J Top-Secret
OF INTELLIGENCE
Intelligence Report
The Purge of Lin Piao's "Conspiratorialentative Reconstruction
('Reference Title: POLO XLVIUJ
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THE PURGE OF LIN PIAO1S "CONSPIRATORIALENTATIVE RECONSTRUCTION
MEdORANDUM FOR RECIPIENTS
This tentative reconstruction of the Lin Piao affair accepts as largely credible the case which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has made against Lin and his confederates. This conclusion is basedpliced-together examination of (a) developmentsprior to the dramatic events of last year's purges, and (b) the CCP's story of those events, as that story has become available through refugee de-briefings and excellent clandestine reporting. Party materials and other documentationalmost certain to become availableillilling out and firming up of the causes, particulars, andof the fall of Lin.
Tliis present paper centers on Lin and his known proteges, thoir power position, their challenge to Mao, their subsequent fall, and what con be seen of the present leadership arrangements laedp by Mao and Chou En-lai.
This Staff has received constructive comment on this studyumber of other offices of the Central Intelligence Agency, ail of whom agreeof the essentials ot the CCP's case against Lin, and
several ofof
conments will be welcome, addressed
to the study's author
THE PURGE OF LIN PIAO'S "CONSPIRATORIALENTATIVE RECONSTRUCTION
Available evidence noweconstruction, with fair confidence, of the decline and diamatic fall of Lin Piao and other top-ranking Chinese military leader This reconstruction accepts as credible che essentials of the case against Lin and his proteges made in various Chinese Communist Party documents, althoughof course include much disinformation. The main features of the Party's story of the past four years are consonant wieh certain developmentsotablyand policy changesbserved but not fully understood at the time, and areo with_thc
past paff*'rn'i gj thought and behavior of the principal
In brief, fay_0 Mao had changed his
about the suitability of T'n flff bjj sJaCCetsaoc, hf was also looking for high-level scapegoatsange of repudiated "ultraleftist" policies undertaken ot various times during the Cultural Revolution. Mao began soon thereafterto undercut Lin's position In response, Lia, in allianceradical" civilian Party leader and some other military leaders, chose to qgntest Mao's will at the Party_plenum of lateon tne issue oi Ehe chairmanship of the regime. Mao prevailed, and took further organizational steps against Lin which were visible to Lin. Ryin and his proteges had concluded correctly that it was Mao's intention ultimately to purge them. To prevent, th^s. and to secure the succession! Lin's group p]arv "coup" against *Mao, one which envisaged Mao's assassination if necessary. Again, as at the plenum,
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they underestimated the awe and responsiveness that Mao inspired: in this case, his ability to command the obedience of other military leaders, even the great majority of the plotters' own proteges. When Lin's plansoup were frustrated, he attempted to flee to theying in the attempt, and his closest proteges were seized and purged. Mao is now again faced with the difficult task of puttinguccessor leadership, as he was at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution.
The Period of High
The enigmatic and sickly military leader Lin Piao was designated (surprisingly) as Mao's successor inn the first year of the massive purge of the Chinese Communist Party, government and military establishment known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Mao's main targets at the time were Liu Shao-chi (his then-designated successor) and other leading figures of the Party apparatus, an apparatus which Mao believed to be obstructing his policies. In that first year Lin seemed to establish himselfard-core Maoist in both senses of the term: completely loyal to Mao,.and predisposed to the same militant, radical line that Mao himself favored in that period. Both Mao and Linto fravf differences with the flOrj; mooerate Premier Chou En-lai.
In the second year, when China was in effect under military occupation by the PLA which Lin headed, Lin's position became more complicated. "conservative" ?la cam* under attack by massencouraged by civilian radicals in the Party leadership, the officerspecial purging organ called the Cultural Revolution Group
Lin seemed to act to protect PLA leaders, and sometimes .ie did. not. Chou En-lai and his proteges also came under "radical- attack, and Chou had to intervene with Mao co reverse Peking's counter-productivediplomacy- Some second-level leaders of the CRG were purged, in part as scapegoats for repudiated policies.
In the third year of the Cultural Revolution, Qn the face of the Sovietdown the militant mass organizations, placedrovisional organs of government throughout China largely in the hands of military leaders, .anduild_the_new_provincial-leycl Party-coiwmittees^rniin^ Vh_csc same militaryn this period, Mao, Lin, Chou and theeaders seemed to be working together to thesea*
Throughout those zigs and zags of the Cultural evolution, Lin had steadily strengthened his personal position. He had named his closest proteges to concurrent positions in the most important organs of command and control of the PLA, he had reorganized the Military Region headquarters to place almost all of them under the command of his_protegcs, and he had secured the appointment Of such proteges to the ax>st important provincial posts This was the shape of an "independenthould Mao ever come to regard it as that.
did indeed come to regard it as that. However, at the end of the third year, inhen the Party's long-delayed Ninth Party Congress was held, Lin Piao seemed to get Mao's blessing in all that he had done. Lin gave the main report to the Congress, and the new Party Constitution confirmed him as Mao's successoran electionthus heading off any possible election, after Mao's death, of the more popular Chou En-lai. The new Central Committee (more thanercent PLA)ew Politburo in which PLA figures constituted the largest group, and in which Lin and five of his closest
proteges seemed to form the most cohesive group. This group consisted of Lin, chief-of-staff Huang Yung-sheng, Air Force commander Wu Fa-hsien, Navy leader Li Tso-peng, Logistics chief Chiu Hui-tso, and Lin's wife and staff office chief Yeh-Chun. (This group of six was to be the core of the "counter-revolutionary conspiratorial clique" purged in} At the same time,q'- Party, plfmwt.jyoirpdn-
cern about the
Party leaders_hi_p. In other words, the issue that had feddown faf the Party-machine leaders around Liu Shao-chi in the first year of the Culturalthe responsiveness of the governing apparatus to Mao's willas re-emerging with the new apparatus, the PLA.'
Lin's Decline in Mao's Regard,
It is apparent in retrospect thatiye time in the year following the Ninth Party Conqr_ess..Haog e3 hisbo ut Lin as hia successor. concern about'thehe PLAfor which Lin as its leader. evidently led Mao to conclude that Lin himself was not properly responsive. elated matter, Lin and others
line formulatedithdrawnime' later restoredcqme the main__enemy of China, replacing. in that role; and Mao maymade aware that Lin's group did not accept this Further, Lin and his proteges may well have carried out the "preparations against war" campaign inay as tourther, the investigation or thefi" qroupa hypermilitant mass organization which had sought7 to bring down Chou En-lai and which symbolized not only
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a range of repudiated ultraleftist policies but theental sin of "conspiracy" and the ancillary practice of-political assassinationmay well havejime- ^xX^
thing damaging to Lin and some o_
the decline and dissolution of tne Cultural Revolutionand Chgii_Pn-laiho9 apparently becameprincipal advisor and favorite lieutenant
well have come into conflict with respect to supervising -*u. ,
additional ac^pcQo^tsthis time, high-level scapegoats i- fnr tht> Relfrxlefea ting_ execs se3_of--the Cultural Revolution.
In any case, ao made aLin rightly interpreted asackin him. This was the proposal of Chairman of the regime. Lin thoughtthe Chairmanthe ranking officer of the government (overand also the commander-in-chief of the armedMao's attitude toward the post, and towardoccupancy byritical test oftoward Lin
Mao apparently began to take organizational steps against Lin, steps securing Hao'sPnf rP_T_ of Peking, during the summerrior to the second Party rflenum oi une, Weney protege of Lin's, the commander of the Peking Car -risonritical post, commanding the immediately available military forces in Pekingmade his lastand was probably removed from the post soon thereafter. Although his successor was not identified from0 no leaders of the Peking Garrison were proteges of Lin's. Moreover, by0 the leadership of the reactivated Gfafr.aX-Political Department, of the PLA was in the hands not of proteges of Tin but of proteges of other military leaders. Lin probably saw both developments as further indicators of his decline in favor.
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G,7Eorcea_a
At the Party plenum ofin and the civilian radicalPpr.ta, who had been
chief of the abolished CRG
issue of the regime chairmanship. Presumably in the. that they could win majority support, they ledeffort to get the postao himself to occupy it for the time being butto fall heir to it. Mao refused. Chen Po-tapurged, in part for his opposition to Mao on Lin and his closest.mjtl_tary_proteges,at this plenum were concealed at The' to have been criticizea oyplenum'for their own behavior. In Chen and Lin, now had his high-level scapegoats, for whatever usewanted to put them
Late inmore key military figures in ju."-
Peking werewere the commander and
political- officerPeking Military Region,
with conspiringPo-ta. Again theirj&g.
ere not- laentirieo at tne time,w Jaa
1 early indicate that here again Lin tailed tos own men in these critically important positions.
[this latest faTlure was an important it not decisive factor in leading Lin to conclude that he was already marked for purging,eed he probably was-
In Mao's conversations with Edgar Snow in efer-
ence_tp_Lin.. Rao had evidently stopped talking about Lin
as his successor or anything else. Snow learned that Chou En-lai, not Lin as earlier reported, was "in charge" of rebuilding the Party. And in outlining to Snow their new foreign policy (whicheclared willingness to welcome Presidentao .and Chou failed toLin (as the successor) with it.
the1
T^
d against Hao. It is apparent from subsequent developments that they agai overestimated their own strength and underestimated nao's. But they reportedly believed that they had to act in any case, as they themselves would otherwise bo purged. It is also credible,further alleged, lan to assassinate Mao if necessary was included in the original plans of Lin'siving Hao could be expected be too formidable an opponenthowdown. But it is not alleged that Mao discovered any such plans that early, and he did not act as if he had.
In the earlv monthsao was again visibly concerned with those failingsadministrators
in generalsummarized at the time as "axrogance and
complacency" that he had begun to warn against at the Ninth Party Congress. An intensive "rectification" of all Party cadresin which the military were most prominentas undertaken. There wasmallnot reaching to the top levelst the same time. Many secondary_jnxlXtary-_figures diseppeare
and are still missing.
"inthe" inces. This must "have-refalculationwas to prove correct in1hat in the eventhowndown with Lin he would be able to split off from Lin the great majority of these proteges. However, the timing of Mao's decisiveainst Lin may have beernd his proteges. ^MHV
- through such protegesto set up political
and military "bases" outside Peking for potential use against Mao, and reports to this effect nay have reached Mao at the time.
h'TIao
It seems likely ao-had. an namely, its opposition to the Hao-Chou foreign policy, in particular to the"plans forvisit, an initialwere- strongly
Lin Piao made his last public appearance in Mao may have begun soon thereafter the talksand provincial military-political leadershe successfully soughta showdown with Lin's group.
Mao QUtside-Qf Peking forirst week ofand place him in South Chinaengaged in such talkswithroup of Lin's regional proteges in mid-August. Mao's interests in Peking were being protected by Party and miUtary leaders in whom he had confidence. Chou Cn-lai, the old Marshal Yeh Chien-ying (the two Chinese principals in the first talks with Dr. Kissinger),e General Political Department director and possible Peking MR commander Li Te-shcng, and Peking Garrison commander Wu Chung.
