By By Harsh Thakor
Mao Tsetung, 1942 Talks at the
Yenan Forum on Literature and Art
“In the 1960s Chiang Ching spent long periods in
What she saw in the main was a
``theater of the dead'' -- a culture promoting old ideas, practices and habits
of the exploiting classes. A stage dominated by forces in society opposed to
the elimination of privilege and inequality.
One of the characteristics of socialist
society is that classes and class struggle continue. Would
“Our operatic stage is occupied by emperors,
princes, generals, ministers, scholars and beauties, and on top of these,
ghosts and monsters...There are well over 600 million workers, peasants and
soldiers in our country, whereas there is only a handful of landlords, rich
peasants, counter-revolutionaries, bad elements, Rightists, and bourgeois
elements. Shall we serve this handful, or the 600 million? The grain we eat is
grown by the peasants, the clothes we wear and the houses we live in are all
made by the workers, and the People's Liberation Army stands guard at the
fronts of national defense for us and yet we do not portray them on stage. May
I ask which class stand you artists take? And where is the artists'
`conscience' you always talk about?''
Chiang Ching gave voice to a new
generation of theater-goers and actors who made urgent demands on the arts. A
whole new consciousness was developing among the people and they wanted plays,
ballets, music and other artistic works that reflected the new society. They
wanted cultural works that exposed the old society they had fought so hard to
overthrow. And they wanted a culture that would support and push forward the
continuing struggle to radically transform society -- not stand in the way.
Chiang Ching united with this sentiment and was instrumental in developing a
new revolutionary culture that was widely taken up by the masses.
From Peking to
Chiang actively led and sparked this
struggle. She visited artists, actors and musicians, encouraging them to carry
out Mao's line on literature and art. She went boldly into the theatres and
ballet troupes, speaking directly to performers. And she did this over the
heads of their superiors, inciting them to criticize ``bourgeois art'' and
those party leaders who promoted it. In the China Peking Opera Theater and the
Peking Opera Theater of Shanghai, in the ballet schools in Peking and
There were many times when Chiang Ching
had to ``go against the tide.'' Her work was sabotaged, she was personally
attacked and slandered. And there were times when she and Mao's other close
comrades were clearly in the minority. But Chiang Ching had great faith in the
masses and she relied on them to wage the struggle for a new revolutionary
culture. In developing a method for creating good, modern plays, she was the
first to suggest the ``three-in-one combination.'' What she developed were
leading groups made up of three components: leadership cadres, playwrights and
the masses. The leadership would first set the theme and the playwrights would
then consider it and go out to gain experience of that subject in real life.
When the play was written, the masses, who knew about the play's theme from actual
experience, would review, discuss and give opinions on it.
Model works were developed in this way,
like the famous ``Red Detachment of Women.'' And they were then performed not
only by big professional companies, but by all kinds of smaller amateur groups
in the cities and countryside. This whole ``three-in-one'' method was later
used as a model for the Revolutionary Committee -- the new form of leadership
organization developed during the Cultural Revolution.
REVOLUTIONARY
One of the things Chiang Ching is best known
for is her role in creating a new revolutionary Peking Opera. This was one of
the earliest victories of the Cultural Revolution -- an opening shot in a
struggle that pitted Mao's supporters against the ``capitalist roaders'' in the
party who wanted to bring back capitalism. The stakes of this battle were
great. Chiang Ching knew that if Mao's enemies were able to maintain control of
the propaganda and cultural departments this would give them a lot of power to
promote their ideas and rally forces to their side. If ``emperors and princes''
were allowed to dominate the culture, this would eventually undermine the
social and economic structure of socialist society.
The prominent characters in these works
were the masses of people and revolutionary heros and heroines. All this was an
example of integrating the rich cultural heritage of
New productions were harassed and sabotaged.
There would be no vacant theaters, no place to rehearse and no publicity. And
there were repeated attempts to silence Chiang Ching's leadership. For
instance, at an opera festival in the fall of 1964 Chiang Ching delivered a
major speech on the revolution of the Peking Opera. But this speech went
unreported until three years later, in 1967.
The intense struggle in the cultural realm
tested and trained Chiang Ching for even bigger battles. The question was up:
would the proletariat hold on to state power or would power be grabbed by those
in the party who wanted to take
In the midst of this unprecedented upsurge Chiang
Ching came forward as a leader in an all-around way. Chiang Ching helped
deliver what Mao called ``the signal'' for the beginning of the Cultural
Revolution. Under Mao and her leadership an article was written criticizing the
play ``Hai Jui Dismissed from Office,'' which was a thinly disguised attack on
the revolution.
And it was this article that sounded the call
for the masses to expose and kick out those in the party taking the capitalist
road.
Chiang Ching was also instrumental in writing
the May 16th Circular -- a very important statement of principles which set out
the goals and methods for the Cultural Revolution. On May 25, 1966, students at
Mao supported this and asked that this ``first
Marxist-Leninist big character poster'' be broadcast on the radio and printed
in the newspapers. Mass struggle broke out on campus and quickly spread to
other schools. Chiang Ching recognized the significance of this upsurge and
decided to go to
What she found was that the party “work teams''
that had been sent from
When the Red Guards first appeared she defended
and encouraged them. She was appointed First Deputy Head of the Cultural
Revolution Group, the group of party leaders entrusted with the task of leading
the Cultural Revolution. And in this capacity she attended seven of the eight
mass Red Guard rallies in
Later an ultra-left line developed among the
students that threatened to sabotage Mao's line by advocating the use of
violence to resolve differences among the people.
