1.
Dialectics
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The term dialectic is not synonymous with the term debate. While in theory debaters are not necessarily emotionally invested in their point of view, debates are won through a combination of persuading the opponent, proving ones argument correct, or proving the opponents argument incorrect. Debates do not necessarily require promptly identifying a clear winner or loser, however clear winners are determined by either a judge. The term dialectics is also not synonymous with the term rhetoric, concepts, like logos or rational appeal, pathos or emotional appeal, and ethos or ethical appeal, are intentionally used by rhetoricians to persuade an audience. Socrates favoured truth as the highest value, proposing that it could be discovered through reason and logic in discussion, ergo, Socrates valued rationality as the proper means for persuasion, the discovery of truth, and the determinant for ones actions. To Socrates, truth, not aretē, was the greater good, therefore, Socrates opposed the Sophists and their teaching of rhetoric as art and as emotional oratory requiring neither logic nor proof. Different forms of reasoning have emerged throughout history from the Indosphere. These forms include the Socratic method, Hindu, Buddhist, Medieval, Hegelian dialectics, Marxist, Talmudic, the purpose of the dialectic method of reasoning is resolution of disagreement through rational discussion, and, ultimately, the search for truth. One way to proceed—the Socratic method—is to show that a given hypothesis leads to a contradiction, thus, another dialectical resolution of disagreement is by denying a presupposition of the contending thesis and antithesis, thereby, proceeding to sublation to synthesis, a third thesis. Fichtean/Hegelian dialectics is based upon four concepts, Everything is transient and finite, gradual changes lead to crises, turning points when one force overcomes its opponent force. The concept of dialectic existed in the philosophy of Heraclitus of Ephesus, hence, the history of the dialectical method is the history of philosophy. In classical philosophy, dialectic is a form of reasoning based upon dialogue of arguments and counter-arguments, advocating propositions and counter-propositions. The outcome of such a dialectic might be the refutation of a relevant proposition, or of a synthesis, or a combination of the opposing assertions, or a qualitative improvement of the dialogue. Moreover, the term dialectic owes much of its prestige to its role in the philosophies of Socrates and Plato, Aristotle said that it was the pre-Socratic philosopher Zeno of Elea who invented dialectic, of which the dialogues of Plato are the examples of the Socratic dialectical method. According to Kant, however, the ancient Greeks used the word dialectic to signify the logic of false appearance or semblance, to the Ancients, it was nothing but the logic of illusion. In Platos dialogues and other Socratic dialogues, Socrates attempts to examine someones beliefs, at times even first principles or premises by which we all reason, Socrates typically argues by cross-examining his interlocutors claims and premises in order to draw out a contradiction or inconsistency among them. According to Plato, the detection of error amounts to finding the proof of the antithesis. However, important as this objective is, the aim of Socratic activity seems to be to improve the soul of his interlocutors
2.
Ai Siqi
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Ài Sīqí is the pen name of Li Shengxuan, a Yunnan Mongol Chinese philosopher and author. He was born in Tengchong, Yunnan, later traveling to Hong Kong and he read a great deal of Marxism, including the Communist Manifesto, in Japanese translation. This reading is the root of Ai’s most important works, Historical Materialism and Dialectical Materialism, in the small tourist town of Heshun in Tengchong County, in western Yunnan Province, China, there is a small museum dedicated to Ai. It is based in his house, where he lived for two years. It contains pictures, personal items and a statue of him in the yard of the compound, Joshua A. Fogel, Ai Siqi, Establishment Intellectual by Joshua A. Fogel, in Merle Goldman, Timothy Cheek, and Carol Lee Hamrin, eds. Chinas Intellectuals and the State, In Search of a New Relationship, Ai Ssu-chis Contribution to the Development of Chinese Marxism. Ai Siqis Reading of the Marxian Notion of Existence Versus Consciousness, journal of Chinese Philosophy 29, 437–456 Китайская философия
3.
Vladimir Lenin
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Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known by the alias Lenin, was a Russian communist revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as head of government of the Russian Republic from 1917 to 1918, of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic from 1918 to 1924, under his administration, Russia and then the wider Soviet Union became a one-party socialist state governed by the Russian Communist Party. Ideologically a Marxist, he developed political theories known as Leninism, born to a wealthy middle-class family in Simbirsk, Lenin embraced revolutionary socialist politics following his brothers execution in 1887. Expelled from Kazan Imperial University for participating in protests against the Russian Empires Tsarist regime and he moved to Saint Petersburg in 1893 and became a senior figure in the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. In 1897, he was arrested for sedition and exiled to Shushenskoye for three years, where he married Nadezhda Krupskaya, after his exile, he moved to Western Europe, where he became a prominent party theorist through his publications. In 1903, he took a key role in a RSDLP ideological split, Lenins government was led by the Bolsheviks—now renamed the Communist Party—with some powers initially also held by elected soviets. It redistributed land among the peasantry and nationalised banks and large-scale industry, opponents were suppressed in the Red Terror, a violent campaign orchestrated by the state security services, tens of thousands were killed and others interned in concentration camps. Anti-Bolshevik armies, established by both right and left-wing groups, were defeated in the Russian Civil War from 1917 to 1922, responding to wartime devastation, famine, and popular uprisings, in 1921 Lenin promoted economic growth through a mixed economic system. Seeking to promote world revolution, Lenins government created the Communist International, waged the Polish–Soviet War, in increasingly poor health, Lenin expressed opposition to the growing power of his successor, Joseph Stalin, before dying at his Gorki mansion. He became a figurehead behind Marxism-Leninism and thus a prominent influence over the international communist movement. Lenins father, Ilya Nikolayevich Ulyanov, was from a family of serfs, his origins remain unclear, with suggestions being made that he was Russian, Chuvash, Mordvin. Despite this lower-class background he had risen to middle-class status, studying physics and mathematics at Kazan Imperial University before teaching at the Penza Institute for the Nobility, Ilya married Maria Alexandrovna Blank in mid-1863. Well educated and from a prosperous background, she was the daughter of a German–Swedish woman. Soon after their wedding, Ilya obtained a job in Nizhny Novgorod, five years after that, he was promoted to Director of Public Schools for the province, overseeing the foundation of over 450 schools as a part of the governments plans for modernisation. His dedication to education earned him the Order of St. Vladimir, the couple had two children, Anna and Alexander, before Lenin—who would gain the childhood nickname of Volodya—was born in Simbirsk on 10 April 1870, and baptised several days later. They were followed by three children, Olga, Dmitry, and Maria. Two later siblings died in infancy, Ilya was a devout member of the Russian Orthodox Church and baptised his children into it, although Maria – a Lutheran – was largely indifferent to Christianity, a view that influenced her children. Every summer they holidayed at a manor in Kokushkino
4.