The Crisis, August-September 1
In Moo's talks in mid-August with leaders of the Central-South area, in which proteges of both Lin Piao and Huang Yung-sheng were heavily clustered, Mao made clear thatLhe regarded Lin, Huang, ano> others asagainst him, and made clear that he intended
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to purge Lin and some
All of those witn wiioro nao ta-reportedly expressed their fidelity to him.
Lin evidently received intelligence from South China sources on Mao's intentionto move decisively against Lin's groupin the first week of September.eptember, Lin apparently took his family, rident aircraft, to the summer resort of Peitaiho, not far from Peking, to aweit developments possibly including the results of an attempted assassination of Hao. The Party insists that Lin's group attempted to activate theirplan in early September, although almost all accounts agree that they were unable to do so: that is, no bullet was fired, no bomb was exploded- While it does seem very likelv that Lin and his proteges had decided by that time that it would indeed be necossary to kill Mao, it is impossible on present evidence to judge whether they did in fact attempt to do so in early September. Accounts of this attempt assert that Mao learned of it at the time. This story may be true. Mao may, however, have learned simply of Lin's plans.
Certain notes by lesser conspirators which were to serve as the base for ocumentocument attributed to Lin Piao's group, which sets forth the rationale and planscoup"ight have fallen into the handso's loyal lieutenants in Peking^in riod, in the second week
Hf so, this might equally wellhat is, as well-as an actualattempt explain Mao's return to Peking earlier than scheduled, ana by a secret route.
In any case, Mao returned to Peking oneptember, prepared to take immediate action against Lin in Party
councils. eeting of Party leadersperhaps largely of military leaderswas convened that sane evening, either by Mao or by Chou En-lai in Hao's name. Xiiismeeting was very probablyt the meeting, Mao's intention to purge Lin and his supporters was almost certainly made known.
Most accounts agree that Lin had made plans for flight if necessary possibly contingent, as alleged, on the fortunes ofthis scheme to kill Mao in East China. Mao's return to Pekingwhether as the survivor of an aborted assassination attempt, or as the objectompromised assassination plan, or simply as the Party's dominant figure who intended to purge Lin for aof reason*forced Lin to activate and update his plans for flight. The flight may also have been speeded up by information reaching Lin from his proteges in Pekingwho were reportedly included in his original plans for flighton the emergency meeting on the evening ofeptember.
nd.and-soneaving Lin's proteges behind in Pekingma probably (as alleged) abfiardaircraft which took off hurriedly from an airfield near Peitaiho after midnight on the nighteptember and which crashed and burned at0 oneptember near the Soviet border,ine with the big air complex at Irkutsk. (Alternatively, theyre_ Peitaiho. whi_le lesser figures fled, and were soon executed.! The air standdown wasimposed immea'iately following this flight. Lin's principal proteges in Peking were condemned in the courserolonged meeting ending about eptember. Chou En-lai and Yeh Chien-ying were particularly helpful to Mao in managing the crisis through thifs period.
The Post-Lin Line and Leadership
The handling of this intensely embarrassingboth domestic and foreign audiences, has been afor Party leaders. The Party at firstconceal the fall of Lin's group, telling evencadres that the missing leaders were engaged inpreparationsoviet, threat^ audiences
^
not begin until October, Deception of foreigners vas intense through October and into November, and continued until June. Hit was only then, on Hao's signal, that Chinese officials began to admit ta foreigners that Linailed assassin and was deadTj
months
Neither Lin nor any member ofthis group has been mentioned by China's public media.^There haselec tive discussion of the case in terms of "swindlers like Liumphasizing conspiracy and illicit organizational activity, and associating the purged group by implication with foreign enemies and with various rejected poli
ha^beej, circulating
The er
have imposed much suffering on the Chinese people-current circulation of this document on Mao's ord
learning from reflection of Mao's
represents the familiar practice of negativend as such is a
theocument attributed toLiTs group. This document* whichfas notedjprobablyenuine draft by some junior conspirators but has probably been embellished by the Party, portrays Lin's group as identifying and trying to exploit popular grievances* It criticizes Kaoode name in very strong terms: yrant, treacherous and cruel to his lieutenants, and incompetent as well, the source of ill-conceived campaigns and policies that
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seli-confidence; and Lin himself is being blamed foi tlie grievances stated in the document. However, the case made against Kaoood one, there is said to be much private agreement with it, and the exercise may prove counter-productive.
The PLA has been told repeatedly that it is to be subordinated to the civilian Party leadership, that opposition to Party policies (including foreign policy) will not be tolerated, that Party policies must be faithfully implemented, that the PLA must learn humility, and that the authority of military administratorscivilian Party cadres is in general to be reduced, in other words, the PLA is to be returnedore nearly traditional role.
The Party is promising at the same time that an obedient and humble PLA need not fear another large-scale purge, on the order. airly substantial, mjrqthas already been carried out.
IIBHH^houte.ntral,and-T.litary leaders ass_ conspire tornd mafw-inore military leaders are missing. The purge has^cTearly not been completed at any level, and the number of victims may rise considerably in the course of the next year.
Maoto be still theminant,figure,
in the terms used by he points
the general direction, formulates or approves the
formulation of the regime's principal policies, and
signs directives, teauing-day._to._day operations to Chou
En-lai and Chou's Party apparatus and government'machlnery
And_ho_icLiXI dominant in. the sense of_haying
the_power froany oCh"er"7Party leader or
gm-ij
<
Mao's domination is increasingly. qualified. He is old, his healthdeteriorating (there are
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credible current reports ofnd he has lost It is doubtful that he could point China in any general direction other than the one he has been takingthat is, it is doubtful that he could turn hard left again. He relieshief lieutenant, Chou, who sees many things differently than he does. And he is still heavily dependent on the PLA. If he were to choose to replace Chou's group or to return the PLA fully to its traditional fole,haveto-do either. Increasingly, Mao'V lieutenantspasV'hiro to the post-Mao situation. If ill healthactor now, the process has already begun in which developments and decisions increasingly get away from Mao.
Nevertheless, the main lesson of the.past ten yearSw^_for other Party leaders, -has to be that one chal-lenges-iiao, of takes action behind his back, only at great peril. Other Party leaders, while makingfor their futures, will probably try above all not to provoke the old man's suspicion or hostility in his remaining time. The_chie__near-term' threatow_-cvcjL_marginal, -frost other loaders, looks still .to be assassination. ear..of .itaveactor in hiil urn to appear on May Day.
Chou En-lai's status and authority have been greatly enhanced. At the head of the Party apparatus and the government machinery, he has apparently been acquiring authority as well over the military The general direction of Chinese policy9 has clearly been congenial to Chou, and President Nixon's visitisible personal triumph for him. As observed during that visit, Chou takes pains not to appear to be challenging Mao: he is deferential to Mao, he gives Mao the credit for formulating even those policies he himself has formulated, and he is meticulous in getting Mao's approval for important steps. The clever Chou will probably survive and prosper.
Mao and Chounow the only other primary leader are proceeding carefully and deliberately with the task of assembling another successor leadership. They are now operatingelatively small central team, composed both of old comrades of Mao's and Chou's and of younger figures who rose during the Cultural Revolution. The military leaders are, of course,ew set, and are not proteges of any single military leader, as were those purged with Lin Piao.
Because it is hard at best to carry out Mao's policies to his satisfaction, and because mismatched groups of leaders can be expected to continue tofor Mao's (and Chou's) favor, sew^-aembers of the current teamboth military and civilian--probabiyTall. Should Mao die, Chou could probably dominate the leadership (although not to the same degree), and could be expected to make further changes, reducing the importance of Maoist ideology and of the surviving ideologues. th Mno and Ch"'i die in the.next year or two, no single figure among theiving..leaders wouId seemut down sopast year, would in those circumstances probably be in the best po siup.
ANNEX
THE PURGE Or LIN PIAO'S "CONSPIRATORIALENTATIVE RECONSTRUCTION
Contents
Paqe
I.
OF HIGH FAVOR, . . . .
-A-
DECLINE IN HAO'S REGARD, .
-
TO THE CRISIS, 1 .
-
. . .
,A-
SO
I. The Period of High
In the first year of the Cultural J?
(officially beginning in May iyt>bj,iao seemed to * cstablish himselfard-core Maoistr>'-cooperated with Chen Po-ta and other civilian radicals jof the central Cultural Revolution Group iii_destfoy_ingnd_purqinq_the Chinese "* jComipunis_t_ armed forces i'PLA) _hich hen
-second year, Lin's position seeme_Jmorc*
install such proteges in key positions in themachinery and Party apparatus, thusbuild an "independent kingdom." At the end of the year, Lin uccmec to have Mao's blessing in
he had done: the new party Constitution confirmed him i' Mao's successor, and Lin and his closest proteges jfA*" the largest cohesive group in the new
This was the group that was to be purged in September -rl' I,
The New Successor; The great purge of
Chinese Communist hierarchy which took place under the anner of the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" ja> actually began inith the arrest of the'-PLA'snd political security supervisor,
and ofto becoup."
The Cultural Revolution began otticiaiiy'in'entral Committee circular'earreat purge of "the party, the government, and the army" lay
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ahead.* The same circular setentralGroup, outside the Party apparatus, topurge; its officersroup of civilianby Mao's longtime factotum Chen Po-ta andMao, At the same time, Lin Piao, in thoto an enlarged meeting of the Politburo,arrested Party leaders, spoke at greatthe importance ofalledsupport of Chairman Mao and adherence toand promised harsh punishment to Mao's
while'Mao was preparing to unveil the young Red Guards as the main instrument to attack the Party, the Central Committee met in early6 to approve Mao's design for the Revolution and his rearrangement of the Party hierarchy, in particular his purge of his previously-designated successor, Liu Shao-chi. Lin Piao told chis plenum candidly that the Cultural Revolution was conceivedgeneralnd general reorganisation" of Party cadres- Lin emerged from this as the sole vice-chairman of the Party and thus the newly-designated successor to Mao. The plenum confirmed Chou En-lai as the third-ranking Party leader, and added Chen Po-ta (among others) to the Politburo standing committee, the organizational core of power in China. In the_ same period, Lin told PLA leaders that the harsh standards used to purge the Party were also to be used to purge tho PLA, and he named Chen Po-ta's deputy, Madame
Mao, as "advisor" to (de facto chiefpecial Cultural Revolution Group which was to bo used to conduct this purge of the PLA.
'A group of Party-machine figures purged at this tiae epring6 was also charged'uith plotting a "coup. Thit was toentral charge against manu of the high-level Parti/ leaders purged in the Cultural Revolution, and vas eventually to be mcde against Lin Piao himself.
