The Gang of Four was a Maoist political faction composed of four Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials. They came to prominence during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) and were later charged with a series of treasonous crimes due to their responsibility for the excesses and failures in the Cultural Revolution. The gang's leading figure was Jiang Qing. The other members were Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan, and Wang Hongwen.
"Decisively Throw Out the Wang-Zhang-Jiang-Yao Anti-Party Clique!"
The Gang of Four at their trial in 1981
Image: 1967 07 1967年4月20日北京市革命委员会成立 江青 (1to 1)
Image: 1967 07 1967年4月20日北京市革命委员会成立 张春桥 上海革委会主任 (1to 1)
Maoism, also known as Mao Zedong Thought, is a variety of Marxism–Leninism that Mao Zedong developed while trying to realize a socialist revolution in the agricultural, pre-industrial society of the Republic of China and later the People's Republic of China. A difference between Maoism and traditional Marxism–Leninism is that a united front of progressive forces in class society would lead the revolutionary vanguard in pre-industrial societies rather than communist revolutionaries alone. This theory, in which revolutionary praxis is primary and ideological orthodoxy is secondary, represents urban Marxism–Leninism adapted to pre-industrial China. Later theoreticians expanded on the idea that Mao had adapted Marxism–Leninism to Chinese conditions, arguing that he had in fact updated it fundamentally and that Maoism could be applied universally throughout the world. This ideology is often referred to as Marxism–Leninism–Maoism to distinguish it from the original ideas of Mao.
Mao Zedong, for whom the ideology is named.
Strategic Issues of Anti-Japanese Guerrilla War (1938)
Strategic Issues in the Chinese Revolutionary War (1947)
Beijing, 1978. The billboard reads, "Long Live Marxism, Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought!"