Game theory
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Game theory is the study of mathematical models of conflict and cooperation between intelligent rational decision-makers. Game theory is used in economics, political science, and psychology, as well as logic, computer science. Originally, it addressed zero-sum games, in one persons gains result in losses for the other participants. Today, game theory applies to a range of behavioral relations, and is now an umbrella term for the science of logical decision making in humans, animals. Modern game theory began with the idea regarding the existence of equilibria in two-person zero-sum games. Von Neumanns original proof used Brouwer fixed-point theorem on continuous mappings into compact convex sets and his paper was followed by the 1944 book Theory of Games and Economic Behavior, co-written with Oskar Morgenstern, which considered cooperative games of several players. The second edition of this provided an axiomatic theory of expected utility. This theory was developed extensively in the 1950s by many scholars, Game theory was later explicitly applied to biology in the 1970s, although similar developments go back at least as far as the 1930s. Game theory has been recognized as an important tool in many fields. With the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences going to game theorist Jean Tirole in 2014, John Maynard Smith was awarded the Crafoord Prize for his application of game theory to biology. Early discussions of examples of two-person games occurred long before the rise of modern, the first known discussion of game theory occurred in a letter written by Charles Waldegrave, an active Jacobite, and uncle to James Waldegrave, a British diplomat, in 1713. In this letter, Waldegrave provides a mixed strategy solution to a two-person version of the card game le Her. James Madison made what we now recognize as an analysis of the ways states can be expected to behave under different systems of taxation. In 1913 Ernst Zermelo published Über eine Anwendung der Mengenlehre auf die Theorie des Schachspiels and it proved that the optimal chess strategy is strictly determined. This paved the way for more general theorems, the Danish mathematician Zeuthen proved that the mathematical model had a winning strategy by using Brouwers fixed point theorem. In his 1938 book Applications aux Jeux de Hasard and earlier notes, Borel conjectured that non-existence of mixed-strategy equilibria in two-person zero-sum games would occur, a conjecture that was proved false. Game theory did not really exist as a field until John von Neumann published a paper in 1928. Von Neumanns original proof used Brouwers fixed-point theorem on continuous mappings into compact convex sets and his paper was followed by his 1944 book Theory of Games and Economic Behavior co-authored with Oskar Morgenstern
5.
Alain Badiou
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Badiou has written about the concepts of being, truth, event and the subject in a way that, he claims, is neither postmodern nor simply a repetition of modernity. Badiou has been involved in a number of organisations. Badiou argues for resurrecting the idea of communism, Badiou is the son of mathematician and member of the Resistance in France during World War II Raymond Badiou. He was a student at the Lycée Louis-Le-Grand and then the École Normale Supérieure, in 1960, he wrote his diplôme détudes supérieures on Spinoza for Georges Canguilhem. Badiou was politically active early on, and was one of the founding members of the Unified Socialist Party. The PSU was particularly active in the struggle for the decolonization of Algeria and he wrote his first novel, Almagestes, in 1964. In 1967 he joined a group organized by Louis Althusser, became increasingly influenced by Jacques Lacan. By then he already had a grounding in mathematics and logic. The student uprisings of May 1968 reinforced Badious commitment to the far Left, to quote Badiou himself, the UCFml is the Maoist organization established in late 1969 by Natacha Michel, Sylvain Lazarus, myself and a fair number of young people. During this time, Badiou joined the faculty of the newly founded University of Paris VIII/Vincennes-Saint Denis which was a bastion of counter-cultural thought, nonetheless, Badiou has never renounced Althusser or Lacan, and sympathetic references to Marxism and psychoanalysis are not uncommon in his more recent works. He took up his current position at the ENS in 1999 and he is also associated with a number of other institutions, such as the Collège International de Philosophie. He was a member of LOrganisation Politique which, as mentioned above and this organization disbanded in 2007, according to the French Wikipedia article. In 2002, he was a co-founder of the Centre International dEtude de la Philosophie Française Contemporaine, alongside Yves Duroux, Badiou has also enjoyed success as a dramatist with plays such as Ahmed le Subtil. In the last decade, a number of Badious works have been translated into English, such as Ethics, Deleuze, Manifesto for Philosophy, Metapolitics. Short pieces by Badiou have likewise appeared in American and English periodicals, such as Lacanian Ink, New Left Review, Radical Philosophy, Cosmos and History and Parrhesia. Unusually for a contemporary European philosopher his work is increasingly being taken up by militants in countries like India, in 2005–6 Badiou got into a fierce controversy within the confines of Parisian intellectual life. It started in 2005 with the publication of his Circonstances 3 and this book generated a strong response with Badiou being labelled Anti-Semitic. The wrangling became a cause célèbre with articles going back and forth in the French newspaper Le Monde, linguist and Lacanian philosopher Jean-Claude Milner, a past president of Collège international de philosophie, has accused Badiou of Anti-Semitism
6.
Cultural Revolution
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The Cultural Revolution, formally the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement that took place in China from 1966 until 1976. The Revolution marked the return of Mao Zedong to a position of power after the Great Leap Forward, the movement paralyzed China politically and negatively affected the countrys economy and society to a significant degree. The Revolution was launched in May 1966, after Mao alleged that bourgeois elements had infiltrated the government and society at large, to eliminate his rivals within the Communist Party of China, Mao insisted that these revisionists be removed through violent class struggle. Chinas youth responded to Maos appeal by forming Red Guard groups around the country, the movement spread into the military, urban workers, and the Communist Party leadership itself. It resulted in factional struggles in all walks of life. In the top leadership, it led to a purge of senior officials, most notably Liu Shaoqi. During the same period Maos personality cult grew to immense proportions, a large segment of the population was forcibly displaced, most notably the transfer of urban youth to rural regions during the Down to the Countryside Movement. Historical relics and artifacts were destroyed, Cultural and religious sites were ransacked. Mao officially declared the Cultural Revolution to have ended in 1969, after Maos death and the arrest of the Gang of Four in 1976, reformers led by Deng Xiaoping gradually began to dismantle the Maoist policies associated with the Cultural Revolution. In 1958, after Chinas first Five-Year Plan, Mao called for grassroots socialism in order to accelerate his plans for turning China into an industrialized state. In this spirit, Mao launched the Great Leap Forward, established Peoples Communes in the countryside, many communities were assigned production of a single commodity—steel. Mao vowed to increase production to twice 1957 levels. The Great Leap was an economic failure, uneducated farmers attempted to produce steel on a massive scale, partially relying on backyard furnaces to achieve the production targets set by local cadres. The steel produced was low quality and largely useless, the Great Leap reduced harvest sizes and led to a decline in the production of most goods except substandard pig iron and steel. Furthermore, local authorities frequently exaggerated production numbers, hiding and intensifying the problem for several years, in the meantime, chaos in the collectives, bad weather, and exports of food necessary to secure hard currency resulted in the Great Chinese Famine. Food was in shortage, and production fell dramatically. The famine caused the deaths of millions of people, particularly in poorer inland regions, the Great Leaps failure reduced Maos prestige within the Party. Forced to take responsibility, in 1959, Mao resigned as the President of the Peoples Republic of China, Chinas de jure head of state
7.