Lin and the Purge of the PLA: The Red Guards made their appearance in mid-August,and beganon Hao's explicit directiveto "bombard" the Party apparatus. Their continuing guidance came from Lin Piao (in generalnd from Chou En-lai and the officers of the central CRG (in more specific terms). iLnam.tart, there were marked differences in the lines taken byCRG leaders on one hauiW uTiO Ihou onther: Tin "and "The civilian radicalshe_CRG tendedhe rc as__Chpu_qid not.
Chou probably had from theood sense of where mindless militancy would lead. He could judge in the autumn6 that it would seriously disrupt the work of his government machinery and in particular the conduct of his longtime specialty, foreign policy. Hao himself foreshadowed the extension of the Cultural Revolution into foreign policy by calling in6 for the "revolutionization" of Chinese missions abroad and of Peking's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. And Lin Piao soon added his voice to those calling for attacks on the governmentthe entire structure over which Chou as Premier presidedas well as on the Party.
During the early winter, Lin Piao backed Madame Mao (in the starring role) idening purge of the PLA. This purge removed the second-ranking officer of the Military Affairs Committee (MAC, the Party organ which directed and controlled the entire militaryho was also accused ofnd removed as well many other central and regional military leaders, several of whom were sold tolanned "coup." Those purged were not proteges of Lin himself.
Mao ordered the PLA into action as* an instrument of the Cultural Revolution early. The PLA rapidly became the de facto government of China outside Peking, and it took over the regime's public security apparatus. Thereafter, Lin continued methodically to
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purge the PLA and to reorganize the regional and provincial military commands, but in small groups, noteneral revolt which would lead co chaos.
Quring this stagc of the CuJturpi Revolution, some of Lin's longtimeoteqes came under Rejj_ Guard attack, and Lin had to take action to save themTyiuT.eg"es ancPfriends or (Jiou tn-laT's also came under such attack. Chou, at that time less clone to Mao than was Lin, was less successful than Lin in protecting his proteges. At the same time, arebel" groupthe adult successors of the young Red Guardsbegan to "supervise" (that is, disrupt) the' Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In the months to follow, Chinese missions abroad were to be turned into centers for the propagation of various extreme features of Mao'5s Chou En-laj probably foresawo counteraction by local governments, retaliation on "revolutionary" lines by Peking, and the international isolation of Peking.
Through the springin remained generally militant in his attitude toward the PLAhole. Mao's judgment in7 that the PLA inorder had acted too vigorously against massLin in late March imposed severe restrictions on the PLA's use of force against such organizations, thus putting the PLAisadvantage against its young antagonists, and probably alienating some PLA leaders from Lin himself. This containment of the PLA was followedave of unprecedented violence on the part of mass organizations, which led in turnew stage of the Cultural Revolution in which Lin was forced toore complicated role.
Lin and his Proteges: Rather than authorizing the PLA to use the necessary force against mas's organizations, Maowhose progeny these organizations werechose at first to try to negotiate agreements among contending mass organizations, or, where necessary, to choose among
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them. In the already agitated situationmuch worse when an MR commander refused toa delegation from Peking which was dealingorganizations in his area. The MR commanderbroken, and Lin himselfstill clearly inpositionhreatened action against
such commanders. Inflate July, Red Flag, theheoretical journal supexiu-fid bv Chenead.ofentral CRG, called unmistakably for anotherhis call was in the spirit of Mao's earliernd may have been explicitly approved by Kao (who-was out of Peking at the time). Lin's response to th*5 till cannot be evaluated withn one hand, hetogive them some tough "instructions"nter alia, to obey orders from Chen Po-ta's CRG. On the other hand, he did not associate himself with the late July callarger purge. Possibly acting on new orders from Mao, other Party leaders including Chen Po-taoonthe call arger purge. In late August, Mao himself went on record as opposedarger purge.
Lin took early action to reshape the PLA/CRG, the special group charged earlier with purging the PLA. The previously ultramilitant Madame Mao was dropped from the group (surely with Mao's approval). Lin reorganized tfie PLA/CRGroup of his own longtime and now closest proteges, some of whom had been under Red Guard attack earlier in the year, but who were not clearlywith either "radical" or "conservative" positions. These included Hu Fa-hsien (the Air Forcei Tso-peng (the Navy's first politicalhiu Hui-tso (the chief of Logistics) and Yeh Chun (Lin's wife, and the head of his staff office). All were to be accused1 of conspiring with Lin against Mao.
In the same period, Violence against objectives in an area of Chou En-lai's concernhe Ministry
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of Foreign Affairs, che foreign minister, and foreign missionsreached its highest point. This violence, reportedly organized by an officer of the centralent so far as to place the Foreign Ministry underrebel" controlime, and culminated in the burning of the British mission and the beating of British officials in late August. Chou moved quicklyintervening with Maoo regain control of the Ministry, to prevent the purge of his protege the foreign minister (although .the latter becamend to prohibit further violence against foreign missions."
Soon thereafter, with Mao now persuadedevents or by persons) that the Revolution hadJ too far to the left. Party leaders denounced the" an exceptionally militant massgroup was to serve as the
'* policiesiolencenTT whole spectrum of "Red Guard diplomacy"and,importantly, the offenses of "conspiracy" and
assassination. In three
secondary leaders of the CRG were purgedn part for their own excesses, in part as scapegoats for the failure ot policies which at one time Mao himself had encouraged.
Pia
O E
position on "Red Guard diplomacu"
persona
Tiouever', his earlier uritings__rglated to
is_ not knoun.
^SJLOSfL of
I diplomacy. Moreover, Lin had in June7 inero' to tne wHtr.ese furviyn
fit
ueleome (home Vffice* Mho was fjjj
/ foreign ajjair_s.jt' against other governments, and had eh.oun littleVJ <f the_vfflMe--trf
t- ^'ioipfd Haa.from Indonesia) soon to
Utr*
ApV
lead the attacks on the Foreign Mfnistry ands gn missions. At least so long as his oun proteges not under attack, Lin seemed in general to encourage rnrlirnl" even extreme -- filfipU*
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However, Chen Po-ta and his close associate Madame Mao remained in Mao's favor.
Soon thereaftersometime before JanuaryPiao replaced the PLA/CRGolitical Workhad roughly the same area of concernexamination and evaluation of PLA leaders),made it more responsive to the MAC -- through theunitthan the PLA/CRG had been.
fortunes of Chen Po-ta's central CRG continued to decline ^Ayy asL another CRG leader was purged, andhad to makeism. In fff^TZk^
a "Ainnrfl >'i Iv I'.O rRV.eXSC'r "
gave
ot cti ta
'probably PLAthcwishesadainc Mao. The Madame prevailed, and and two other" important stilitary leaders, including
commander of the Peking Garrison, were purged. InMarch meeting which surfaced this case, Lin and Chou v weYe'both very deferential to the of fended "Madame"" and"n
in the CulturalLin wTth" the offenses which were to beimself and some other of his protegesnd building a stronghold." Indeed, Lin was already
a stronghold. This meeting announced two close protegesLin'sHuang Yung-sheng and wen Yu-cheng --
respectively thef the PLA and the new commander of the Peking Garrison.
In subsequent months, theretriking trend in the staffing of China's provincial-level "revolutionary committees," the provisional organs of government while the Party was being rebuilt. The .chairmanships of almost all of the provincial-level committees formed in this period were given to career military men. When the Krz.
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establishment of these committees was completed inhe great majority were in military hands, and of theost important of themn the provinces containing the Military Regionll but one were in the hands of apparent proteges of Lin Piao."
Lin took several actions in that period of March8 to strengthen his position in the military establishment. His close protege Huang Yung-sheng, the, became concurrently the secretary-general of the MAC and the chief of the administrative unit which supervised the Political Work Group (the de facto General Political Department). And Lin reorganized* the MAC standing committee, its administrative unit, and the General Staffhe regime's three moot important organs in command and control of the PLAaround his proteges. The most important of these protegesHuang Yung-sheng (whoas the head of the groundu Fa-hsien (the CCAFi Tso-pcng (theliiu Hui-tso (the Logistics chief), and Wen Yu-cheng (the Peking Garrison commander) heldposts in all three of these critical organs This clustering of Lin's proteges demonstrated
'In this same period, beginning in May 8 anduntil the Hinth Congress in April Maosome eople as China's most elite first team. Among the ere Lin and four ofclosest proteges: Huang Yung-sheng, Xeh Chun, and Wen Yu-cheryg.
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strikingly his domination of the central military The picture was almost as striking at the regional level.*
As ofhe high-priority task was t'bhard core" of Party leadership within the revolutionary committee structure throughout China. Mao one would suppose, with Lin's hearty agreementapparently meant to have the military leaders already in
of'the U headquarters uere under the commands of apparenz protegee of Lin uhen the Cultural Revolution began: Shenyang, Hanking, Canton (three of the four tost important), Tsinan, and Foochou. Tuo more -- Chengtu and Wuhan eorganized in7 to come under the command of protegee of Lin. tuo more -- Kunming end Orumchi -- uere reorganised to the same end in Anotheranchouas to be reorganited in (These regional proteges in general uere not ae close to Lin as uere his proteges in the central military leadership: that is, they uere not given the same degree of preferment during the Cultural Revolution, and did not uork as intimately uith Lin. But they uere proteges in the conventional senee of the term: they had spent much of their careers under Lin's command, had been advanced by him after he became Minister of Defense in and had been shown favor by him in the Cultural Revolution.1 The eleventh andmost important
t
or
ecognized-pFotTges .
tctLftZu^ -jXr*M1
undlrthe command of ChengJJei-shan Jcommanaer)sueh-feng (political officer), who were both purged Lateconspiring uith Chen Po-ta. imself was later to be charged with conspiring with fhose three 0 was
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a Partu can be believed_^ by_ men tiea
4
place in tho revolutionary committees' dominate the Cial- level Party_committees as well.' Authority in aVing theseweenthc- militaiy 1 eking oh" -'one hand ahg tnehC other. nat is. the "cores" of the forthcoming Party committeeserebeing proposed by the military men on the vMrtf1 Ar in the provinces and major municipalities, and were *S pproved by the CRG. In other words. Lin'sA'" RG were apparentlyogether
, The Ninth Party Congress: Lin Piao made the political report to the Ninth Party Congress in April CommunistUnce_Linls_fall have suggested
^e' 4' Xthat^Hao was not pleased witheport, ButTTt is" hard to fix on-any-part-bf-thar "report wnTch^cotfld have offended jir - Mao at the time.
"Oft
discussing Party-rebuilding, Lin's emphasis was
on the need to put Party leadership at all levels in the
hands of "true" Marxists. He meant Maoists, whichLin had always defined it neant men who would
' follow Mao's lead wherever it took them.
V'revlewln9 foreign affairs, Lin took the
line. He denounced both the United States he
"lost ferocious enemy of the people of the wholethehe Soviet revisionist renegade clique"),
strongly stated Peking's policy of support of "revolu-
tionary struggles" everywhere. While expressing Peking's favoregotiated settlement of the Sino-Soviet border dispute and for "peaceful coexistence" with the West, Lin called for preparationsar launched by either. or USSR (or both).
