ Guillermaz, p. 401
- ↑ MacFarquhar / Schoenhals, p. 101
- ↑ Meisner, p. 351
- ↑ MacFarquhar / Schoenhals, p. 82
- ↑ MacFarquhar / Schoenhals, p. 155
- ↑ Meisner, p. 355
- ↑ Guillermaz, p. 399; Meisner, p. 352
- ↑ MacFarquhar / Schoenhals, p. 159
- ↑ MacFarquhar / Schoenhals, p. 282
- ↑ Meisner, pp. 341-350
- ↑ a b Meisner, p. 354
- ↑ Meisner, p. 358
- ↑ Meisner, p. 359
- ↑ Meisner, pp. 358f
- ↑ Guillermaz, p. 450
- ↑ MacFarquhar / Schoenhals, p. 156