Lushan Conference
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The Lushan Conference was a meeting of the top leaders of the Communist Party of China held between July and August 1959. The Politburo met in a session between July 2 and August 1, followed by the 8th Plenum of the Eighth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China from August 2 –16. The major topic of discussion was the Great Leap Forward, the Lushan Conference saw the political purge of the Defence Minister, Marshal Peng Dehuai, whose criticism of some aspects of the Great Leap Forward was seen as a personal affront on Mao. The Conference also marked the first time since the founding of the Peoples Republic of China in 1949 where disagreement over the direction of policy spilled into open conflict between party leaders. Maos response to Peng was also seen as an indication that for the first time, his personal authority trumped the principles of leadership of the Central Committee. The conferences name is derived from the place, a resort on Mount Lu in the district of the same name in Jiangxi Province. The original objective of the conference was to review the events in China during 1958, Mao Zedong also intended to use the conference to contain the leftist tendency elements in the Great Leap Forward. On July 14, Peng Dehuai, then PRCs defense minister and he expressed his confusion towards rather large losses and epidemic of bragging in the Great Leap Forward. For this reason, Mao extended the conference for more than ten days, on July 23, Mao showed Pengs letter to his comrades and asked them to express their views on the issue. However, not long afterwards, Mao bitterly criticised Peng as being part of a group wavering in the face of difficulties and he was subsequently dismissed, arrested and replaced by Lin Biao. Although the criticism of Peng Dehuai resulted in a victory for Mao Zedong, it led the leadership to conclude that he had been treated unfairly. The Lushan Conference marked a key point of departure in Maos rule, criticism of party actions and policies were now equated with criticism of Mao. Maos speech at Lushan was incredibly passionate and bellicose and he defended himself by saying that he, like all of the great writers, Confucius, Karl Marx, and Lenin had made mistakes and that focusing on them would not help the situation. Moreover, he insisted that not one commune had collapsed yet and his personal victory over Peng Dehuai at the Lushan Conference gave Mao confidence and led him to proceed with the Cultural Revolution. More than 3 million officials within the party were indicted and class struggle was brought in for the first time into the echelon of the Party apparatus. Great Leap Forward Peng Dehuai Mao Zedong The Second Plenum of the 9th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, because this conference was also held in Lushan, it is sometimes also referred to as the Lushan Conference. Norton and Company, New York,1990
8.
Down to the Countryside Movement
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The Up to the Mountains and Down to the Countryside Movement was a policy instituted in the Peoples Republic of China in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In total, approximately 17 million youth were sent to areas as a result of the movement. Maos policy differed from Liu Shaoqis early 1960s sending-down policy in its political context, Liu Shaoqi instituted the first sending-down policy to redistribute excess urban population following the Great Chinese Famine and the Great Leap Forward. Maos stated aim for the policy was to ensure that students could develop their talents to the full through education amongst the rural population. Many fresh high school graduates, who known as the so-called sent-down youth, were forced out of the cities. Some commentators consider these people, many of whom lost the opportunity to attend university, famous authors who have written about their experiences during the movement include Nobel Laureate Liu Xiaobo, Jiang Rong, and Zhang Chengzhi, all of whom went to Inner Mongolia. Dai Sijies Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress has received praise for its take on life for the young people sent to rural villages of China during the movement. Resettlement in the countryside was a permanent form
9.
Wuhan incident
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The two opposing forces were the Million Heroes and the Wuhan Workers General Headquarters. The Wuhan Workers General Headquarters, also numbering close to 500,000 people, was mostly comprised workers, both sides engaged in an extensive propaganda war in an attempt to enlist community support. This included publishing posters and pamphlets and holding meetings to vilify their opponent. Various local organs took advantage of the chaotic environment to seize power. A message from Zhou Enlai in Beijing ordered General Chen to lift the siege, when the order from Zhou failed to dispel the mutiny, the radical intellectual and Minister of Public Security Xie Fuzhi and Wang Li were dispatched from Beijing to Wuhan. Xie and Wang arrived on July 16 and immediately ordered General Chen to withdraw support from the Million Heroes and instead extend it to the Workers Headquarters. However, Chen again refused, and on 20 July forces belonging to Chens mutinous PLA division captured and physically assaulted Xie Fuzhi, while simultaneously the Million Heroes captured Wang Li. With the failure of peaceful negotiation, Beijing immediately responded by sending three infantry divisions, several gunboats, and an airborne unit to intercept General Chens forces in Wuhan. Faced with overwhelming firepower, Chen surrendered unconditionally, and Wang Li and it is estimated that about one thousand people were killed in Wuhan during the July 1967 troubles in the city. Maos China and After, A History of the Peoples Republic, the Wuhan Incident, Local Strife and Provincial Rebellion During the Cultural Revolution
10.