This Ninth Party Congressew Partywith an unprecedented provision confirming Lin Piao as Mao's successor without an election heading off any possible election, after Mao's death, of the
A-10
more popular Chou En-lail, and providing (or. .thestanding committee to reconstruct whatever central Party apparatus it might need. The Constitution did not provideew Party Secretariat, as the concept was still in disfavor and the central CRG was still actinge facto secretariat.
The Ninth Party Congress went on toentral Committee composed in largest part (more thanercent) of PLA figures. This new Central Committee "elected" Mao and Lin as its only officers andive-man standing committee of the Politburo, identical with the de facto standing committee This standing committee was composed of Mao, Lin, Chou, and the two ranking leaders of the CRG: Chen Po-ta, with whom Lin was later to be linkedo-conspirator, and Kangecurity specialist who was to be sidelined0 when Chen was purged. The new Politburo included Lin and five of the close proteges of Lin discussed aboveuang, Wu, Li, Chiu, and Lin'st also included two somewhat less close proteges of Lin, the Shenyang and Nanking TTi'li tary
plenum of the new Central Committee admonished the PLA's military administrators throughout China toetter job. While rejecting the Soviet charge that the military
rotege. Wenchtng,ison commander, was inexplicably passed over.
MO
was too heavily represented in China's governing structure. Maothe solution to local problems,hei militarythe military's prob-lams lay in He went on to make severeremarksddressed to all Central committee members, expressly including Politburo membersabout the need to work carefuliv_and avoid pridc-^ancLto proceed with particular
cmtLf in-rebuilding .the These remarks were" the
foundation of the subsequent campaign against "arrogance" andspecially on the part of the military administrators. rf
Mao in this speech associated himself with Lin's call for "preparations against war" (both material and spiritual preparations), all which was also to become national campaign. Lin was later to be charged with
ffenses under this/hjeading. w- _y- *
structure of powerwas to be decisive
id.
^aypr-wTtnto beery strongilitary structure, and to be movingl strong position in the Party. His position inI .'. 1iri'?ilitary and politicalstructures,pendcd_-uponQJa'*ihad alreadyn his concern about the responsiveness of the PLAhe PLA for which Lin was responsible. As things wereurn out, Mao's attitudenot Lin's position in the
111
' v U
the PLA 's
-Mao had already symbolized his concern over
ob the numbers of PLA men in key posts, but the
responsiveness of the PLA to the Party, meaning himself.
thai ThtT PLA (among othej^co
"lodersfti
/proyiBlvn Km i J"
/ ana__eocxetyJust:Mt I Recont forty
displeased by Mao's speech to tHe^finum
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Method had inserted into the_neu PpJ-tfr
of-tne state
Lin PiaO uas
IX. Lin's Decline in Hao's
It is apparent in retrospect that at some time in the year following the Ninth Party Congress oi9 Hao changed his mind about Lin Piao as his successor. It was probably.in this period that Mao decided that Lin could not be relied upon to make the PLAstill the governing apparatuseliably responsive to the civilian Party leadership. Lin may have been unreliable in other respects as well, for example, Lin's group may have been unwilling to accept the Mao-Chou line that the USSR had become the main enemy of China. In0 Maoroposal which seemed to Lin tooss ofin him the proposal not to restore the post of Chairman of the regime. Lin was right, because Mao soon took other organizational steps againstin protege from command of the Peking Garrison, and placing the General Political Department under theof non-proteges of Lin. Overestimating their strength, Lin and Chen Po-ta and others reportedly made an effort at the Party plenum of0 to get the post of Chairman reinstated. This attempt not only failed, but led to the purge of some of Lin's allies, and, reportedly, to criticism by Mao of Lin and his closest military proteges. Soon thereafter, Mao took yet another step against Lin by reorganizing the Peking Military Region, again preventing Lin from installing his own men in tho leading posts. The latterey role in the development of Lin'sabout his prospects- By the end Hao had apparently stopped talking about Lin: he had probably, by this time, decided not only to replace Lin as his successor but to purge Lin and his closest proteges.
Some Issues: The principal developments of the year following the Ninth Partycre Mao'sconcern about the responsiveness of the PLA to the civilian Party leadership, the growing Soviet military
threat to China and the Chinese response to that, the all-out "investigation"ass organization" group)ymbol of "conspiracy" against Party leaders, the related decline of the "radical"-led central Cultural Revolution Croup, and the related rise of ChouWhile the precise relationship among these interestingdevelopments is still not clear, there were so many ramifications of each of them that it iso believe that Lin got .caught in some combination ofcircumstances that maj_e_ jim_appear_to" disadvantage.
Mao's admonitions to the PLA at the Ninth Partyi ongress rose rapidly to the levelampaign to en-V*ure that tho PLA work under "Party" leadership and work yj^,better than before. In the joint editorial onjh anniversaryt was insisted with?*unusual shrillness that theommittee of the Party was "the only center of leadership for the whole Party, the whole army, and the people throughout thend, again, that the PLA must "accept the leadership of thearry out to the letter the line, principles and policies of the Party's Central Committee personally formulated by the great leader Chairman Mao." The joint editorial on Army Dayugust) emphasized that "much work remains to behat this work must not be "crude andhat "Chairman Mao's proletarian line on army building" must be carried outbetterthat this must be done "under the leadership of the Party Central Committee with Chairman Mao as itsnd so on.*
-The tone taken touard the PLA in the joint edxtonaIs
on the same occasions in 8 had been veryPLA vas then the great teacher of the.Chvnesethe most redoubtable foe of "class
itsaid, one's "attitude toward the PLA y the toward the dictatorship of the proletariat (meaning, re-emerging
Party and lJ.ao himself!
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- J ^
While this campaign was neverat least inV-public manifestationsof such intensity as toin itself the purge of the PLA's central leadership int seems likely that9 the problem of the responsiveness of the PLAof the PLA:for which Lin Piao was directly responsiblecame to be seen by Mao as the problem of Lin's own personal respon-siveness to Mao. In otherin Piao whoot be reliedsconcern__cp.uId not fre .relied.ofuccessor tond there may well have beenin other areas of concern than the PLA.
Throughout the spring and summerhewereredible possibilityarge-scale military attack on China. Lin himself in9 had called on the nation to take tho Soviet "tactical-threat seriously. In May and June, Chinese spokesmen took note that China was being threatened (as it indeed was) by Soviet air attacks on its nuclear installations. In August, the Soviets wipedhinese unit which crossed the border from Sinkiang. In early September, continuing to threaten Peking, theublicly suggested the possibilityoviet operation against China's
The principal Chinese leaders Mao, Lin, and Chouresponded in an apparently coordinated way. With Mao's permission, Chou oneptember met with Kosygin and agreed to begin talks about the border, withouton the earlier precondition that Moscow "recognize" the inequitable nature of the old treaties. And Lin in his annual National Dayctober) speech was notably milder toward the USSR than he had been in his Partyspeech, denouncing the US enemy by name but failing
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NO
to specify the source of "social-imperialism" Itho USSR) or to refer to the border situation (the immediatethreat). The border talks soon got underway.*
Probably animated largely by (lao's hatred and fear of the Russians, Peking followed with an initiative toward the United States in In response to- withdrawal of naval patrols from the Taiwan Strait in November, Peking in December stated for the first time its willingness to receive the American representative in the Chinese Embassy in Poland in order to resume the Sino-American talks- In this double stop forward, the talks were resumed in
7
0
on returning to Xenon in putting doVn_ the more jn
with the Russians, h As the commander in the Northeast on veil vith the
VUVTtTT^. ounds, fiw had got onveil
of Chinese Communist forces (Manchuria' in , he had again got Russians, butAf gnt lu not lationshio vith
Mao cou
.
terms Ka_
ns scornLuL soia11
private zninki
and vas mor
case
nc -nf nearlyiznnr
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There was, on the face of it, no good reason for any Chinese military leader to oppose these moves to reduce tension withi>rincipat enemies.
Maoprooaoly counseitea by Chouent beyond this. It.was in this period between April and9 that the Party first formulated the linelater to be withdrawn, then restoredthat the USSR was China's mam enemy, replacing, in that role. High-level Party meetings, reflected in subsequent Party briefings, reiterated this line9 and
It had been presumed all along that some Chinese military leaders had opposed the break with the USSRwith its consequent depressing effect on Chinesedevelopment and its imposition on the Chinese military establishment of another major enemyalthough after che purge of Peng Tc-huai they would have kept quiet about it. Even among those who had genuinely supported Moo in the break, some Chinese military leadersen who had been Communists all their adult livescould be expected to be unable to regard the USSH /tt thpir main enemyoTiZEeTTeT7 Tt isn..Piao.was among their number, that certain of his proteges agreed wiTh-him,group was simply unable to make the shift, and that this became evident to Mao in Partyor in private conversation,
elated issue, there was the continuing "Dre-
This j
ana tiiey wctc
various headquarters and bases forwill be touched on later-
ir .x
ajjisi_war" campaign. After Lin's. faili_he na otJ3SJ_auli^ary leadersused'mili tary__ta'keo,vex. The campaign would or course have ,' peFWIYtea military leaders to strengthen their positions, and they were to be expressly charged with having prepared
S"*7
ha
A-17
top se<5re_
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'nr IK* .in A "COUO." This
Peking's pronouncementstrong concern over the problems of factionalism andnd related the latter to the threatoviet attack; as Chou En-lai said, such "internal weakness" would encourage .Soviet aggression. /Thus the PLA was again ^urhnri?fduse whatever-degree of force was necessary to restore order
Another related issue, during the springenewal of disruptive behavior by mass organizations in China . by their representatives in. or seeking places in. "revolutionary committees" and new Party committees throughout China. This misbehaviorthe expressed hopes of Mao (and_XXn)nity" in the constructive stage of theftnonncintipntstrong concern
I I
latever-degree ol torce was ,
Rv December reportedly^CjKmj^^
ere
leaders
ecent grisly*
sTrrcrMp. "the most militant of all mass organizationsfraleft" positions of symbol of "conspiracy" ty
fact of Chinese life
Croup had ungues tiono&Jj/ carried out aa&as-singtiojLs of rival leaders of mast organizations. andhave made attfiptt even on Party leaders One such attempt may have been made in March 0 on Hsieh Fu-chih, the Minister of Public Securityhile thecf6 Croup uas underway, and this in turn may have been cn important factor as reported the- replacement he Pektna Garrison commander, Lin orotege Ven fu-aJitno
- IB
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DISSEM
n-ter_o
It_wojiLi3 nnl hwyp hppn harri, toase relating Lin Piao to6 Linthe source of_incendiary
roup, descrihim
statements to mass organizations. the record, minimized the offenses
them as true
of Chenand others the' yii;
fyjj roup did not in any way_implicate Lin Piafl andftltary roocterr. purged with him1 (although they
V'did implicate sorae.ol Lln'B proteges purged earlier).
which
Thus the most that-can be said is thatGroup in the winteray havesomething damaging to Lin and certain of hissay, of "double-dealing,"against other Party leaders . Chou)leaders of6 Grouphich was made knownand which Hao
The central Cultural Revolution Group (CRG1
decline organizational base of power, the CRG. Moreover, Chou En-lai was described y Party leaders0 as the Party's de factogeneralreplacing both Chen Po-ta and Kang Sheng in that roleand it seems reasonable to believe that Chou began to play that role at about the time the central CRG disappeared, ie- in the early winter
may have been inactive for some months in its role as the Party's de facto secretariat, disappeared from view in Decemberand was never thereafter reported to be acting in any capacity whatever. The civilian "radicals" heading the CRG who were to fall into disgracea) or to become inactive (Kang Sheng) 0 wp.roin decline during the wintereflected in the abolitio
-
the CRG. Moreover
if'
S
fori:
A-19
ET
DISSEC.
