Attacks of Mao's political opponents

Question 1

Mao’s key political opponents

Answer 1

Liu Shaoqi
Lin Biao
Deng Xiaoping

Question 2

Why was Mao Jealous of Liu Shaoqi?

Answer 2

Liu was popular because as Head of State, his pragmatic policies helped rebuild China after the GLF

Question 3

What was used as evidence of Liu’s traitorous ‘rightist’ sentiments?

Answer 3

When he had supported the sending of Party ‘Work Teams’ onto campuses to control the violence when Mao first encouraged students to rise up

Question 4

What happened to Liu’s family?

Answer 4

Wife was publicly denounced.
Children sent to countryside to live as peasants

Question 5

What happened to Liu?

Answer 5

Was subjected to constant struggle meeting.
Was abused and beaten.

Question 6

Why did Liu write to Mao?

Answer 6

To beg him to be allowed to resign after being tortured

Question 7

At the ninth Party Congress, what did Jiang Qing denounce Liu Shaoqi as?

Answer 7

Traitor who had been an agent for the American CIA

Question 8

Who gathered evidence to prove Liu was a traitor who had been an agent for the American CIA?

Answer 8

Kang Sheng
Jiang Qing

Question 9

How did Jiang Qing and Kang Sheng find evidence to denounce Liu as a traitor who had been an agent for the American CIA?

Answer 9

Tortured prisoners to get it

Question 10

[Quote] What was Liu Shaoqi called as he was denounced and stripped of all his posts?

Answer 10

‘renegade, scab and traitor’

Question 11

Who was Liu Shaoqi replaced by?

Answer 11

Lin Biao

Question 12

What happened to Liu near the end of his life?

Answer 12

Exiled from Beijing.
In time, torture and neglect meant he could no longer talk

Question 13

When did Liu Shaoqi die and where was he buried?

Answer 13

12 November 1968
In an unmarked grave

Question 14

Why was Mao angered by Deng Xiaoping?

Answer 14

Deng’s statement about the irrelevance of the ‘colour’ of a police was a direct insult to Mao’s belief that it was better to be Communist than practical.

Deng had helped Liu introduce economic reform without Mao’s advice

Question 15

[Quote] What had Mao complained about in regards to Deng?

Answer 15

‘Deng Xiaoping never came to consult me…from 1959 to the present he never consulted me over anything at all.’

Question 16

What was Deng damned as?

Answer 16

‘the number two person in authority taking the capitalist road’

Question 17

What was Deng accused of trying to establish?

Answer 17

His own ‘Independent Kingdom’

Question 18

What happened to Deng?

Answer 18

Disappeared from public sight after having been sent to a rural tractor factory in rural Jiangxi

Question 19

What happened to Deng’s family?

Answer 19

His son attempted to escape torture by jumping out of a window (some say he was pushed by Red Guards) and was paralysed from the waist down

Question 20

Why was Deng later returned to power by Mao?

Answer 20

Mao needed him to help end the chaos of the Cultural Revolution

Question 21

Since Deng was a target of radicals, what was he blamed for?

Answer 21

The protests that followed the death of Zhou Enlai

Question 22

What did the Gang of Four radicals blame Deng for?

Answer 22

The violent clashes with police during the 1976 Qingming festival

Question 23

What did the Gang of Four convince Mao to take away from Deng?

Answer 23

His positions of government leadership

Question 24

After Mao’s death, what happened to Deng?

Answer 24

He eventually became the most important leader in the PRC.

Question 25

At the start, why was Mao impressed by Lin Biao?

Answer 25

He was Mao's most subservient follower. His loyalty was impressive

Question 26

Who was Lin Biao chosen to replace by Mao?

Answer 26

The disgraced Peng Dehuai after the Lushan meeting

Question 27

What did Lin help create?

Answer 27

the Little Red Book

Question 28

What did the Little Red Book help Mao spread?

Answer 28

His cult of personality

Question 29

What was one of Lin's part in the creation of the Little Red Book?

Answer 29

Wrote a foreword to the book that praised Mao as practically a deity (God)

Question 30

Who was the Little Red Book made compulsory reading for?

Answer 30

PLA soldiers

Question 31

What did the Little Red Book demand from PLA soldiers?

Answer 31

Self-sacrifice in the service of the Chairman

Question 32

What did the PLA newspaper begin to do in regards to the Little Red Book?

Answer 32

Began to publish a quotation from Mao everyday

Question 33

What were soldiers ordered to in response to the newspaper's published quotations of Mao?

Answer 33

To cut them out and compile their own collections of Mao's quotes to be studied and recited

Question 34

What did the Cult of Lei Feng encourage obedience to?

Answer 34

Mao Zedong Thought

Question 35

What was Mao able to rely on when the violence of the Cultural Revolution spiralled out of control?

Answer 35

The complete loyalty of the PLA to control it

Question 36

Who were the Gang of Four?

Answer 36

Group of Communist leaders, including Mao's wife, Jiang Qing, who wanted to follow a radical and violent revolutionary path towards turning China into a Communist country

Question 37

Who was Lei Feng?

Answer 37

A Chinese soldier who was committed to Communism. After his death, his devotion to Communism was used to inspire other people to be loyal to the Party

Question 38

When was the 'Learn from the PLA' campaign launched?

Answer 38

1963

Question 39

What was the 'Learn from the PLA' campaign?

Answer 39

Army propaganda which turned one rank-and-file soldier, Lei Feng, into an ideological role model and national hero

Question 40

[Quote] What was Lei Feng described as in Party propaganda?

Answer 40

'one of Chairman Mao's good warriors'

Question 41

Give an example of how posters showed that Lei Feng was deeply loyal to the Party and Mao.

Answer 41

Showed him digging wells for peasants and helping old ladies to cross the road

Question 42

[Quote] What did Mao declare in regards to Lei Feng?

Answer 42

'Be like Comrade Lei Feng'

Question 43

What happened to Lei Feng's diary when he died in an accident while on duty?

Answer 43

Was published

Question 44

What did Lei Feng's diary recall?

Answer 44

His service to his comrades and also showed him to be unselfish in the service of the revolution

Question 45

Give an example of how Lei Feng was unselfish as recalled by his diary.

Answer 45

On a train he would help staff clean the carriages. In the barracks he would secretly mend his comrades' clothes

Question 46

What did the myth of Lei Feng help create?

Answer 46

Loyalty to Mao