Criticize Lin, Criticize Confucius
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The Criticize Lin, Criticize Confucius Campaign was a political propaganda campaign started by Mao Zedong and his wife, Jiang Qing, the leader of the Gang of Four. It lasted from 1973 until the end of the Cultural Revolution, the campaign produced detailed Maoist interpretations of Chinese history, and was used as a tool by the Gang of Four to attack their enemies. The campaign continued in phases, beginning as an academic attempt to interpret Chinese history according to Maos political theories. In 1974 the campaign was joined with another, pre-existent campaign to attack Lin Biao, in early 1975 the campaign was modified to indirectly attack Chinas Premier, Zhou Enlai, and other senior Chinese leaders. In mid-1975 the Gang of Four introduced debate on The Water Margin as a tool to attack their enemies, the campaign only ended in 1976, when the Gang of Four were arrested, ending the Cultural Revolution. The events that occurred during the Criticize Lin, Criticize Confucius campaign were complex and often confusing, the first phase of the campaign began after the 1st Plenary Session of the 10th CCP Central Committee, in 1973. These initial debates focused on interpreting the issues of slavery, feudalism, in late 1973 - early 1974 begins the second phase of the campaign, when as the main critics of Confucius were the masses. The universities were organized special courses, preparing a program of criticism of certain provisions of the Confucius used by Lin Biao, tens of thousands of workers and peasants were trained in these courses, swelling the ranks of Marxist theoretician. The attacks on Confucius merged with a pre-existent campaign to criticize Lin Biao, with the deployment of the campaign it became clear that criticism of Lin Biao and Confucius was directed not so much against the enemies of the past, as against the enemies of today. During this phase, Maos image was identified with that of Chinas first emperor, hyperbolic praise was given to Qin based on his popular association with Mao. In the article What kind of man Confucius, published in the issue of the Red Flag magazine in 1974. Based on Peoples Daily articles, Russian researcher Leo Delyusin believed that locals formally belonging to the campaign criticize Lin Biao, under the guise of criticism of the ideas of Confucius education, Tang Xiaowen in the article I was popular educator Confucius. Attacked those who moved away from the installations of the cultural revolution and he tried to prove that in the saying of Confucius all contained class meaning, and had a detrimental effect on the organization of the education system, serving as the basis of the revisionist line. Declaring that Confucius harbored a hatred of the social changes of the time. The third phase began after Zhou Enlai reorganized the State Council during the 4th National Peoples Congress, at the Peoples Congress, Zhou Enlai brought many cadres back to work who had been purged during the 1966-1969 phase of the Cultural Revolution. In comparison with the first stage of the revolution, the rehabilitated leaders led by Premier Zhou Enlai already had sufficient influence in the center. The fourth and final phase of the campaign coincided with Zhous illness, after the 1974 campaign criticize Lin Biao and Confucius reached its climax, and soon subsided. Deng Xiaoping then took many of Zhous responsibilities, acting as premier in Zhous absence until Deng was again purged, after Mao died, the Gang of Four also directed the campaign against Hua Guofeng, who was named Maos successor
11.
Tiananmen Incident
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The Tiananmen Incident took place on April 5,1976 at Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China. The incident occurred on the day of mourning, the Qingming Festival, after the Nanjing Incident. The Central Committees decision on the event was reversed after the Cultural Revolution ended, the death of Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai on January 8,1976, prompted the protest. Zhou Enlai was a respected senior Chinese leader. For several years before his death, he was involved in a power struggle with other senior leaders in the Politburo of the Communist Party of China. Premier Zhous most visible and powerful antagonists were the four members who came to be called the Gang of Four. The leader of the clique, Jiang Qing, was married to Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong, Chinas leaders, namely Jiang Qing and Mao Yuanxin, saw the popular gathering as a threat to the forward movement of the Cultural Revolution. They consulted with Party Chairman Mao Zedong, claiming these people to be capitalist roaders who were hitting back at the Proletarian Revolution, action was taken on the night of April 5, when the number of mourners were a few thousand. Controlled by Jiang Qing and the mayor of Beijing, the militia encircled the area, then went in with clubs, according to Jan Wong in Red China Blues, around 60 were dragged into the Great Hall of the People, beheaded and secretly cremated. The media subsequently linked the event to Deng Xiaoping, then carrying out the duties of the Premier. It was rumored that the Gang of Four had become apprehensive of Dengs influence, Deng was an ally of Zhou Enlai, and was placed under house arrest in Guangzhou. After Maos death and the fall of the Gang of Four in October 1976, Party leaders rehabilitated Deng and brought him back to Beijing, may Fourth Movement Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 Wong, J. Red China Blues. Death ritual as political trickster in the People’s Republic of China, The China Journal Vol,26 pp. 67–97
12.
Mao Zedong
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His Marxist–Leninist theories, military strategies, and political policies are collectively known as Maoism or Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. Mao adopted Marxism–Leninism while working at Peking University and became a member of the Communist Party of China. On October 1,1949, Mao proclaimed the foundation of the Peoples Republic of China, in the following years Mao solidified his control through land reform campaigns against landlords, and perceived enemies of the state he termed as counter-revolutionaries. In 1957, he launched the Great Leap Forward campaign that aimed to rapidly transform Chinas economy from an economy to an industrial one. The campaign contributed to a famine, whose death toll is estimated at between 15 and 45 million. In 1972, Mao welcomed American President Richard Nixon in Beijing, signalling a policy of opening China, Mao suffered a series of heart attacks in 1976, and died in September, aged 82. He was succeeded as Paramount leader by Hua Guofeng, who was sidelined and replaced by Deng. A controversial figure, Mao is regarded as one of the most important individuals in modern world history, Mao Zedong was born on December 26,1893 in Shaoshan village, Hunan Province, China. His father, Mao Yichang, was an impoverished peasant who had become one of the wealthiest farmers in Shaoshan. Growing up in rural Hunan, Mao Zedong described his father as a stern disciplinarian, Maos mother, Wen Qimei, was a devout Buddhist who tried to temper her husbands strict attitude. Zedong too became a Buddhist, but abandoned this faith in his mid-teenage years, at age 8, Mao was sent to Shaoshan Primary School. At age 13, Mao finished primary education, and his father united him in a marriage to the 17-year-old Luo Yigu. Mao refused to recognise her as his wife, becoming a critic of arranged marriage. Luo was locally disgraced and died in 1910, interested in history, Mao was inspired by the military prowess and nationalistic fervour of George Washington and Napoleon Bonaparte. The famine spread to Shaoshan, where starving peasants seized his fathers grain and he disapproved of their actions as morally wrong, but claimed sympathy for their situation. At age 16, Mao moved to a primary school in nearby Dongshan. In 1911, Mao began middle school in Changsha, Revolutionary sentiment was strong in the city, where there was widespread animosity towards Emperor Puyis absolute monarchy and many were advocating republicanism. The republicans figurehead was Sun Yat-sen, an American-educated Christian who led the Tongmenghui society, in Changsha, Mao was influenced by Suns newspaper, The Peoples Independence, and called for Sun to become president in a school essay
13.