Lin and Chou appeared at the time to have
? jresolved their earlier differences and to be playing *roles" it seems possible in retrospect
ith the benefit of more information on the activities of both menhat Lin began at that time to see Chou'hreat to his own plans for dominating the Party apparatus. If so, he may have attempteds some later materials suggesto restrict Chou's authority in the role of de facto secretary-general, or even to prevent Chou from occupying the post at all, If so, this could have brought Lin into serious conflict with Hao during the winter, because- there_ is abundant evidence
ssible favor with Mao and was.
nt. *
in the entire courseCongressthat by this time
Chou was
indced^rincipaldYiJLQr_aii__JA'
Mao's Crucial Proposal: Whatever the combinatior of circumstances that brought Lin into disfavor with Mao by or during the winter, in0 Haoroposal which set in motion the train of events culminating in the destruction of Lin and the purge of his closest proteges in This proposal was not to restore, in the new State Constitution, the post of Chairman of the regimeost parallel to, although far less important than, Mao's own post of Chairman of the Party, and which had been vacant since
9
that this one of Mao's lieutenants uho
d militant courses tial ad-
>een leavfp'fidisposed lo radical and milita 'isen to the position of Mao's most influentby the endilitant Cultural Revoluzi 'adical ends ao has always beme'
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the purge of Liu Shao-chi Tite_pDSi_it.se.Lf. had an empty one, in practicef symboliconly, anotherto stand beside the one Chairman as his designated successor. Yet, there isevidence, in Party documents, that Lin thought the "postmportaoL, and wanted at least to restorewere not to occupy it himselfJ
"willingness to stake so much on this ques-
tion_of .the Chairmanship is prpgabl'p^he^araest.^hinqexplain in developments of recent. Lin's
^ tionpost itself mustj been based on two considerations, nr-fi wu that man would bethe principal officer of the government, ranTtXnqr Pr The other was that, at &A7 leastold Constitution, the Chairman was the commander-in-chiel ut"the and was in-thisresponsible to any other organ
J government. If it was Lin's belief that Mao at theas building up Chou En-lai and the government machinery ounter-weight to Lin and the PLA (much as he had Sv> earlier built up Lin and the PLA against Liu Shao-chi
and the Party apparatus), it would have madeor Lin to try to get the post of Chairman restored
sooner or later, to get control of it. This would have
given him superiority over Chou in all three
. " Party, military, government and in particular (al-
though evidence is lacking that Liu Shao-chi in the post ,as moved'a"platoon) would
-rather-tKan Chouname the Minister of Defense, fit did not make goodin fact, it or Lin to" make""this postV^because Linhad* had 'abundant opportunity to_ ^ of(as
th^uStrupdn^lnO .Lin apparently regarded Mao's attitude tdwaVd'the restoration of the postand its eventual occupancy byritical test of Mao's attitude toward Lin as the successor, and (to judge from developments at
A-21
NO
the Party plenum later in soon reached the judgment that he was ready to test his own strength against Mao's will.
Jt iswn at what time Mao made the-ti.on not to restore theut it was- I before the plenum ofhen itthat he had made and reaffirmed this decision.
n were, thentfe cnm-
^'JLV^ mTtTJe^grWd in Julyconstitution,
> -ancTMao may have flSae the decisionand informed Linlj or itat that time.
Second Plenum: It was apparently }ust prior
-P'iSecond Plenum:
yio the Party PI enum of0 that made two changes in the central military leadership were damaging to Lin. He romoved Lin's protege Wen Cheng (who last appearedune) from the important post of commander of the Peking Garrison, portedly holding him responsibleecurityt in the attempted assassination in0 of "| Party leader (Hsieh Fu-chih, who was wounded in an tempt which may have also wounded the military leader Ticn-yu, who died before llsiehr charging himin ultraleft initiatives of that nature, Ma_f>o replace Wen with Moreover, Li Te-sheng, who was
' 7:. no: ItaetM, bill
he had made frequent appearances before his lastso it is rtasonable to believe that he uas removed soon after his last one, that he was out before late August. The neu Peking Garrison commpnder uas not identified until September but none*of theofficers in that intervening onthsrotege of either Lin or Huang Yung-eheng.
of Lin's but rather of the Nanking MR commancer Hsu Shih-yu, had been brought to Peking by August if not earlier to take over the General Political Department, charged with the indoctrination, investigation and evaluation of the PLA and its officers. Of the two earlier-identified deputy directors of this highly important Department, one was an apparent protege of Lin's, the other was not.
itecond
at about tne same time,
plenum in late August, that Lin Piao,lateng--Uienq. Wu Fa"-hsic"n, Li Tso-pcng, Chiuhe four military leaders next intoand the closest to him) and Yeh Chun (Lin's wife) met secretly and decided to insist, at theplenum, on_Ebe reinstatement of the post ofof the regime. Such meetings,"pr'esumaEly taking place in late July or early August, would have made the group eligible for the subsequent charge ofcounter-revolutionary conspiratorial clique"ven if its plans had gone no further than that.
The first accounts of the second plenum, which opened onugust, portrayed Chen Po-ta, not Lin, as attempting to restore the post of Chairman, and asthe "genius" Mao, not Lin, as tho immediate occupant of the post. As those first reports had it, Mao saw thfough Chen's game and repelled Chen's initiativeaon Opinion offugust. Chen wasenum and waspurged in November [mainly for his support of the6nd two alTeged accomplicesHehg^Wei-shan'and Li Hsueh-feng, the acting commander and the firstf ficer of the Peking MR {but
It is
those .first reports, no otheraders) "made "confessions" in December."
thus unapproved speech at the plenum, proposing tothe post of Chairmanapparently with riao at first reoccupying it but with Lin inheriting it. Llflw said to have been given open support by ChenongV Ehe Pek-severa 1'others, although some of these were innocent supporters, Huang Yung-sheng,not one of thes said to have planned toupporting speech, but to have remained silent after Hao's conclusive statement ofuqust^fMo of course prevailed. The 4rffiQA^PBMBBW^Brnade no provision for_the. postand specifieo that Mao as "leader" wasf the armed forces, whjje Lin was designated atssot; {to no specified pos^^and as the present deputy commander of the armed forccstfj
"It is not -- neither of' ad seemed to betypeould hav* chosen ^ ^ ,'to conspire with Chen Ro-.ta. If
sia*'would appear to_be_perso^nal ambition.
Lin
ii- , those purged. Thev are said to
continued even after the plenum to seek thethe chairmanship.
JMaor.iticized.
anspirinq"
T
robably_in Jjeceraber__ not believe that all of their supporters frere Mao is said to have easily persuadedchey had taken the wrong side at the plenum, somethem are said to ,have played important roles later in the military leaders' plans or attempts toand some continue inAt-
Lin's Status in However tlie question of the Chairmanship was handled1 at the second plenum, and whatever the handiing_o_ the military leaders thereafter, Lin knew beygjai dgubt'-'by the endthat he had declined, in?eyes . This knowledge was almostreinforced by Lin's inability, at that time, to replace the purged leaders of the Peking UR with his own en. Ir was obvious at the time that Lin..would want toi_ proteges in those key posts just as in other iiR_headquarters, and it was regarded as an anomaly that he did not.* Lin had nowby the end0ostut on four key postsowmbom, the GPb,
and the two MR posts
Hthe official r the Pekingi hatever the still-unknown shape ofritical role in Lin's thinking about his prospects: that they were poor indeed. It does seem
it ts ^oppfii
*A$ in the case of the Peking Garrison,aar ot acting leaders uere not
in
ejt),
not protegesJ/.j
swx
' I:
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NO
in retrospect that Mao, during the second halfas taking important organizational steps in Peking to preparehowdown with Lin and his proteges. When the showdown came, in the necessary military forcesimmediately, the Garrison forces, and in reserve, the MR forcesere in Mao's hands.
Edgar Snow's interviews with Kao in the late
onths0 (reporting on which became available in it"* , theretriking lack of referencel Lin in Hao's remarks. Although Lin had again made Che
Daily had begun at that time the practicetT^XlTer Ulan Mao Mao by0 had apparently stoppedLin altogether, as his successor or anythingSnow learned (apparently from Mao), ?Chou confirmed, that Chou not Linwas in chargethe Party. Moreover, even in talking now about their new policy toward the United9- explore the possibilities for an improvement in
relations at the government-to-govertunent lovcl, while emphasizing initiatives which would mobilize the American people against their governmentMao and. Chou..did not associate Lin with this new line. as_woulrf_havf- been_Lin_wero to be the successor.
anonai Dayaddresshich was to Prov* to be his last public speechand People's aily had beuun at that time the practice of featuring
In these talks with Snow inconslderable sensitivity to China'sbeing dominated beneath liTs own level by the_PLA. (indeed,viisiLiseemed at'ossible explanation of Mao's failure to talk about Lin.) llao described the PLA's admittedly striking degree of power asnd he defended the overall militarization of Chinese society as necessary in view of the Soviet military threathich had in fact seemed to be his
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reasoning at the time. (Chou En-laiimilarSnow on the role of the PLA, emphasizing theprinciple of Party leadership.) Mao toldit would be wrong to judge his success inleadershiphole solely on the basis ofof the national and provincial leaders (mainly that the bulk of the new leadershipthe Cultural Revolution was to be found at the the "next generation" of Party leaders.
fied with the responsiveness of the military_adnu.nistra-tors,public
cr.i'ticisis.-
Snow did meet briefly with Lin and found_him to be feebj^oucwre"laxed^na.aflaSle. Snow_did*_not_concludewas in disfavor or thought himself to be, aT-"tTTough"i'riow was understandably muchby Chou andorrectly, as it turned outthought Chou to be playing the more important role of the two. Other foreign visitors reported Lin to be in good spirits and even (occasionally) forthcoming in conversation. the regime's media continued to describe Lin as "deputy leader," to present him as well as Mao as the authority for the Party's policies, and to give him high praise; pictures of Lin and Hao were displayed on important occasions, and Mao-Lin badger.
