Mao: The Unknown Story

On 14 April 1966, Mme Mao’s “kill culture” manifesto was made public. A month later, the Politburo met to rubber-stamp the first list of victims of the Great Purge, four big names described as an “anti-Party clique”: Mayor Peng, Chief of Staff Luo, Yang Shang-kun, the liaison with Russia and the tape-recording suspect, and old media chief Lu Ding-yi. Mao did not bother to come to the occasion, and just ordered it to pass a document he had had prepared condemning the four. A fatalistic atmosphere dominated the gathering, which included two of the four-man “clique” and was actually chaired by Liu Shao-chi, who knew he was chairing an event that was ultimately going to bring him to ruin, even though for now he was not named. For once, his steely Communist training failed him. With unwontedly visible anger, he made a protest aimed at Mao: “we are ordered to discuss this document, but no revision is allowed … Is this not dictatorial?” He then asked Mayor Peng, who was condemned by name in the document, whether he had “any complaints.” The mayor, who had acted so bravely up to now, answered: “No complaints.” Liu gave him another chance to say something by asking: “Are you for it or against it?” The mayor hung his head and was silent. Liu then asked all in favor to raise their hands. All did, including Mayor Peng and Liu himself.

The members of the “clique” were soon hauled off and incarcerated. Mao’s cynicism about his case is revealed in a conversation he had the following month with Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh. Mao claimed the four men “are with the Nationalists.” When Ho queried this absurd assertion, Mao replied, without batting an eyelid: “We still do not have firm evidence, but just a suspicion of sorts.”

At this May Politburo gathering it was Lin Biao who acted as Mao’s intimidator. Raising his clenched fist, he surveyed the audience threateningly, and announced that anyone opposing Mao must be “put to death … the whole country must call for their blood.” His speech was larded with coarse personal abuse, with foes referred to simply as “sons of bitches.”

Most unusually, in the speech Lin spoke explicitly about the possibility of a coup d’état, a subject which was normally taboo. Mao had him talk in this way in order to knock any lingering dreams of a palace coup on the head. Mao had been making preparations against a coup for years, Lin disclosed, and particularly “in recent months,” when Mao had “paid special attention to the adoption of many measures toward preventing a … coup.” Mao had “deployed troops and key personnel … and made arrangements in critical departments like radio stations, the army and the police. This is what Chairman Mao has been doing in the past few months …” He also divulged that Mao had taken the possibility of a coup so seriously that he (Mao) had “lost sleep for many days.”

Mao had indeed been making arrangements to forestall a coup. Army units officered by Lin men had been moved into the capital. “We transferred two more garrison divisions [into Peking],” Mao told Albania’s defense minister. “Now in Peking we have three infantry divisions and one mechanised division, altogether four divisions. It is only because of these that you can go anywhere, and we can go anywhere.” The Praetorian Guard was drastically purged, including three deputy chiefs, one dying a terrible death, two barely surviving. The only person left unscathed was its chief, Mao’s trusted chamberlain Wang Dong-xing. Likewise, in the only other organization with access to weapons, the police, chiefs of both the ministry and its Peking bureau were arrested, because they had had ties to President Liu in the past. Another victim of Mao’s precautions was the ethnic Mongolian chief of Inner Mongolia, Ulanhu. This province occupied a vital position bordering on Russia’s satellite Mongolia. Ulanhu was detained that fateful May.

WHILE SHORING UP Mao, Lin Biao also attended to some personal business. Apart from Chief of Staff Luo, there was another member of the four-man “clique” he hated: media chief Lu Ding-yi, and for a rather unusual reason. Lu Ding-yi’s wife was a schizophrenic who was fixated on Mrs. Lin, and had written the Lins over fifty scabrous anonymous letters claiming that Mrs. Lin had had a string of affairs, including one with Wang Shi-wei, the dissident leader of the young volunteers in Yenan, and that Lin might not be the father of their children. Some of the letters were addressed to the Lins’ children, with lewd descriptions of their mother’s alleged sex life, some signed with the name of Dumas’ avenger, “Monte Cristo.” Instead of receiving mental treatment, which was what she clearly needed, Mrs. Lu was arrested on 28 April 1966, and went through hell for the next twelve years.

At one session of the May Politburo gathering, Lin had a document placed in front of the participants. It read:

I solemnly declare:

1. Ye Qun [Mrs. Lin] was a pure virgin when she married me. Since then, she has always been proper;