And Chiang Ching played a key role in
combating this trend. She told the students,
``Don't hit others and beat them.
Struggle by force can only touch the skin and flesh, while the struggle by
reasoning things out can touch them to their very souls.''
Chiang Ching also assisted and gave
support to the workers when they seized power from party leaders who had been
exposed as ``capitalist roaders.''
She encouraged workers in the takeover
of the Trade Union Federation in December 1966, one of the first of these power
seizures.
As the Cultural Revolution deepened, right-wing
forces in the party continued to oppose the revolutionary changes being made in
the economy, health, education and culture.
Chiang Ching played a leading role in
mobilizing the masses to combat these efforts to put so-called experts back in
command and undercut the new socialist ways of doing things.
And when people like Deng Xiaoping
promoted the idea that
While providing overall leadership to
the Cultural Revolution, Chiang Ching continued to play a key role in the
struggle to develop revolutionary culture.
In November 1966 she became the
cultural adviser to the People's Liberation Army and called on the masses of
soldiers to take up pen, paint, baton and camera and join the struggle to develop
art to serve the people.
In one of her statements at
the trial Chiang Ching says that while in prison she prepared herself
physically for the trial, so that she could do her best in court to defend the
Cultural Revolution. "Every day at the cock's crow, I got out my sword",
referring to a well-known general readying himself for battle.
She prepared a 181-page statement slamming the revisionists with their own
indictments: if the Left "framed up" veteran leaders, what are you
doing now? What's wrong with the Cultural Revolution overthrowing the
capitalist headquarters of Liu Shao-chi and company and restoring the true face
of the Party? She got right to the heart of the matter:
"I'm not going to admit to any crimes, not because I want to
cut myself off from the people, but because I'm innocent. If I have to admit to
anything, I can only say I lost in this struggle for power.
"You have power now so
you can easily accuse people of crimes and fabricate false evidence to support
your charges. But if you think you can fool the people of
This is exactly what her testimony did in the trial itself, which started
November 20th, 1980, and went into January 1981. Unlike Wang Hung-wen and Yao
Wen-yuan, who capitulated before the court, admitting everything they were
charged with in exchange, they hoped, for a lighter sentence, Chang Chun-chiao
remained defiantly silent (except when he rejected the indictments), refusing
to recognize the court of some 35 judges and its jeering, hand-picked spectators
and televised spectacle.
Chiang Ching showed nothing but contempt for her would-be executioners and
boldly turned the fire of interrogation right back at them:
"Most of the members of the court present, including your
president Jiang Hua, competed with each other in those days to criticize Liu
Shao-chi.
If I am guilty, how about
all of you?"
She drew out clearly the link between her actions and Mao's revolutionary line,
again silencing her judges, who of course could not prove otherwise and were
reduced to telling her to "shut up" again and again.
"Since you won't
let me speak", Chiang Ching would then retort, "why don't you put a
clay Buddha in my chair and try it instead of me. I was Chairman Mao's wife for
thirty-eight years.... I followed Mao's line and the Party's line. What you are
doing now is asking a widow to pay her husband's debt. Well I'll tell you, I am
happy and honoured to pay Chairman Mao's debt!"
And in one dramatic moment, she repeated a well-known statement of Mao's that
true revolutionaries are bound by neither heaven nor law.
The authorities could stand no more. As she was dragged from the room she
shouted, "It's right to rebel! Down with the revisionists led by Deng
Xiaoping! I am prepared to die!" Shaken, the revisionists postponed their
frame-up for a few days to decide what to do.
In prison
walls Chiang continued to illuminate the red spark of liberation. She inscribed
slogans to ‘chop of her head.’ A printed paper was published by her exposing
the naked nature of the revisionist regime. She pleaded to present her view sin
open debate to the twelfth party Congress in 1982. In 1983 Chiang’s
sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. There were reports of leaflets
appearing on the streets of Peking and
WANG HONGWEN
Wang Hongwen intervened on the scene much
later. He gained his political baptism as a worker in a textile mill in
1964.With great diligence he defended Mao's line within the municipal party
committee .Wang had been appointed as head of the security work in the factory,
which included physically guarding the plant from sabotage and intrusion, and
most importantly handling personell questions. In 1966 Wang putout character
posters understanding the significance of the Cultural Revolution, by
questioning the leadership of both the Municipal party Committee and the
central govt. In September 1966 Wang participated in a meeting at the East
China textile institute and led an organised citywide criticism of the
Mayor,mayor, Tsao Ti Chu.By November Wang was in the leading group of a city
wide organization of Mao's followers in Shanghai's factories, educational, cultural
and administrative units. They decided to unite with the Red Guards from
several
It was strange that Wang was chosen above
Chiang, Chang and Yao.This could mainly be attributed to the fact that as he
was a young man or newcomer he could be more easily dismissed or discredited in
the immediate struggle for successors' post after Mao's death. Secondly he was
not associated with Lin Biao having not worked with the party center unlike
Chiang,Chang and
Yao Wen Yuan gained his political baptism on
the cultural front in
Article written with reference to ‘Mao’s Great
last Battle “ by Raymond Lotta, Revolutionary
worker, 1991 article on Chiang Ching and other intellectuals.
_____________________________________
Harsh Thakor is an independent journalist covering movements
all around the
There was an actual punk band called "Gang of Four."
No comments:
Post a Comment