Attacks on Mao's Political Opponents Flashcards
Why was Liu Shaoqi a threat to Mao?
Head of state
His pragmatic policies helped to rebuild China after the Great Leap Forward
Popular: Mao jealous?
When Mao first encouraged the students to rise up, Liu had supported sending Party “Work Teams” onto campuses to control the violence
^^^ “rightist” sentiments
What happened to Liu Shaoqi?
Subjected to constant struggle meetings Abused Beaten Wife publicly denounced Children sent to countryside to live as peasants
Denounced as a “renegade, scab and traitor”
Stripped of all his posts
Replaced by Lin Biao
Exiled from Beijing
Torture and neglect meant, in time, he could no longer speak
Died on the 12/11/1968– unmarked grave
What did Liu do to try and persuade Mao to stop being mean to him?
Wrote him a letter BEGGING to be allowed to resign, but Mao didn’t reply.
What did Jiang Qing day of Liu?
Ninth Party Congress:
Denounced him as a traitor, an agent for the American CIA
The evidence for this had been gathered by Jiang Qing and Kang Sheng (tortured prisoners to get it)
Why was Mao angered by Deng Xiaoping?
Famous dictum about the irrelevance of the “colour” of a policy: direct adding to Mao’s belief it was better to be COMMUNIST than PRACTICAL
Deng helped Liu introduce economic refoms WITHOUT MAOs ADVICE: “Deng Xiaoping never came to consult me… from 1959 to the present he has never consulted me over anything at all”
What accusations were made against Deng Xiaoping?
Damned as the “number two person in authority taking the capitalist road”
Accused of trying to establish his own “Independent Kingdom”
What happened to Deng Xiaoping during the Cultural Revolution?
He disappeared from public sight (sent to a tractor factory in rural Jiangxi)
Deng’s family suffered: his son attempted to escape torture by jumping (or getting pushed) out of a window by Red Guards— paralysed from waist down.
What happened to Deng Xiaoping after the Cultural Revolution?
Later returned to power by Mao: needed him to help end the chaos of the CR
Target of radicals:
- blamed for the protests that followed the death of Zhou Enlai.
- Gang of Four radicals blamed him for the violent clashes with police during the 1976 Qingming festival
What did the Gang of Four persuade Mao to do, regarding Mao, following the violent clashes with police, that they blamed him for, during the 1976 Qingming festival?
To take away his positions of government and leadership
What happened to Deng Xiaoping after the death of Mao?
Eventually became the most important leader of the PRC
Why was Lin Biao so liked by Mao?
Mao’s most subservient follower
(Loyalty impressed Mao so much that he was chosen to replace Peng Duhai after the Lushan meeting)
Helped create the Little Red Book
What was the significance of the Little Red Book that Lin Biao helped to create?
Spread Mao’s cult of personality
Lin wrote a foreword that lauded Mao as practically a deity
Made compulsory reading for PLA soldiers
Demanded self-sacrifice in the service of the chairman
Distributed to millions of soldiers
Newspaper
What did the PLA newspaper begin to do?
Publish a Mao quote every day
Soldiers ordered to cut them out and compile their own collections of Mao’s quotes: studied, recited
What was the cult that also encouraged obedience to Mao Zedong Thought?
The cult of Lei Feng
What could Mao rely on when the violence of the Cultural Revolution spiralled our of control?
The complete loyalty of the PLA to control it
