Chiang Ching, Chang Chun-chiao, Yao Wen-yuan and Wang Hung-wen were close comrades-in-arms of Chairman Mao Tse-tung and prominent leaders during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and hence principal targets of the capitalist-roaders led by the odious renegade Teng Hsiao-ping.
They were disparagingly branded as the ‘Gang of Four’ and subjected to a kangaroo court when the new capitalist leaders took out their revenge on some of China’s finest Marxist-Leninist leaders.
Jiang Qing [Chiang Ching]:
Chiang Ching
On the Revolution of Peking Opera – Speech made in July 1964 at the Forum of Theatrical Workers Participating in the Festival of Peking Opera on Contemporary Themes, by Chiang Qing, 7 pages. From the pamphlet On the Revolution of Peking Opera (Peking: FLP, 1968). Chiang Ching’s speech only, 7 pages: Full Pamphlet (with articles by others as well), 76 pages.
Speech by Comrade Chiang Ching – At the Rally to Inaugurate and Celebrate the Peking Municipal Revolutionary Committee, April 20, 1967, 6 pages. From the pamphlet Great Victory for Chairman Mao’s Revolutionary Line – Warmly Hail the Birth of Peking Municipal Revolutionary Committee (1967).
Chiang Ching – at Peking Opera
Zhang Chunqiao [Chang Chun-chiao]:
Chung Chun-chiao
Speech by Comrade Chang Chun-chiao on Behalf of the Delegations of the Revolutionary Committees in Four Provinces and One Municipality – At the Rally to Inaugurate and Celebrate the Peking Municipal Revolutionary Committee, April 20, 1967, 3 pages. [From the pamphlet Great Victory for Chairman Mao’s Revolutionary Line – Warmly Hail the Birth of Peking Municipal Revolutionary Committee (1967).]
There’s no other way to describe the establishment of the ‘capitalist roaders’ and revisionists in the top leadership of the Communist Party of China after the death of Chairman Mao in September 1976 other than it being a coup. They had obviously been preparing for the inevitable death of the Chairman and they were ready to seize the opportunity to change the direction of the revolutionary Marxist-Leninist Party before his body was even cold. The failure of the revolutionaries within the Party leadership, those who were denigrated as the ‘Gang of Four’, most serious mistake was that they don’t seemed to have been prepared for such an attack. They paid for it with their lives and the people of China are still paying for it.
Six weeks after the death of Chairman Mao the new usurper leader of the Party and stooge of Deng Xiao-ping, Hua Kuo-feng, was able to publicly declare the battle against (what he described as) an ‘anti-Party clique’, won and their influence made ineffective. The People’s Republic of China then started to speed along the road towards the full scale establishment of capitalism in China.
Here are some of the early boasts about the end of Socialist construction in China.
Mao’s Last battle – The Next Stage, Bruce Smith, China Policy Study Group, London, 1978, 32 pages. An example of those foreigners whose lack of understanding of Marxism-Leninism meant they fell into a spurious analysis of the situation in China after the death of Chairman Mao.
A Great Trial in Chinese History, The trial of the Lin Biao and Jiang Qing Counter-revolutionary Cliques, November 1980-January 1981, New World Press, Beijing, 1981, 246 pages. A vicious attack upon some of the Chinese Revolution’s finest leaders.
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China was the logical outcome of the many years of the increasingly bitter ideological struggle that had been taking place within the International Communist Movement since Khrushchev’s denunciation of Joseph Stalin at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in February 1956.
There had been many efforts (some would say too many) to try and bring the errant first Socialist State back to the revolutionary principles of Marxism-Leninism but by 1960 it was becoming obvious that the revisionists had become firmly entrenched in Lenin‘s and Stalin‘s Party. Weaknesses (and the similar entrenchment of revisionism and social democracy) in other Communist and Workers’ Parties worldwide also ensured that those seeking to restore capitalism – in deeds if not in words – in the Soviet Union could claim they were only reflecting the majority trend in the International Communist Movement.
Although the majority of the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party was still following the revolutionary road those ‘capitalist-roaders’ (as they were called in China) did exist – and even at the highest levels in the Party.
