Mao: The Unknown Story

Chou’s allies, Deng and Marshal Yeh, were put in the picture about Mao’s state of health. They decided not to tell the Gang of Four, even Mao’s wife, who was anyway a walking incentive for others to keep her out of the loop. Two years before, after Mao had passed out, she had accused medical staff of being “spies” and “counter-revolutionaries.” When Chou had discussed Mao’s illnesses with her, she had accused him of trying to force Mao to surrender power. But the decision to exclude her was determined by more than just the fact that she was trouble. It was politically motivated.

Mao himself was not informed. If Mao knew his days were numbered, there was no knowing what he might do. Instead, he was assured that he was in good health, and still had a long time to live. To make doubly sure he did not find out, none of his regular staff was told. One doctor who blurted out “I’m afraid the Chairman’s illness is hard to treat …” was instantly removed. Mao’s symptoms were passed off as harmless. This did not satisfy him, but there was nothing he could do.

With the knowledge of the time frame of Mao’s life, and with Chou himself in inexorable decline, the Deng-Chou-Yeh Alliance moved to press Mao to institutionalize Deng’s role as Chou’s stand-in and successor, and to restore to high office a large number of old cadres who had been ousted in the Purge. In December 1974, Chou left his hospital bed and flew to Changsha to see Mao with a slate of new appointments. Mao knew about the Alliance’s activities from the Gang of Four, who were keeping a look-out in Peking on his behalf. Mme Mao had written to say she was “shocked and aghast” at what was going on. But Mao was in no condition to veto the Chou — Deng list. He could not hand over the country to the Gang of Four, and neither could he try to get rid of the Alliance — if he wanted to die in his bed. The Gang of Four were powerless in the army and Mao had nobody in the military who could take on the Alliance on his behalf. And he himself was physically too feeble to create a new force that could trump the Alliance.

Lou Gehrig’s disease had been nibbling away at his body. At the start of his trip to the south in summer 1974, Mao could still take walks in the garden; but within a few months, all he could do was drag one leg after the other for a short distance. On 5 December he found he had to say goodbye to swimming, his lifelong passion. He had taken a few dips in his indoor pool in Changsha, but that day he nearly choked in the water, and this was to be his last swim. His bodyguard of twenty-seven years heard Mao let out a long sigh of melancholy and resignation, something he had never heard, and could not imagine coming from Mao.

As his muscular coordination failed, Mao’s speech became increasingly slurred, and food kept getting into his lungs, causing choking and infection. He had to lie on his side to be fed. Life became excruciatingly uncomfortable.

In this condition, Mao had to endorse Chou’s slate, especially the promotion of Deng to first vice-premier and stand-in for Chou. But Mao promoted one of the Gang of Four, the Cobra, and made him second to Deng in the military and the government. He also insisted that the media remain in the hands of the Gang, so that only his message could reach the country at large.

The Alliance’s strategy was to dislodge the Cobra and Mme Mao, exploiting their less than spotless pasts. On 26 December, Mao’s eighty-first birthday, Chou told Mao that these two had had connections with Nationalist intelligence in the 1930s. Mao’s reply was that he had known about their pasts all along, and he effectively said that he could not care less.

Telling Mao to his face that his wife and one of his top acolytes were suspected enemy agents was startling behavior on Chou’s part. Mao could see that battle had been well and truly joined, with himself and the Gang of Four pitted against the Deng — Chou — Yeh Alliance and the old cadres who were now being re-employed en masse.

Mao tried to regain some ground by getting the Gang of Four to start a media campaign in March 1975 to smear the authority of the reinstated cadres. In April, after Mao returned to Peking, Deng gave Mao a piece of his mind and asked him to call a halt. Mao was forced to yield, and blamed the Gang of Four. On 3 May, in front of the Politburo, Mao ordered the campaign stopped and said he had “made a mistake.” This was an unprecedented climb-down, brought about by the fact that he was patently vulnerable. As everyone at the meeting could see, he was extremely frail, completely blind, and his speech was barely intelligible. It was his last appearance at a Politburo meeting.