(ju "M ?'
ULlsum,it seemii likely, in retrospect, that by the end "blao had decided not only to replace Lin Piao as his successor but to purge Lin and his closest
A-27
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The Approach to tho Crisis, 1
f'-f"s -hat in orin Piao and his closest proteges began to plan
* Mao, in the belief that they themselves would otherwise be purged. It is also credible, as further
romstartlan to kill Mao if necessary. But it is not alleged
Mao discovered any such plans that early.
In thef^, flao was visiblystill concerned, as he had beenith the problem of the reliability and responsiveness of Mgures as administrators, throughout China. There
UOt reaching
of* Umt time" During thet Mao continued to approve the appointment of PLA 1
figures -- including proteges of Lin to key positions,!
. iCh mUSt havaa calculation thatthe eventao-Lin showdown he could split the great ajority of them off from Lin. However, the timing of 1 ecisive move against Lin may have been moved up oy reports reaching Mao during the spring1 that Lm was attempting to set up "bases" of some kindhrough such protegesutside Peking.
June, rtao probably had an additional reason
[to purgeroup its opposition to the Mao-Chou foreign policy, specifically to the plan to receive president Nixon. Ha^jsay^haye begun, as earlyne. the talks with
in which ho successfullyhowdown with Lin's group. And he
Some Critici
senmainly concerned with assuring his own control of Pekingin the early summer.
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tit is said tl to pTan their "coup" against following thef their own arc
the fact
us proteges began actively Hao in or about
and theey posts. Linhat, nst Mao, they ms to fit
new provincial-level Party committeessurface in, in the same pattern asrevolutionary committees and
TR headquarters) headed
mostly dominated by military men, and almost.all of
(in provinces containing the
Even
_by_ proteqes of n retrospect, thjs is not startling, as these leaders (for the most part) had been sel"pc>ydriroTiarh'erore; and had been approved by Mao andpractical problem for Mao in this connection, assuming, that he had already
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decided to purge Lin and his closest proteges at the center, was how to prevent Lin from using the MR headquarters against him.
By late1 the regime's militaryat all levels were coming under heavy fire. from Red Flagor "arrogance" andnd Peking directed that all cadres of the Party apparatus
in which the military were most prominentndergo "open-door rectification" of these shortcomings. The Military Regionspparently beginning with the Shenyang MRegan at this time to hold "political and ideological work" meetings concerned expressly with these problems. The proceedings of one such (later) meeting show it to have concluded that many PLA men in the structure of powerincluding secretaries of local (non-PLA) Partywere unreasonable and imperious, suppressed their critics, acted in opposition to Party policies, and even committed crimes. PLA leaders had all too often acted independently of local Party committees, had made decisions within the PLA's own Party committees and had imposed them on the local Party committees, had forced the local Party committees to seek PLA approval of their actions, and so on. PLA organs and personnel were henceforth to accept their subordination to local Party committees, or, if the local Party committee were headedas, at the provincial level, most wereby men who were active PLA leaders concurrently, the civilian members were to be given larger roles.
A small purge of the PLA seems to_ have beep.set jn mo ft did" hot" "reach as high as theigures" of "the MAC and General Staff (positions held concurrently by the.Politburo-levelwho were to be purged inut manyfaces were missing in the early months1 or made their last appearance on or abcAit Hay Day, and some of them were probably purged beforehe missing included (and still include) tho director of
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the Operations Department of the General Staff, two deputy directors of the General Logistics Department, many national and regional leaders of the Air Force (the service arm apparently hardestome Navy figures, some of the leaders of the Artillery and Armored forces, and some of the leaders of less important arms, such as Engineers and Railway Engineers and Signal
Lin's 'Bases': As previously noted, Haoin the year following the Ninth PartyLin could not-be relied upon to make the PLAto Hao and other civilian Partyapparently begun to take organizational stepsin Peking no later than the summernd0 had probably marked Lin for purging.tOed'ln the early monthsfter this , n
visibly concerned .about" the probTem_of__the responsivenesshese appointments were striking both at the national levelin the central Party apparatus and the central government machineryand at the provincial level, that is in the new provincial-level Party committees.
as possible in key posts in the militaryand in the developing> tps. If_so, it was an offense in which Lin appeared at
least Until O__faAV.e rtn_nf Man_*nrt
Cnou, the latter making and the former approving such appointments.
There is jyrf fji-cTi-.. ii Li iu.- that failure to
men who had been selected long before would have given Lin's group warning that.Mao intended to move against the group, Lin had already been given sufficient warning to lead him to conclude by the end0 that he was marked for purging. The only credible explanation of these continuing appointments of Lin's proteges thus seems toalculation by Mao that, in the eventao-Lin showdown, the great majority of Lin's proteges would side with Mao rather than with Lin. If so, this calculation was to prove correct, in the summer
The timing of Mao's decisive move against Lin may have been influenced -- that is, moved upby reports reaching him in the spring1 that Lin was attempting to set up "bases" against him. While some accounts of th.is have implied that such activity began soon aftur the Party plenum of August-September0 under cover of "preparations against war" and continued more-or-)ess steadily until the time of Lin's fall, the bulk of the reporting concentrates such activity in the springfter the time at which Lin's group is said to have begun its planning, about the same time that it was allegedly writing out its plan, and in the period in which military leaders outside Peking weretheir positions by acquiring the top Party posts in their areas concurrently.
A-33
h anniversary of the Party'sTheinter alia denounced early leaders of tho Party who in their "organizationalracticed sectarianism and deprived Chairman Mao of hisoresaw astruggle" to consolidate the "dictatorship of the proletariat politically,ndand emphasized the need to "uphold democratic centralism"that is, to recognize the supreme authority of the Party center, to be obedient to higher levels, as opposed to the concept of "many. nohis editorial reaffirmed Mao's precept that "the Party commands the gun, and the gun must never be allowed to command the Party.""
'The issue was pretty clearly not the qris tence of so many military leaders in key positions, as they continued to be assigned to them after the time that Hao had decided
(footnote continued on page 3S)
"Debates" on Foreign Policy: Thehigixly treatment of Lin Piao'" giving him the.begxnn-of sgrT.rTgfc U-
na oeparted with Mao on" tHe occasion of May Day, looking terrible (huddledreatcoat, while other Party leaders wore nout otherwise giving every appearance of being, as billed* Mao's closest comrade and successor* At least through Hay, Chou^En^lai was presenting himself as actings.Hap-
i
By the end of May, however, Chinese Coanunuthad almost certainly had some of thebout foreign policy which Peking's spokesmen (including Chou En-lai) subseguently admitted having had in particular, about the new stance toward the United States, as the time was rapidly approaching to make the actual arrangements for President Nixon's visit,* It was suggested above
(footnote continued from
ta purge Lin and evan after* he had begun hi$ talks uith nilitary-policicai leaders outside Peking in vhich he made his intentions clear When che final fourarty committees _i. ugysT,i -
ibitmts OfKe ch com-
mittees, BO of the first secretaries oere careerommanders, eight political officers), allapparently retained their military posts; onlyold Party cadres, tuo uere men uith policenoneepresenza tiveass organization. of the provincial committees headed by old the next tuo ranking secretaries uere
AChou has reportedly specified that 'the President's visit uas the subject of one cf the "debates" as late s August t
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that Lin and his proteges may have been among those who,ad been unable to make the shift that fixed the USSR as China's main enemy, and that Mao may have seen this. If so, their position had perhaps looked betterime inhen the US incursion into Cambodia provoked Maohunderousay) restoring the United States to its long-standing position as the main enemy. But, as previously noted, byhe USSR had again been fixed as the main enemy, and Mao and Chou, in telling Edgar Snow about their intention to 'explore the possibilities for anin relations with the United States at the government-to-government level, did not associate Lin with this initiative.
_ was sub-
stantial ^ppOliHnn rhwas said_to_exist-euen_at_the_middle levels, of the ,Min_is_try__pf._floreign_Affairs, an organ which would be expected beyond all others to be resoonsive to rtunities in the outer world.
in utider
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- some aretor example, Sovietyears,_ possibles design included a fallharJi-nLan fnr snOiWof China. But some reported charges seemis the general charge of opposition to theandesire to improve relations with (in one version, to "unite" with them}. recedent for this in the Peng Te-huai case59. And1wrgpi arcincredible: that Lin opposed President that he contended that Soviet leaders should to visit China, and that he divulgedto Moscow (prior to his_alleged_attempt ensein September)
s.
not_
ThatTTs, the issue might' haven Lin's decline in Mao's eyes9 but it was aissue in in that Mao had already decided to purge Lin and his closest proteges, and theiron foreign policy at this time simply drove another nail into Mao's case against Lin.
1 joint editorial previously cited made clear that Mao and Chou still felt it necessary to
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defend their new line with their biggest gun, .as if the "debate" had persisted to the time of writing and was about to be declared at an end. It was emphasized that Mao himself stood behind the new line toward the United States. Whereas Liuine had been ao's policy of negotiations (the argument went) was very different. As Mao had long ago said,
How to give 'tit for tat' depends on the situation... If they wanted to negotiate, sometimes not going to negotiations was tit for tat, and sometimes going to negotiations was also tit for tat.
T.ie editorial reminded its readers that Mao "went to Chungking in person for negotiations" which admittedly, had faileo, but had "exposed" the enemy for all to sec. It was evident that Mao and Chou1 had high hopes for something more than "exposing" the enemy: theyood chance for positive gains, and were angry with those who were unwilling to make the shift and/or to accept the small degree of risk. oriwho hayeforeignnother matter entirely.
