Mao: The Unknown Story

2. Ye Qun had no love relationship whatsoever with Wang Shi-wei;

3. Tiger and Dodo are blood son and daughter of mine with Ye Qun;

4. Everything written in the counter-revolutionary letters by [Mrs. Lu] is rubbish.

Lin Biao

14 May 1966.

It was the first time such a colorful text had ever come before the Politburo.

Although this behavior seems ludicrous, it had a practical aim. Lin was clearing his wife’s name, as she was now to be a fixture on the political scene, acting as his representative. He himself disliked attending meetings, or seeing people.

Mrs. Lin was a rather batty woman, a bundle of energy who received little love from the marshal and lived in a state of unremitting sexual frustration. She grew to be erratic, and managed to drive her own daughter, Dodo, to attempt suicide more than once, the first time in 1964. Like Mme Mao, who was also hysterical from frustration, Mrs. Lin now sought compensation and fulfillment in political scheming and persecution, although she was less awful than Mme Mao. She acted as her husband’s assistant, and issued orders on his behalf.

Mao’s Great Purge was rolling thanks to a horse-trade with his crony Lin Biao.

This suspicion sealed the fate of Sichuan chief Li Jing-quan, who was supposed to be Peng De-huai’s minder. Li, who had been one of Mao’s favorites, suffered greatly in the years ahead, and his wife committed suicide.

Although most were kept, and the man in charge told us that he privately saw to it that the ones destroyed were first transcribed. This was accomplished with the approval of his superior, who, it so happened, was Mayor Peng Zhen, who said: “I’ll just tell the Chairman they are all destroyed.”

48. THE GREAT PURGE (1966–67 AGE 72–73)

AT THE END of May 1966, Mao set up a new office, the Cultural Revolution Small Group, to help run the Purge. Mme Mao headed it for him, with Mao’s former secretary, Chen Bo-da, its nominal director, and purge expert Kang Sheng its “adviser.” This office, in addition to Lin Biao and Chou En-lai, formed Mao’s latest inner circle.

Under the new cabal, the cult of Mao was escalated to fever pitch. Mao’s face dominated the front page of People’s Daily, which also ran a column of his quotations every day. Soon, badges started appearing with Mao’s head on them, of which, altogether, some 4.8 billion were manufactured. More copies of Mao’s Selected Works were printed — and more portraits of him (1.2 billion) — than China had inhabitants. It was this summer that the Little Red Book was handed out to everyone. It had to be carried and brandished on all public occasions, and its prescriptions recited daily.

In June, Mao intensified the terrorization of society. He picked as his first instrument of terror young people in schools and universities, the natural hotbeds for activists. These students were told to condemn their teachers and those in charge of education for poisoning their heads with “bourgeois ideas”—and for persecuting them with exams, which henceforth were abolished. The message was splashed in outsize characters on the front page of People’s Daily, and declaimed in strident voices on the radio, carried by loudspeakers that had been rigged up everywhere, creating an atmosphere that was both blood-boiling and blood-curdling. Teachers and administrators in education were selected as the first victims because they were the people instilling culture, and because they were the group most conveniently placed to offer up to the youthful mobs, being right there to hand.

The young were told that their role was to “safeguard” Mao, although how their teachers could possibly harm “the great Helmsman,” or what perils might beset him, was not disclosed. Nevertheless, many responded enthusiastically. Taking part in politics was something no one had been allowed to do under Mao, and the country was seething with frustrated activists who had been denied the normal outlets available in most societies, even to sit around and argue issues. Now, suddenly, there seemed to be a chance to get involved. To those interested in politics, the prospect was tremendously exciting. Young people began to form groups.

On 2 June, a group from a middle school in Peking put up a wall poster, which they signed with the snappy name of “Red Guards,” to show that they wanted to safeguard Mao. Their writing was full of remarks like: “Stuff ‘human feelings!’ ” “We will be brutal!” “We will strike you [Mao’s enemies] to the ground and trample you!” The seeds of hate that Mao had sown were ready for reaping. Now he was able to unleash the thuggery of these infected teenagers, the most malleable and violent element of society.