Liu Shaoqi
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Liu Shaoqi was a Chinese revolutionary, statesman, and theorist. For 15 years, President Liu was the third most powerful man in China, behind only Chairman Mao Zedong and Premier Zhou Enlai. Originally groomed as the successor to Mao, Liu antagonized Mao in the early 1960s before the Cultural Revolution and was criticized, then purged, by Mao starting in 1966. Liu disappeared from public life in 1968 and was labelled the commander of Chinas bourgeoisie headquarters, Chinas foremost capitalist-roader, and he died under harsh treatment in late 1969, but was posthumously rehabilitated by Deng Xiaopings government in 1980 and granted a national memorial service. In 1920, Liu and Ren Bishi joined a Socialist Youth Corp, in 1921 Liu joined the newly formed Chinese Communist Party. Liu went back to China in 1922, and as secretary of the All-China Labor Syndicate, led several railway workers strikes in the Yangzi Valley, in 1925 Liu became a member of the Guangzhou-based All-China Federation of Labor Executive Committee. During the next two years Liu led numerous campaigns and strikes in Hubei and Shanghai. Liu worked with Li Lisan in Shanghai in 1925, organizing Communist activity following the May Thirtieth Incident, after his work in Shanghai Liu traveled to Wuhan. Liu was briefly arrested in Changsha and then returned to Guangzhou to help organize the 16-month-long Canton-Hong Kong strike, in 1927 Liu was elected to the Partys Central Committee, and was appointed to the head of its Labor Department. In 1929 Liu returned to work at the Party headquarters in Shanghai, in 1930 and 1931, Liu attended the Third and Fourth Plenums of the Sixth Central Committee, and was elected to the Central Executive Committee of the Chinese Soviet Republic in 1931 or 1932. Later in 1932 Liu left Shanghai and traveled to the Jiangxi Soviet, in 1932 Liu became the Party Secretary of Fujian Province. In 1936 Liu became Party Secretary in North China, leading the anti-Japanese movements in that area with the assistance of Peng Zhen, An Ziwen, Bo Yibo, Ke Qingshi, Liu Lantao, and Yao Yilin. In 1939 Liu ran the Central Plains Bureau, and, in 1941, some Japanese sources have alleged that the activities of Lius organization sparked the Marco Polo Bridge Incident in July 1937, which gave Japan the excuse to launch the Second Sino-Japanese War. In 1937 Liu traveled to the Communist base at Yanan, and, in 1941, in 1945 Liu was elected as one of five CCP Secretaries at the Seventh National Party Congress. After the Seventh National Party Congress Liu became the leader of all Communist forces in Manchuria and northern China. In 1949, Liu became the Vice Chairman of the Central Peoples Government, in 1954, China adopted a new constitution at the first National Peoples Congress. At the Congresss first session, Liu was elected chairman of the Congresss Standing Committee, from 1956 to his downfall in 1966, Liu ranked as the First Vice Chairman of the Communist Party of China. Lius work focused on party organizational and theoretical affairs, Liu was an orthodox Soviet-style Communist, and favored state planning and the development of heavy industry
14.
Zhou Enlai
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Zhou Enlai was the first Premier of the Peoples Republic of China, serving from October 1949 until his death in January 1976. Zhou served under Chairman Mao Zedong and was instrumental in the Communist Partys rise to power, and later in consolidating its control, forming foreign policy, a skilled and able diplomat, Zhou served as the Chinese foreign minister from 1949 to 1958. He helped devise policies regarding the disputes with the U. S. Taiwan. Zhou survived the purges of other top officials during the Cultural Revolution, while Mao dedicated most of his later years to political struggle and ideological work, Zhou was the main driving force behind the affairs of state during much of the Cultural Revolution. His attempts at mitigating the Red Guards damage and his efforts to protect others from their wrath made him popular in the Cultural Revolutions later stages. As Mao Zedongs health began to decline in 1971 and 1972, Zhous health was also failing, however, and he died eight months before Mao on 8 January 1976. The massive public outpouring of grief in Beijing turned to anger towards the Gang of Four, although succeeded by Hua Guofeng, it was Deng Xiaoping, Zhous ally, who was able to outmaneuver the Gang of Four politically and eventually take Maos place as paramount leader by 1978. Zhou Enlai was born in Huaian, Jiangsu province on 5 March 1898, the Zhou family was originally from Shaoxing in Zhejiang province. During the late Qing dynasty, Shaoxing was famous as the home of such as Zhous. To move up the ladder in civil service, the men in these often had to be transferred. Even after the move, however, the continued to view Shaoxing as its ancestral home. Zhous grandfather, Zhou Panlong, and his granduncle, Zhou Junang, were the first members of the family to move to Huaian, Panlong apparently passed the provincial examinations, and Zhou Enlai later claimed that Panlong served as magistrate governing Huaian county. Zhous father, Zhou Yineng, was the second of Zhou Panlongs four sons, Zhous birth mother, surnamed Wan, was the daughter of a prominent Jiangsu official. Like many others, the fortunes of Zhous large family of scholar-officials were decimated by a great economic recession that China suffered in the late 19th century. Zhou Yineng had a reputation for honesty, gentleness, intelligence and concern for others and he was unsuccessful in his personal life, and drifted across China doing various occupations, working in Beijing, Shandong, Anhui, Shenyang, Inner Mongolia and Sichuan. Zhou Enlai later remembered his father as being away from home. Soon after birth, Zhou Enlai was adopted by his fathers youngest brother, Zhou Yigan, apparently the adoption was arranged because the family feared Yigan would die without an heir. Zhou Yigan died soon after the adoption, and Zhou Enlai was raised by Yigans widow, madame Chen was also from a scholarly family and received a traditional literary education
15.
Lin Biao
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Lin Biao was a Marshal of the Peoples Republic of China who was pivotal in the Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War, especially in Northeast China. Lin was the general who commanded the decisive Liaoshen and Pingjin Campaigns, in which he co-led the Manchurian Field Army to victory and he crossed the Yangtze River in 1949, decisively defeated the Kuomintang and took control of the coastal provinces in Southeast China. He ranked third among the Ten Marshals, Zhu De and Peng Dehuai were considered senior to Lin, and Lin ranked directly ahead of He Long and Liu Bocheng. Lin abstained from taking a role in politics after the civil war ceased in 1949. He led a section of the civil bureaucracy as one of the co-serving Deputy Vice Premiers of the Peoples Republic of China from 1954 onwards. Lin became more active in politics when named one of the co-serving Vice Chairmen of the Communist Party of China in 1958 and he held the three responsibilities of Vice Premier, Vice Chairman and Minister of National Defense from 1959 onwards. Lin died on September 13,1971 when a Hawker Siddeley Trident he was crashed in Öndörkhaan of Mongolia. The exact events of this Lin Biao incident have been a source of speculation ever since, the Chinese governments official explanation is that Lin and his family attempted to flee following a botched coup against Mao. Others have argued that they fled out of fear they would be purged, following Lins death, he was officially condemned as a traitor by the Communist Party. Since the late 1970s Lin and Maos wife Jiang Qing have been labeled the two major forces of the Cultural Revolution, receiving official blame from the Chinese government. Lin Biao was the son of a merchant family in Huanggang. His name at birth was Lin Yurong, Lins father opened a small handicrafts factory in the mid-late 1910s, but was forced to close the factory due to heavy taxes imposed by local militarists. After closing the factory, Lins father worked as a purser aboard a river steamship, Lin entered primary school in 1917, but moved to Shanghai in 1919 to continue his education. As a child, Lin was much interested in participating in student movements than in pursuing his formal education. Lin joined an organization of the Communist Youth League before he graduated high school in 1925. Later in 1925 he participated in the May Thirtieth Movement and enrolled in the newly established Whampoa Military Academy in Guangzhou, as a young cadet, Lin admired the personality of Chiang Kai-shek, who was then the Principal of the Academy. At Whampoa, Lin also studied under Premier Zhou Enlai, who was eight years older than Lin, Lin had no contact with Zhou after their time in Whampoa, until they met again in Yanan in the late 1930s. Lins relationship with Zhou was never close, but they rarely opposed each other directly
16.