Those revolutionaries, under the leadership of Chairman Mao Tse-tung, had to act to prevent China from going down the same anti-Socialist road. It would be for the Chinese workers, peasants, soldiers and students to decide the fate of their country. So, on 8th August 1966, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was born – one of the most important and significant events in the history of Communism.
Basic Documents of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution
Hold High the Great Red Banner of Mao Tse-tung’s Thought and Actively Participate in the Great Socialist Cultural Revolution, editorial of the Liberation Army Daily [Jiefangjun Bao], April 18, 1966.
Never Forget the Class Struggle, editorial of the Liberation Army Daily, May 4 1966.
On ‘Three-Family Village’ — The Reactionary Nature of Evening Chats at Yenshan and Notes from Three-Family Village, by Yao Wen-yuan, May 10, 1966.
Open Fire at the Black Anti-Party and Anti-Socialist Line!, by Kao Chu, first published in the Liberation Army Daily, May 8, 1966.
Heighten Our Vigilance and Distinguish the True from the False, by Ho Ming, first published in the Kuangming Daily, May 8, 1966.
Teng To’s Evening Chats at Yenshan is Anti-Party and Anti-Socialist Double-Talk, compiled by Lin Chieh, Ma Tse-min, Yen Chang-huei, Chou Ying, Teng Wen-sheng and Chin Tien-Liang, first published in the Liberation Army Daily and the Kuangming Daily on May 8, 1966.
On the Bourgeois Stand of Frontline and the Peking Daily, by Chi Pen-yu, first published in Red Flag, No. 7, 1966.
Raise High the Great Red Banner of Mao Tse-tung’s Thought and Carry the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution Through to the End — Essential Points for Propaganda and Education in Connection with the Great Cultural Revolution, editorial of Jiefangjun Bao [Liberation Army Daily], June 6, 1966.
Message of Greetings to Revolutionary Rebel Organizations in Shanghai from the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, the State Council, the Military Commission of the Party’s Central Committee and the Cultural Revolution Group Under the Party’s Central Committee, Jan. 11, 1967.
Take Firm Hold of the Revolution, Promote Production and Utterly Smash the New Counterattack Launched by the Bourgeois Reactionary Line – Message to All Shanghai People, Jan. 4, 1967. Urgent Notice – From the Shanghai Workers’ Revolutionary Rebel General Headquarters and 31 Other Revolutionary Mass Organizations, Jan. 9, 1967.
Telegram Saluting Chairman Mao – From the Rally Held by the Revolutionary Rebel Organizations of Shanghai and the Shanghai Liaison Centres of Revolutionary Rebel Organizations of Other Places to Celebrate the Message of Greetings of the Central Authorities and Completely Smash the New Counter-Attack by the Bourgeois Reactionary Line, from a rally held by revolutionary organizations in Shanghai, Jan. 12, 1967.
Oppose Economist and Smash the Latest Counterattack by the Bourgeois Reactionary Line – Editorial of Renmin Ribao [People’s Daily] and Hongqi [Red Flag], January 12, 1967.
Proletarian Revolutionaries, Unite, by Commentator, Hongqi, No. 2, 1967.
The May Upheaval in Hongkong, by the Committee of Hongkong-Kowloon Chinese Compatriots of All Circles for the Struggle Against Persecution by the British Authorities in Hongkong, (Hongkong: 1967), 191 pages. About the extension of the Cultural Revolution to Hongkong.
Forward Along the High Road of Mao Tse-tung’s Thought — In Celebration of the 17th Anniversary of the Founding of the People’s Republic of China, including editorials and speeches by Lin Piao and Chou En-lai on Oct. 1, 1966, 42 pages. (Peking: FLP, 1967) PDF format [2,031 KB].
Patriotism or National Betrayal? – On the Reactionary Film Inside Story of the Ching Court, by Chi Pen-yu, 44 pages. Original Chinese version in Hongqi #5, 1967. (Peking: FLP, 1967)
Great Victory for Chairman Mao’s Revolutionary Line – Warmly Hail the Birth of Peking Municipal Revolutionary Committee, including speeches by Chou En-lai, Chiang Ching, Hsieh Fu-chih, Chang Chun-chiao and editorials from Renmin Ribao and Jifangjun Bao, (Peking: FLP, 1967), 60 pages.