On the assumption that the Party is telling the truth in its charge that Lin opposed the Mao-Chou line, it is not hard to believe thatof his close proteges supported him in Parly meetings. For s for Lin, there were obvious grounds to stand oneither of basic affinities with the USSR, so that .Joscow by definitiono,tmain enemy, or ofof >hi> fioviefr thread so thatRussians^ should be ja lacat*-ago hici" gestures toward the distantthe rec*orcTof recent years less dangerous United Stages. "fhTTre were several
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SEM
military men on the Trident which crashed while attempting to reach the USSR oneptember (the USSR was obviously not their mainnd Party briefings have assertedagain, not incrediblythat Lin's closest proteges were originally scheduled to make that flight with him and that both Lin's plane (the Trident)elicopter forced down near Peking contained secret documents. Some accounts have specified that the second plane included tape-recordings of the1 talks between Chou En-lai and Dr. Kissinger, as might be expected if the defectors were opposed to the Mao-Chou line- In sum, it seems likely that opposition by iir.ilitary leaders to the Mao-Chou line, conceivably including Lin's confidences to the Russians on this, confirmed Mao's decision to purge them, and it may have speeded the
Some Possible Moves Against Lin: Lin Piao made what was to prove his last public appearance onune.une, Hsu Shih-vu. commander of the Nanking Military
Region, made what was to be his last public appearance for almost eight months. The reasons for Hsu's disappearance were most uncertain. He had appeared toavorite of both Mao and LinPiao (himself still in-Vpparent
favnrV, and"ery strong position.*
had oegun his association and stayed uith him through, he uas a leading figure longer connected uith ister of Defense in
uith Hsu remaining in thehe feu military leaders to unom Lin conjtaea the PLA in of Lin '
uith Lin in War II Fro in the East China area, Lin Uoueuer, uhen Lin he appointed Hsu as one of
MR. Hsu
yroteg* u, uv> o,
f the military leaders in Peking and Conton .tered Hsu's liferitical uayarly
deputies, one o
and ambi-Rsu uith months. Again in by Kang
organizations MR: MaO e
ui th this tim, name
plans for purging qualifyrotege as some Mao en
uhen Hsu uas under attack by mass tious military subordinates in hi
him to Shanghai, and then to Peking for several uhile the threat to Hsu uas being8 Hsu uas defended against attack, Sheng speaking expressly in Mao's
NO
TOP SEJ2RET
NOEM
Tho reasons are still uncertain, If Mao were fully confident of Hsu, and had information to the effect that Lin's group was plotting against him in East China, it might seem reasonable to keep Hsu in Nanking- Thus Hsu may have been brought to Peking under suspicion, for examination and evaluation, and held there for many months before being returned to Nanking early2 with all of his military and political titles and apparently in highut it is also possible that Hsu was the first of the military-political leaders outside Peking to be consulted by Mao on his plans for purging Lin and others, and that Hsu was brought to Peking toey military position in Peking itselfe.g. acting commander of the Peking HRn this time of troubles, and in anticipationeriod of crisis, Hsu'sdeputy in the Nanking HR was brought to Peking at about the same time, and other proteges of Hsu were soon named to other key posts in Poking and in some of the MR headquarters.*
'Mao's arrangements for assuring the reliability of the Peking HR can only be conjectured. After thr purge of the MP commander and first political officer in late, Peking simply refused to identify those acting in those capacities. Li Te-sheng. the protege of Rsu Shih-yu uho appeared in August 0 as Director of the General Political Department, was much later repc r:o be acting as the Peking MR commander, concurrently; he
may . Chi Teng-kuei .
a young Party leader in Ronan and an apparent protege of Mao himself, uho /like Li) had been named an alternate member of the Politburo in uasoJ) and- uas later reported tobe the first political officer of the he too mayassumed tma p'oSCcTs tarly as0
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Another important step that might have been taken at about the same time was the strengthening, for Mao's purposes, of the Peking Garrison. While the Garrison had been reorganizedts commander and first political officer had not been identified. Wm..Chung,rotege of any member of Lin's group, is known to have been the Garrison commander by and had apparently held this post for some months before September. Similarly, WuTe, an old Party cadreolicewho was acting head of the Party's Peking committee in the absence of the disabled Hsieh Fu-chih, was making appearances suggesting that he was concurrently the first political officer of the Puking Garrisonattern also observed in Shanghai, where Mao's man Chang Chun-chiao had held both posts for some time).
Two visible developments in early July suggested the possibility that Mao was preparing the Party for some change in Lin Piao's status. uly joint editorial cited above did praise Lin by name asompiler and an exegete of Mao's thought, specifying under the latter heading Lin's report to the Ninth Party Congress in The editorial also called for Party rebuilding to continue under Lin as "deputy leader" as well as Mao as leader. It did not, however, discuss the matters taken up in Lin's report, and it did not tpecify any recent contributions made by Lin, and thus carriedaint implicationoted by some observers at the timethat Lin's current role was less important than his past roles.*
Moreover, during Dr. Kissinger's visit to Peking in.the second week of Julyhe old Marshal Yeh Chion-ying met. delegation and was the Chinese military representative (there was no American opposite
*In retrospect, one passage ,takes dead aim at Lin's group: "It is essential thoroughly to expose onspirators, careerists, renegades and enemynd the hidden traitors who have illicit relations with foreign
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number) throughout the talks between Dr. Kissinger and Chou En-lai. Despite his lackovernment post (which Lin did have, as Minister ofeh acted as the chief of the delegation when Chou was otherwise engaged, and the Chinese in conversation emphasized the overall importance of Yeh. Yeh's role in the talks couldbe interpreted in terms of his far greater experience (than Lin) in dealing with Americans and in terms of Lin's illness (he was soon reported ill again)." But Mao may have been thinking ahead, to the time when Yeh would surface as his principal militaryole which Yeh was to assume fully in September. The civilian Party leaders apparently fdared that Yeh's eminence would be taken by the Chinese audience asoncomitant and radical decline in Lin's status, because Peking did not reveal to that audience Yeh's role in the talks. There had indeed beenecline in Lin's status, but Mao and his lieutenants Still in favor -- Chou, Yehdid not want that to be generally known until they had made the necessary arrangements to deal with its consequences.
Some of these arrangementshose that could be made in Pekingave been discussed above. Others-had to be made outside Peking. Among the most important of these were talks with MR leaders, other than whatever talks with leaders of the Peking MR and Nanking MR that Mao. had had before July.
Mao was still in Peking as late asuly, but Party briefings place him outside Peking for most of the summer thereafter (he was in Peking again at least briefly
wife, Yeh Chun, made her last public appearance onuly, not in connection with Dr. Kissinger's visit (which was of course nott arl at the time) .
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in early August) and specify that he was engaged^r^ talks with certain regional leaders by mid-August.
ii
the last talks Mao had neTorereturning ttfPekingLin's group. Tt is possible that Mao hadJuly and early August) been engaged in similarother regional leaders. Theof Lin Li-kuo's travels have him ranginghalf of China from Canton'in the South tothe North, and, -if reports of this reached Mao,have wanted to touch all of those points. Thushave talked with the Northeast leaders, andof the Southwest and Northwest leaders, in JulyAugust. (The Wuhan MR headquarters in Centralhave been available to Mao on his way south- in The leaders of all of s were out ofperiods in July and early August in which theybeer, meeting with Mao, either at thoir home basesMao's Rummer headquarters. On the other hand, theMao had, the more chance oi leakage to Lin, sopossible that Mao had no such talks prior totalks of mid-August.
ie'rtain'other-Party
and military le.aaerr. with"whora-*eo was working closely in this period --. Chou En-lai, Veh Chien-ying, Ll Te-shengpparently remained in Peking, where they made frequent appearances."
on uly gave an interviewroup of left-wing American Sinologists in which (according to a trans-cript received much later) he (oi implied tha. Lin Piao was now regardedorthy but simple man who had once
(footnote continued on
NO
for tbfjle was reporf the MA
There may conceivably haverolongedof the MACin Hao's absencein late July.every imppr.tant-miH Peking was .out
and most were missing her
so of Lin Piao,ugustacted to
ubtf
the de facto however , as
All thii
was not yet prepared to move" decisively against Tinhat is, that he was still engaged in talks with military-political leaders outside Peking as late as early September.
(footnote continued from
Chun-chiao and Xaohou almost intention to purge -- referring to tht
been very useful to Hao but who vas lest so nowore complez time, and (b) referred ambiguously to Chang
could be '* lieu-
Uen-yuan (survivors of the old central certainly knew at this time of Mao's Lin. Hie remarks about Chang and Yaos the Party's ideologues to whom
questions had to be referred --
"philoaophica I
taken either as friendly banter with two of Hao't tenants with whom he also was on good terms, or as mockery of Chang and Yao at persons vho (tike Linl veretittle, practical use-. It it hgrd to belieue^that Khou hat a very aaod^ooinxon of either Chang or Tao, but tc cannot be stated' vtJhou on this occasion vas expressing some derisrion of these twowho are favorites of Mao-'s.
IV. The Crisis,1
Mao's talks with military-political leadersPekingathering in mid-August of leaders of the South china area, in which proteges of Lin Piao and Huang Yung-sheng were heavily clustered. Mao made clear that he regarded Lin and his closest proteges as conspirators against him and that he intended to purge them. Mao's intention was apparently made known to Lin, from South China sources, in early September, and Lin took his family to the summer resort of Peitaihoeptember. During the next few days,o was in Shanghai talking with East China leaders, Lin's group allegedly tried and failed tolan to assassinate Mao. Maolearned of this at the time. ocument) incriminating Lin and others may have fallen into the hands of leaders in Peking in the same period. In any case, Mao returned to Peking oneptember to take action against Lin's group, andeeting for that purpose that evening. Lin had already made plans
Outer Mongolia at0 oneptember. Lii principal proteges remaining in Peking were condemned in the courserolonged meeting ending abouteptember. Chou En-lai and Yeh Chien-ying were particularly helpful to Mao in managing the crisis through this period.
Lin flaw S*
of disgracewas reflected on Armyugust- w. Lin himself missingune and. his wife sinceuly, the joint editorial for Army Day for ^hen years included no quotation from Lin, and his wife failed
Mao's Talks with Regional Leaders: The decline in
Lin Piao's status which seemed at the time well short
with
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to represent him at the Army Day reception.- Officially, Lin was "too sick" to make appearances, and he,may really have heen sick, evenreported. Thfrioay help to""explain "Mao's"'apparent unconcern about^ what Lin might be doing, in the way of carryingoup or making preparations for one, in Hao's absence.to..attemptslan andike conlir.ger.t preparation! to .'Ice.
As previously suggested, Mao by the end of June may have taken further steps to place the Peking Garrison and the Peking MR under the command of officers loyal to himself and had talked with at least some of the leaders of the Nanking MR, may have talked with other regional leaders in July or early August, and may have stopped at rhe Wuhan MR headquarters in Central China on his way south in August, although such talks cannot be documented. In any case. Party briefingso widely disseminated that refugees and travellers have supplied details of then to the non-Communist press place Mao at some point in the South China area in or about mid-August (when Mao and the regional leaders concerned were alike out of sight). In speaking here with the military-political leaders of South China, leaders who were in most cases longtime proteges of Lin Piao and Huang Yung-sheng, Mao made clear to them that he thought of Lin and his closest proteges (Huang, wu, Li, Chiu, and Lin's wife were all specified) as having been conspirators against him since
'This editorial called for the Party's "absolut
ership of the PLA and for the PLA's direct "respon to the "leading organs of the Party" pretty cla veaning something more than the Lin-dommdted MAC.
t least since the August-September plenum. Mao apparently did not tell those with whom he talked that the conspiracylan for hisif necessary, and most of the Party briefings suggest that Mao did not have evidence of this until September.
In any case, Mao made it further clear, in these mid-August talks in South China, that he intended to purge Lin and some or all of the others, and he asked the
would support. Mao _ih_any. action.
the__cehtral'mili'tary leader*. Mao is said to havewith these professions of fidelity (althoughdid not take all of them at face value) andgiven these regional leaderspresumably, to be silent, to accept without question action Mao might take in Peking, to keep tight of their troops, and to keep good order in their
'e, purportedly Party documents, adically differentperiod.- They assert that Lin in August was series'self-criticism sessions,
during which he. killed.j^her^aute*attractive at the time, being to believe than tha more lurid scenarios, anda pattern well known to observers of Chairman Maoyears. They must' bjrhowever Jtu'ringf light, .in .September --
feu hard Jade.