Deng Xiaoping
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Deng Xiaoping was a Chinese revolutionary and statesman. He was the paramount leader of the Peoples Republic of China from 1978 until his retirement in 1989, after Chairman Mao Zedongs death, Deng led his country through far-reaching market-economy reforms. While Deng never held office as the head of state, head of government or General Secretary, he nonetheless was responsible for economic reforms and an opening to the global economy. Born into a peasant background in Guangan, Sichuan province, Deng studied and worked in France in the 1920s and he joined the Communist Party of China in 1923. Following the founding of the Peoples Republic in 1949, Deng worked in Tibet, as the partys Secretary General in the 1950s, Deng presided over anti-rightist campaigns and became instrumental in Chinas economic reconstruction following the Great Leap Forward of 1957-1960. His economic policies, however, were at odds with Maos political ideologies, following Maos death in 1976, Deng outmaneuvered Maos chosen successor, Hua Guofeng. Some called him the architect of a new brand of thinking that combined socialist ideology with pragmatic market economy whose slogan was Socialism with Chinese Characteristics. Deng possibly has ancestry from ethnically Hakka Han family in the village of Paifang, in the township of Xiexing, Guangan County in Sichuan province, approximately 160 km from Chongqing. Dengs ancestors can be traced back to Mei County, Guangdong, a prominent ancestral area for the Hakka people, Deng Xiaopings daughter Deng Rong wrote in the book My father Deng Xiaoping that his ancestry was probably but not definitely Hakka. Deng Xiaoping was born in Sichuan, Dengs father, Deng Wenming, was a middle-level landowner and had studied at the University of Law and Political Science in Chengdu. His mother, surnamed Dan, died early in Dengs life, leaving Deng, at the age of five Deng was sent to a traditional Chinese-style private primary school, followed by a more modern primary school at the age of seven. Dengs first wife, one of his schoolmates from Moscow, died aged 24 a few days after giving birth to Dengs first child and his second wife, Jin Weiying, left him after Deng came under political attack in 1933. His third wife Zhuo Lin was the daughter of an industrialist in Yunnan Province and she became a member of the Communist Party in 1938, and married Deng a year later in front of Maos cave dwelling in Yanan. They had five children, three daughters and two sons, when Deng first attended school, his tutor objected to his having the given name Xiānshèng, calling him Xixian, which includes the characters to aspire to and goodness, with overtones of wisdom. In the summer of 1919 Deng Xiaoping graduated from the Chongqing School and he and 80 schoolmates travelled by ship to France to participate in the Diligent Work-Frugal Study Movement, a work-study program in which 4,001 Chinese would participate by 1927. Deng, the youngest of all the Chinese students in the group, had just turned 15, wu Yuzhang, local leader of the Movement in Chongqing, enrolled Deng and his paternal uncle, Deng Shaosheng, in the program. Dengs father strongly supported his sons participation in the work-study abroad program, the night before his departure, Dengs father took his son aside and asked him what he hoped to learn in France. He repeated the words he had learned from his teachers, To learn knowledge, Deng was aware that China was suffering greatly, and that the Chinese people must have a modern education to save their country
17.
Gang of Four
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The Gang of Four was a political faction composed of four Chinese Communist Party officials. They came to prominence during the Cultural Revolution and were charged with a series of treasonous crimes. The gangs leading figure was Mao Zedongs last wife Jiang Qing, the other members were Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan, and Wang Hongwen. Their downfall on October 6,1976, a month after Maos death, brought about major celebrations on the streets of Beijing. The group was led by Jiang Qing, and consisted of three of her associates, Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan, and Wang Hongwen. Two other men who were dead in 1976, Kang Sheng. Chen Boda and Mao Yuanxin, the latter being Maos nephew, were considered some of the Gangs closer associates. Most Western accounts consider that the leadership of the Cultural Revolution consisted of a wider group. Most prominent was Lin Biao, until his flight from China. Chen Boda is often classed as a member of Lins faction rather than Jiang Qings, the writing argues that portraying Peng Dehuais position sympathetically was an attack on Chairman Maos Great Leap Forward which led Mao to purge Peng. This article is cited as launching the Cultural Revolution, Jiang Qing staged revolutionary operas during the Cultural Revolution and met with the Red Guards. Mao placed his wife Jiang Qing, a film actress who before 1966 had not taken a public political role. Zhang, Yao and Wang were party leaders in Shanghai who had played leading roles in securing that city for Mao during the Cultural Revolution, around the time of the death of Lin Biao, the Cultural Revolution began to lose momentum. The new commanders of the Peoples Liberation Army demanded that order be restored in light of the situation along the border with the Soviet Union. Liu Shaoqi had meanwhile died in prison in 1969, near the end of Maos life, a power struggle occurred between the Gang of Four and the alliance of Deng Xiaoping, Zhou Enlai, and Ye Jianying. Even decades later, it is impossible to know the truth of these events. However, Zhous successor as Premier was not one of the radicals, upon Maos death, Hua was named Communist Party chairman as well. The radicals hoped that the key military leaders Wang Dongxing and Chen Xilian would support them, on 6 October 1976, Hua had the four leading radicals and a number of their lesser associates arrested
18.