Absorb Proletarian Fresh Blood – An Important Question in Party Consolidation, Hongqi [Red Flag] editorial, #4, Oct. 14, 1968. (Peking: FLP, 1968), 34 pages.
1969:
Put Mao Tse-tung’s Thought in Command of Everything, New Year editorial for 1969 by Renmin Ribao [People’s Daily], Hongqi [Red Flag] and Jiefangjun Bao [Liberation Army Daily]. (Peking: FLP, 1969), 39 pages.
Outstanding Proletarian Fighters, about outstanding proletarian revolutionaries arising in all walks of life in China. (Peking: FLP, 1971), 101 pages.
To Trumpet Bourgeois Literature and Art is to Restore Capitalism – A Repudiation of Chou Yang’s Reactionary Fallacy Adulating the ‘Renaissance’, the ‘Enlightenment’ and ‘Critical Realism’ of the Bourgeoisie, by the Shanghai Writing Group for Revolutionary Mass Criticism, (Peking: FLP, 1971), 53 pages.
1972:
Strive to Build a Socialist University of Science and Engineering, about the Cultural Revolution in education. (Peking: FLP, 1972), 85 pages. In addition to the title article by the Workers’ and PLA Men’s Mao Tsetung Thought Propaganda Team at Tsinghua University, this pamphlet also includes the Summary of the Forum on the Revolution in Education in Shanghai Colleges of Science and Engineering convened by Chang Chun-chiao an Yao Wen-yuan in Shanghai, June 2, 1970.
Strive for New Victories, in Celebration of the 23rd Anniversary of the Founding of the People’s Republic of China, editorial by Renmin Ribao, Hongqi and Jiefangjun Bao, (Peking: FLP, 1972), 18 pages.
1974:
A Vicious Motive, Despicable Tricks – A Criticism of M. Antonioni’s Anti-China Film China, by Renmin Ribao Commentator, Jan. 30, 1974. (Peking: FLP, 1974), 23 pages.
1976:
A Summary of the Opinions of the Inner-Party Bourgeoisie Issues, a Guangzhou area regional CCP document which was reprinted by the Publicity Department of Zhongshan County Committee of the CCP, and which is based on theoretical seminar materials and also the relevant articles of some university journals. It is only to promote further discussion and study by comrades on the inner-party bourgeoisie issue. (July 8, 1976), 14 pages. This document is especially interesting in that it is in part a late period summary of the central aspects of the entire GPCR. It consists of the following six sections:
Chairman Mao’s scientific assertion that the bourgeoisie emerged within the Communist Party is a major development of Marxism-Leninism
On how to understand the problem that the bourgeoisie is just in the Communist Party
On the question of changes in class relations during the socialist period
On the root causes of the bourgeoisie within the party
About the characteristics of the bourgeoisie within the party and the contradictory nature of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie within the party
Recognition and struggle against the bourgeoisie in the party
(An English translation should be available soon.)
Collections of Documents from the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution:
Fundamentals of Political Economy, edited and with an introduction by George C Wang, ME Sharpe, New York, 1977, 506 pages. This was an introductory economics text produced in 1974 as part of a Youth Self-education series for individual or group study – primarily designed to raise the cultural level of the young people who were going to the countryside.
Appendix 1: On the General Program of Work for the Whole Party and Whole Nation
Appendix 2: Some Problems in Accelerating Industrial Development
Appendix 3: On Some Problems in the Fields of Science and Technology
Appendix 4: Two Talks by Teng Hsiao-ping
Appendix 5: The Bitter Fruit of Maoism, by Y. Semyonov
Appendix 6: Speech at Special Session of UN General Assembly, by Teng Hsiao-ping
Appendix 7: A Complete Reversal of the Relations Between Ourselves and the Enemy, by Hsiang Chun
Appendix 8: CPC Central Committee Circular on Holding National Science Conference
Appendix 9: To Each According to His Work: Socialist Principle in Distribution, by Li Hung-lin
CCP Documents of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution: 1966-67, (Hong Kong: Union Research Institute), 1967 [?], 361 pages. This work included the original Chinese language documents plus the English translations. This version, however, only includes the English translations.
Commentaries on the GPCR
The papers included here might well be anti-GPCR but they contain either documents or information which will help to get a greater understanding of this crucial political movement.
