How was the Cultural Revolution Used to Attack Mao’s Political and Class Enemies? (2a.3)

Question 1

Why did Mao purge Liu and Deng?

Answer 1

• Advocated pragmatic policies
• Future of rev not safe in their hands
• Could not act against them both while they were so popular in the Politburo
• Pragmatic economic policies, less committed to a collectivist approach

Question 2

What did Mao accuse Deng and Liu of?

Answer 2

• Deng: acting independently
• Liu: taking the ‘capitalist road’

Question 3

By end of 1965, who did Mao have support of?

Answer 3

• Lin Biao and PLA
• Jiang Qing and the Shanghai Radicals
• Chen Boda (control of propaganda)
• Kang Sheng

Question 4

How did Mao purge Liu and Deng?

Answer 4

• Attack on Wu Han to see if power of Liu and Deng in Beijing could be shaken
• Formally dismissed from positions within gov and party
• Wall posters denounces both for betraying the rev

Question 5

What happened to Liu?

Answer 5

• Dragged from house and beaten by jeering mob
• Brutal struggle sessions
• Imprisoned in conditions deliberately intended to break already fragile health
• Contracted pneumonia and died in 1969

Question 6

What happened to Liu’s wife Wang Guangmei?

Answer 6

• Humiliating interrogation
• Paraded before large crowd wearing necklace of table tennis balls (mocking pearls) and a revealing skirt
• Accused of trying to seduce President Sukarno in Indonesia
• Sentenced to death but Mao intervened to save her

Question 7

What happened to Deng?

Answer 7

• Public humiliation
• Sent to perform corrective labour in tractor factory in Jiangxi province
• Son left permanently paralysed when Red Guards threw him out of a window

Question 8

Why did Mao attempt to purge Lin Biao?

Answer 8

• He became too popular
• Had support of a substantial section of the Politburo
• Mao feared he would combine his military and political support to become a Chinese Bonaparte
• Suspicions increased by Jiang Qing who fell out with Lin about extent of her interference in army matters

Question 9

How did Mao start to purge Lin?

Answer 9

• Undermine positions of his allies (Chen Boda)
• Gradually packing Military Affairs Commission with his supporters, then reorganising Beijing military region so Lin’s allies posted elsewhere

Question 10

Lin’s plot

Answer 10

• Lin and his son planned to assassinate Mao and seize power
• Lin’s daughter exposed them and they tried to flee to Russia
• Plane crashed in Outer Mongolia killing all on board

Question 11

What happened after Lin died?

Answer 11

• Mao plunged into deep depression and never recovered
• Only political leader to resist being purged
• If Lin was a traitor, who else could the public disbelieve about the regime?
• Lin’s fall not released till 1972
• 1973 Jiang Qing launched the ‘Criticise Lin, Criticise Confucius’ campaign
• Those close to Lin were purged
• Mao became regarded with increasing scepticism

Question 12

Who would become Mao’s successor after Lin’s death?

Answer 12

• Zhou too old and too moderate
• Jiang Qing had too many personal enemies
• Zhang Chunquiao (GO4) had too narrow support base