Jiang Qing
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Jiang Qing was a Chinese actress and a major political figure during the Cultural Revolution. She was the wife of Mao Zedong, the Chairman of the Communist Party. She used the stage name Lan Ping during her acting career and she married Mao in Yanan in November 1938 and served as the inaugural First Lady of the Peoples Republic of China. Jiang Qing was best known for playing a role in the Cultural Revolution. Jiang Qing served as Maos personal secretary in the 1940s and was head of the Film Section of the Communist Partys Propaganda Department in the 1950s and she served as an important emissary for Mao in the early stages of the Cultural Revolution. In 1966 she was appointed deputy director of the Central Cultural Revolution Group and she collaborated with Lin Biao to advance Maos unique brand of Communist ideology as well as Maos cult of personality. In 1969, Jiang gained a seat on the Politburo, before Maos death, the Gang of Four controlled many of Chinas political institutions, including the media and propaganda. However, Jiang Qing, deriving most of her political legitimacy from Mao, Maos death in 1976 dealt a significant blow to Jiang Qings political fortunes. She was arrested in October 1976 by Hua Guofeng and his allies, though she was initially sentenced to death, her sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in 1983. After being released for treatment, Jiang Qing committed suicide in May 1991. Jiang Qing was born in Zhucheng, Shandong province on March 19,1914 and her birth name was Lǐ Shūméng. She was the child of Li Dewen, a carpenter. Her father ran his own carpentry and cabinet making shop, after Jiangs parents had a violent argument, her mother found work as a domestic servant and separated from her husband. When Jiang enrolled in school, she took the name Lǐ Yúnhè, meaning Crane in the Clouds. In 1926, when she was 12 years old, her father died and her mother relocated them to Tianjin where Jiang worked as a child laborer in a cigarette factory for several months. Two years later, Jiang and her mother settled in Jinan, the following summer, she entered an experimental theater and drama school. Her talent brought her to the attention of administrators who selected her to join a club in Beijing where she advanced her acting skills. She returned to Jinan in May 1931 and married Pei Minglun, the marriage was an unhappy one and they soon divorced
19.
Peng Dehuai
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Peng Dehuai was a prominent Chinese Communist military leader, and served as Chinas Defense Minister from 1954 to 1959. When he was sixteen, Peng became a professional soldier, over the next ten years Peng served in the armies of several Hunan-based warlord armies, raising himself from the rank of private second class to major. In 1926 Pengs forces joined the Kuomintang, and Peng was first introduced to communism, Peng participated in the Northern Expedition, and supported Wang Jingweis attempt to form a left-leaning Kuomintang government based in Wuhan. After Wang was defeated, Peng briefly rejoined Chiang Kai-sheks forces before joining the Chinese Communist Party, allying himself with Mao Zedong and Zhu De. Peng was one of the most senior generals who defended the Jiangxi Soviet from Chiangs attempts to capture it, Peng participated in the Long March, and supported Mao Zedong at the Zunyi Conference, which was critical to Maos rise to power. Peng was the commander in the combined Kuomintang-Communist efforts to resist the Japanese occupation of Shanxi in 1937. In 1940, Peng conducted the Hundred Regiments Offensive, a massive Communist effort to disrupt Japanese logistical networks across northern China, after the Japanese surrendered, in 1945, Peng was given command of Communist forces in Northwest China. He was the most senior commander responsible for defending the Communist leadership in Shaanxi from Kuomintang forces, the rivalry between Peng and Mao culminated in an open confrontation between the two at the 1959 Lushan Conference. Mao won this confrontation, labeled Peng as a leader of an anti-Party clique, Peng lived in virtual obscurity until 1965, when the reformers Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping supported Pengs limited return to government, developing military industries in Southwest China. In 1966, following the advent of the Cultural Revolution, Peng was arrested by Red Guards, in 1970 Peng was formally tried and sentenced to life imprisonment, and he died in prison in 1974. After Mao died in 1976, Pengs old ally, Deng Xiaoping, Deng led an effort to formally rehabilitate people who had been unjustly persecuted during the Cultural Revolution, and Peng was one of the first leaders to be posthumously rehabilitated, in 1978. In modern China, Peng is considered one of the most successful, Peng was born in 1898 in the village of Shixiang, Xiangtan County, Hunan. His personal name at birth was Dehua, Pengs family lived in a thatched-straw hut and owned approximately 1.5 acres of irrigated land, on which the family grew bamboo, sweet potatoes, tea, cotton, and various vegetables. His father also operated a bean curd shop, the income from the land and shop supported an extended family of eight people, including Peng, his three brothers, his parents, his grandmother, and a grand-uncle. Peng later described his own background as lower-middle peasant. From 1905–1907, Peng was enrolled in a traditional Confucian primary school, in 1908 Peng attended a modern primary school, but, at the age of ten, was forced to withdraw from this school due to his familys deteriorating financial situation. In 1905–1906, there was a drought in Hunan. Pengs mother died in 1905, and Pengs six-month-old brother died of hunger, Pengs father was forced to sell most of his family possessions for food, and to pawn most of his familys land
20.
Peng Zhen
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Peng Zhen was a leading member of the Communist Party of China. He was rehabilitated under Deng Xiaoping in 1982 along with other accused officials. Born in Houma, Shanxi province, Peng was originally named Fu Maogong and he joined the Chinese Communist Party in 1923 as a founding member of the Shanxi Province CP. Arrested in 1929, he continued underground political activities while imprisoned and he was released from prison in 1935 and began organizing a resistance movement against the invading Japanese forces. Around the same time, he was appointed the Organization Department Director of the North Bureau of CPC and he also served on a number of positions as vice-president of the Central Party School and director of the CPC Policy Research Office. In 1945 he served in the research committee and the organizing committee of the Communist Partys 7th National Congress. In September 1945 Peng was sent by Mao Zedong to take up leadership of the Communists in Northeast China. He was accompanied by Lin Biao who was to assist Peng with directing military operations against the Nationalists, Peng decided that the Communists could hold the 3 big cities of the Northeast, Shenyang, Changchun and Harbin. When the Nationalists under the command of Du Yuming attacked in November 1945, Peng was removed as Communist leader in the northeast after further failure by Lin Biaos forces in March 1946 led to the Communists retreat back to Harbin. Peng was a member of the CPC Central Committee starting from 1944 as well as member of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee and he also held the positions of First Secretary of the Beijing Municipal Committee, and Mayor of Beijing. He was a member of the Politburo from 1956 to 1966 and he was accused of being an associate to Wu Hans counter-revolutionary clique and deposed at a May 1966 conference in what became the opening act of the Cultural Revolution. Lu Dingyi, Luo Ruiqing and Yang Shangkun were also deposed, Peng survived the Cultural Revolution, and was eventually rehabilitated under Deng Xiaoping. He subsequently became Secretary of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission, beginning in 1983, as Chairman of the Standing Committee of the Sixth National Peoples Congress, he sought to increase the NPCs power. Peng retired from his political positions in 1988. Peng Zhen died on April 26,1997, and was eulogized with high honours by the highest organs of the party and he was considered one of the Eight Immortals of the Communist Party of China. Original text based on marxists. org article The Peng Zhen Reference Archive Pitman B
21.
