Mao: The Unknown Story

In mid-July, Mao came to Wuhan in person to order General Chen to change his position. Assuming that General Chen would just cave in, Mao planned then to use Wuhan as an example to get army units all over the country to follow suit.

But Mao was in for a huge shock. When he told General Chen that the Peerless was a “Conservative” organization, and that the military had committed grave errors in backing it, Chen told Mao to his face: “We don’t admit that.”

Next came something equally unheard-of: rank-and-file members of the Peerless, together with sympathizers in the army, reacted to Mao’s verdict with defiance. On the night of 19–20 July, when the message was relayed to them by military and civilian grandees whom Mao had brought with him from Peking, outraged crowds took to the streets, with hundreds of trucks carrying nearly 1,000 soldiers with machine-guns, as well as tens of thousands of workers armed with iron bars. The demonstrators blasted protests through loudspeakers at Mao’s villa compound. Many knew that this ultra-mysterious, top-security lakeside estate was Mao’s, and, seeing the lights on, guessed that he was in residence. Though no one dared to attack Mao openly, giant posters in the streets carried slogans attacking the Small Group and its leader, Mme Mao, indirectly aiming at Mao himself: “Jiang Qing keep away from power!” “Chairman Mao is being hoodwinked!” General Chen received extraordinary letters; one even urged him to “use your power … to wipe off the face of the Earth those worst dictators in the world who want no history and no culture …”

Most scary for Mao, hundreds of demonstrators and armed soldiers broke into the grounds of his villa, and got within a stone’s throw of him, carrying off a key member of his entourage, Small Group member Wang Li, who took a fearsome beating.

Never in eighteen years of compulsive, all-inclusive, self-protection had Mao faced so concrete a threat, both to his personal safety and to his sense of total power.

Chou En-lai, who had come to Wuhan ahead of Mao to arrange his security, had just returned to Peking, but had to fly straight back with 200 fully armed Praetorian Guards. He reverted smoothly to his old underground style, though this time operating in the state whose prime minister he was: waiting until dark before proceeding to Mao’s place, changing clothes and donning dark glasses. At 2:00 AM on 21 July, Mao was whisked away through the back door of his villa. All his three forms of transportation were on standby — his special train, his plane, and warships. Mao gave the order to leave by train, but once he was on board he switched to a plane — though not his own. The pilot was not told the destination, Shanghai, until he was airborne.

This was Mao’s last flight ever — and it was a flight. Soldiers rampaging right inside his estate was something utterly unthinkable. So was a demonstration openly hostile to his orders — and moreover, one involving fully armed troops.

The regime acted swiftly to show that it would not tolerate Wuhan. Chou got Small Group member Wang Li released, and embraced him demonstratively, putting his unshaven cheek to his. Wang Li returned to Peking to a staged welcome the like of which the country had never seen. A crowd of tens of thousands greeted him at Peking airport, headed by a teary Chou. This was followed by a million-strong rally on Tiananmen Square, presided over by Lin Biao.

General Chen was purged, and replaced by a man of unquestioning loyalty to Lin Biao. Army units involved in the defiance were disbanded, and sent to do forced labor. The Peerless disintegrated, and those who tried to hold out were physically beaten into collapse. Over the next few months, as many as 184,000 ordinary citizens and cadres were injured, crippled or killed in the province. General Chen and his deputies were ordered to Peking. There something else extraordinary happened, probably a world “first.” The Wuhan generals were beaten up — and not in some squalid dungeon, but at a Politburo meeting chaired by Chou En-lai. The perpetrators were senior officers headed by air force commander-in-chief Wu Fa-xian. The scene in the Politburo chamber was just like a street denunciation meeting, with the victims made to stand bent double, their arms twisted back in the jet-plane position, while they were punched and kicked. General Chen was knocked down and trampled on. Even in Mao’s gangster world, for the Politburo to become the scene of physical violence was unprecedented.

THE UPRISING IN Wuhan led Mao to conclude that over 75 percent of army officers were unreliable. He had a stab at initiating a huge purge among the military, and started denouncing “capitalist-roaders within the army,” but he had to pull back almost immediately. Having sacked most civilian officials, he simply could not afford to create more enemies in what was now his only power base.