Wang Dongxing
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Wang was born in Yiyang County, Jiangxi on January 1,1916 and joined the Communist Youth League of China in 1932 in his youth. He was commander of the 8341 Special Regiment, Maos personal elite bodyguard force, but was dismissed by Chairman Mao for excessive protection, wang was instrumental in the coup détat against the Gang of Four immediately after Maos death. He lost power as Deng Xiaoping rose to power and was deprived of all his posts in the early 1980s. Wang died on 21 August 2015 in Beijing at the age of 99, the Private Life of Chairman Mao, by Li Zhisui, Arrow Books 1996 Maos Last Revolution, by Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals, Harvard University Press 2006
22.
Xie Fuzhi
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Xie Fuzhi was a Communist Party of China military commander, political commissar, and national security specialist. He was born in 1909 in Hongan County, Hubei and died in Beijing in 1972 and he was married to Liu Xiangping. He joined the Communist Party of China in 1931, at the age of 22, prior to 1949, Xie served as a political commissar in the 4th Column of the 2nd Field Army, under a commissars’ chain of command that led to Field Army Political Commissar Deng Xiaoping. His unit was involved in the victorious Huai Hai Campaign against the right-wing Kuomintang, Xie emerged from the post-liberation reorganization as Political Commissar of the 4th Army, 2nd Field Army. e. He was elected member of the CPC Central Committee at the Eight National Congress in 1956, and a member of the Central Military Commission. Xie gave a speech in the summer of 1966, in his capacity as Minister of Public Security, Xie, unlike other Peoples Liberation Army Generals, was fond of the Red Guards and sought to develop them as a parallel army, a special security force. The Gang of Four, Xies allies, had ideas about creating a paramilitary force to balance the power of the PLA. Some consider the speech he gave to be the trigger for the violence that followed and his staunch support for the Cultural Revolution led him to be elected alternate member of the Politburo, secretary of the Secretariat and a member of the reorganized Beijing Committee in 1966. He was also a member of the powerful Cultural Revolution Group, in 1967, as it was happening throughout the country starting from Shanghai, in Beijing all power was passed to a new revolutionary committee, of which Xie Fuzhi was elected chairman. He was preferred over CPC Beijing Committee Secretary Li Xuefeng who was deemed to be too hostile to the Red Guards and he was also first political commissar of the Beijing Military Region. His active support for the Cultural Revolution led him to be elected member of the Politburo at the Ninth Congress in 1969. In 1971, when the Beijing Party Committee was re-elected, he was appointed its first secretary, Xie remained in charge of state security until his sudden death in 1972. Premier Zhou Enlai ordered General Chen to back down, and support the WWGH, Xie and Wang Li were sent to Wuhan to persuade General Chen to obey orders. On July 20, PLA forces detained, slapped and humiliated Xie, premier Zhou flew to Wuhan but was prevented from landing by a show of military force at the airport. At that point, the army sent in three divisions and other units, and forced General Chen to surrender without a fight. Xie and Wang were welcomed back to Beijing by a rally in Tiananmen Square on July 25. He was posthumously expelled from the Party in 1980 and his ashes were removed from the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery, list of generals of the Peoples Republic of China
23.
Ji Dengkui
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Ji Dengkui was a prominent Chinese political figure during the Cultural Revolution. He was a member of the 10th and 11th Politburos of the Communist Party and was a protégé of Mao Zedong in Maos later years, after Maos death in 1976, he supported Maos designated successor, Hua Guofeng, in purging the Gang of Four. Two years later, Deng Xiaoping ousted Hua from his leadership position, Ji Dengkui was born in Wuxiang County, Shanxi province on 17 March 1923. After the eruption of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, he joined the resistance before turning 15. During the Anti-Japanese War and the subsequent Chinese Civil War, he served in various party positions including Party Secretary of Lushan County in Henan province. Although he participated in battles during the wars, he frankly admitted that he had little military experience. After Maos Communist Party won the Civil War and established the Peoples Republic of China in 1949, in 1951, Ji met Mao for the first time during Maos tour of Henan. Mao praised his work and Ji was soon promoted to Party Secretary of Xuchang, few people died of hunger in Luoyang, while more than a million people starved to death in the infamous Xinyang Incident. Mao Zedong visited Henan more than ten times before the start of the Cultural Revolution, although Mao was 30 years older than Ji, he publicly referred to Ji as his old friend. Ji rose quickly within the party ranks, first to the party committee as an alternate party secretary. When the Cultural Revolution erupted in 1966, Ji was a deputy director of the Henan Cultural Revolution Committee, Ji was persecuted and imprisoned by the Rebels for six months, and endured numerous struggle sessions. In July 1967, however, Ji was released and restored as the deputy director of the Henan Revolutionary Committee, and his release was announced after a visit to Henan from representatives of the central government, and was believed to be partly due to his relationship with Mao. Soon afterward he was elected a member of the Politburo. He was also appointed Political Commissar of the crucial Beijing Military Region, after Lin Biaos death in a 1971 plane crash, Ji was elected a full member of the 10th Politburo in 1973, and became Vice-Premier in January 1975. After Mao died in 1976, Ji supported Maos designated successor Hua Guofeng and he was instrumental in taking over the influential newspaper Guangming Daily, which had been controlled by the Gang of Four. In 1977, he was re-elected a full member of the 11th Politburo, Ji was a member of the Whatever Faction that allied with Hua Guofeng against Deng Xiaoping. Hua, outmaneuvered by Deng, was forced to resign from his leadership position, Ji was also criticized for mistakes he made during the Cultural Revolution at the Third Plenum of the Eleventh Party Congress in 1978. Ji Dengkui, Wang Dongxing, Wu De, and Chen Xilian, although the decision was made in 1978, it was not made public until February 1980, at the Fifth Plenum of the Party Congress
24.
Wu Faxian
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Wu Faxian was a military and political leader of Peoples Republic of China. In 1930 he became a soldier of Chinese Workers and Peasants Red Army and he participated in five Counter-Encirclement Campaigns, Long March, Battle of Pingxingguan, Liaoshen Campaign and Pingjin Campaign. In 1955 he was granted the rank of lieutenant general. Wu was a subordinate of Lin Biao, in 1965 he became the commander of Peoples Liberation Army Air Force, in 1981 he was declared guilty as a member of the Lin Biao group, punished with a sentence of 17 years
25.
Yang Chengwu
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Yang Chengwu, alias Yang Nengjun was a Communist Chinese revolutionary and general of the Peoples Liberation Army. He was the Deputy Chief of General Staff of the Peoples Liberation Army from 1954-1965 and he was named Acting Chief of General Staff in 1966 after Luo Ruiqing was purged at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution. Yang was born in Changting County, Fujian Province of China on October 8,1914 and he died on February 14,2004 in Beijing, at the age of 90