A few observers have suggested yet another
in which Mao was compelled by some 'combination of
(footnote continued on page
A-47
NO
Intelligence about thesearticipant in them or from some Junior person who had read or heard something about thempparently reached Lin in Peking in the first week of September. Mao was still out of Pekingeithor in Shanghai for talks with leaders there, or at some transitional point. Poochow,in got the message loud and clearhat Mao wasof himonspirator and scoundrel, and that he intendedpurge Lin and his closest proteges in the near future
"Assassination" and
Tlie official
Coup": The Party' groupin this brief
story asserts
remaining period of Lin's freedomattempted in early September tolan to assassinate Mao, aswhich was to be followedcoup" or military
Vfootnote continued from page leaders ith Chouao's oun wishes, and that Mao ffung-sheng, uhom he did uish to seems little doubt that not like Lin and uere glad to apart from the fact that_^h
7)
to purge Lin Piao, against was allowed to purge Huang purge, as a ome military leaders did see him fall. However,
imposed-
no
natto'flwhich forces and Lin's forces,
A-48
takeover.* However, the briefings varymatter of the assassination plans: the means tothe parties involved, the places, thenumber of times that the plotters attempted toplans (one, three ornd the means byplans were frustratedepentantthe hired assassin himself, or Lin's daughter, or The most common version is that Lin anddid commission at least one attempt on Maoor some other point in East China inand were frustrated by some .cc-nhi nation,execution, antPbad
tmself hed^spoken at greaj_length
(uhen heofthedcnger of a erhaps . sieh 'has been noted. Chenuith plotting che assassination of Madame whose death after illness uas announced may have been assassinated. Indeath of Tan Pu-jen, the top-ranking uas reported to be anpress appeared
to some accounts of the lH document, the planelan, short of flight, to handle an aoor-tive assassination attempt that uas discovered. Tnzs was to fix the blame on some of the civilian Party leaders. Other accounts, however, state that Lin's group regarded such civilian Party leaders as loyal toJ4ao and that the group planned to kill them as wail as Mao.
A-49
all accountsxe_aXtempt^as.^ortedhat
set Lin to arrange for this "to-be-done, and were
The allet
unable to get it carried through.
oa
parts_of. the story. Thatne "Iffl* dqpuaenfcjSfiyTjHS judgment that jt had to moveo, ready orhatever tTmc it was clear that he meant to move against them, and the alleged attempt is placed in the period immediately following Lin's apparent discovery that Ilao was indeed preparing to-move. Moreover, the alleged attemptpreceded Mao's reported change of plans as to the date and route of his return to Peking, and his return to Peking clearly precipitated the flight of the Trident on the nighteptembera flight which in itself might be regarded as good evidence that thewere fleeing the consequence of some action (or planned action) which led then to expect not simply their purge but their execution.
There aru three difficulties in accepting the Party's story_ofas."sfnation.plan. One is that the Par_ty_has seemed to tell too many djffer-ent stones aboutvariousone th.it was credible. one" would suppose"thatan asssassination ^ould attempt to conceal their identification with it, whereas all versions of the alleged attempt trace it easily to Lin's group, even to documents written by Lin's group. For another, it is hard to understandhairman Mao who had discovered, prior toeptembers most ,accounts of Party briefings have it that Lin andad already attempted to have him killed, would haveLin to remain free and his Trident to remainto him, and would not have ordered the seizure of
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others in Peking. It would seem that nothing more than
a telephone call would have been needed to immobilize
both Lin and the plane atpeitjiihoj
And
proteges in Peking were not immediately arrested. the flight itself apparently camehock toit should not have been if those with access to the were failed
Ngje ofpfmr- itablThere mayingle official version, garbled by its many voices and audiences. The commissioners of the asses sination may'indeed have tried to conceal their connection with the plan, but were betrayedingle one of their group or its agents (as several accounts say)_. Mao may .have felt that Lin was impotent in Peitaiho
ana may have felt that Lin's proteges in Peking wereneutralized by his own men.
As previously suggested, the existence of anplana plan to kill Mao if necessaryis entirely credible. But the question of whether the conspirators tried to activate their plan while Mao was in_Slianghai in early September has to remain open.
'It is concaivobla that Mao deliberately permitted Liu to flee, in order to make the overall case against him more credible. This ts very doubtful, however, in view of Lin's potential value to the USSR, vf onlyource of information on Chinese affairs he Party's charge that Lin or. his flight was bearing China's national defense plans and other sensitive materials).
)PDIS
51
RET
DISSEM
Additional information on Lin's plans may have come to Kaoariety of sources; from the regional leaders with whom Mao had been talking, in particular from Chang Chun-chiao and Vao Wen-yuan in Shanghai (both Politburo members who shuttled between Peking and Shanghai) from Chou En-lai or Yeh Chien-ying or Madnme Mao in Peking, or even from Lin's daughter (as some accounts assert,it is hard to believe that Lin would have taken his daughter, who could play no useful role, into his confluence; and most versions assert more credibly that Lin's daughter infofmcd other Party leaders only of Lin's plans to flee).
ln this connection,briefings on theocument tell" VntO the hands "df2loyalist-leadexs_in_Pekingof September. The document as reportedoolyrant,ange of his domestic and foreign policies, envisages the mobilization of anti-Mao military leaders and the destruction of loyalists, calls for Mao's assassination, and sets up fallback plans to withdraw to some area of China toival government or to flee to the USSR to try tooviet invasion of China. While there was no apparent rieed forocument by the central group ofand it would have been extremely dangerous to^prepareocument forower_"levcls for recruiting_an3"planning purposes (as alleged), the possibility has to be recognized "that^ some sucK"document, or notes later composedocumentdid fall into the hands of Chou En-lai and others at some time prior toeptember. Unfortunately, it is not clear whether the loyalists got hold of this document just before or just after Mao's return to Peking. Jf before, thismay have figured prominently in the reportedbetween Hao and Chou, on or abouteptember, which caused !iao to change his plans and return to Peking early by an unscheduled route. Th'e docurfent, whether genuine or not, did not crystalline Mao's intention to
A-52
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purge Lin, as this intention had already been made clear in mid-August; but it may explain Mao's movements in the period just prior to his return to Peking.
In any case, by the evening ofeptember, at the latest, Mao was prepared to return to Peking to cake immediate action against Lin and others in Party councils. Ironically, on this same dayeople's Da*Iiy was prominently advertising the forthcoming pub-!irationPtographs" of Mao and Linmostly of Mao, but several of Linas if_ Lin_ wereavor": Te it is poisibXe "that one of Lin1 s' supporters-TJT'Peking was responsible for this initiative, the supervisor if not director ofwas Mao's man Yao Wen-yuan, and it seems more likely that this advertisementartTi!flJe'ceptroh campaign which was soon to become systematic.
Mao's Return to Peking: Accounts agree that Mao returned to Peking, probably by car or train, oneptember, atay earlier than originally planned. Mao is said to have arrived in Peking at arty meetingerhaps largely of military leaderswas convened that same evening, cither by Mao or by Chou En-lai acting in Mao's name. There is independent by foreign observers in Peking, ofeeting at-that time.
Mao's hand was forced,egree, by themegting'pfrigress, scrjaduled to__openn whatever groundsto purge Lin and his proteges, so he could not allow the NPC to reconfirm Lin as his successor or to fill either of the key government* postshairman of the NPC or Premierwith one of Lin's men. But Maoeek to take care of this, and theeptember meeting held immediately on his1 return* has to be explained on other grounds.
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The urgency of the Party meeting ofeptember can be explained either in terms of Mao's belief that he had narrowly escaped assassination or of his belief that Lin wasoup against him (probably entailing assassination). It may also have reflected intelligence received oneptember that Lin was planning to flee. (Accounts differ as to what time oneptember Mao received this latter information possibly during the day, but possibly not until Lin was ready to leave.) In connection with this Party meeting, it seems virtually certain that Mao orUered into action, to protect himself and other Party lea'ders, that unit of the Peking Garrison charged with' the physical protection of Central Committee members, and that he cut Lin's military proteges in Peking off from command of their forces, taking direct command as Chairman of the MAC and sending his orders through Cnou En-lai and Yeh Chien-ying.. Lin was still at Peitaiho, and thereredible report that he was deliberately excluded from this Party meeting.
Mao's intention to purge Lin and others, together with his reasons for doing so, was almost certainly made clearwhether by himself or by Chout this meeting. His intention to prolong the meeting in order tothe extent of Lin's support was probably made clear also.
Lin's Flight and Death: Most accounts suggest that Lin, who had known since early September that Mao regarded Lin as plotting against him and that Mao planned to purge him, had made his own plans to flee if necessary- In most accounts (including those ofocument) which include allegations of attempts to arrange Mao'sLin's plans were contingent on the fortunes of his plans to kill Mao. These accounts suggest that Lin,sometime beforeeptember that his "coup" had already failed and knowing that his implicationecent moves against Mao was known to Mao or tearing that it would become known, activated his escape plan, fixing his -flight
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0 oneptemberprior to the time at which Meo was originally scheduled to return. Several accounts agree that Mao's return to Peking earlier than expected
whether as the survivor of an assassination plan or as the Party's leader intending to purge Lin for other reasonscaused Lin to hastily revise his plan, updating the flight for the nighteptember. evision may have been speeded as well by information reaching Lin about the Party meeting and related events oneptember.* It does seem that the flight of tho Trident on the night ofeptember was hastily organized and poorly prepared.
Some briefings assert that Lin's proteges were included in his original plans for flight. They were evidently not included in his revised plans, as he could not have got into and out of Peking, and he made no effort to do so. One would assume that Lin's proteges in Peking were in effect under arrest from the time that the Party meeting began oneptember. However, none accounts state that Huang and other Lin proteges tried to leave Peking on the morning ofeptember, several hours after Lin's flight from Peitaiho and the imposition of an air standdown, and were apprehended at that time.
It cannot be proved that Lin Piao and his wife and. son were among the nine persons killed in the Trident which crashed and burned at0 oneptember near Khentai in Outer Mongolia, close to the Soviet border andine with the big air complex at Irkutsk (the apparent destination). Soviet and Mongolian sources have
'Almost all accounts agree that Lin'e proteges in uere in attendance at the Party 'meeting,. One of them might have been able to reach him by telephone at Pev
put out various stories, ranging from an early denial that any identifications were possibleaterthat further analysis had identified Lin and his wifeigh degree of probability. But the evidence
ortea to ha
F1!ither^tjTc<jetaiicd briefings place Lin family in EeitaiJjp on__that weekend. the_Tr
cr
xy
of_Lin-andIht57Vi'Te' among the
The Disposition of Lin
and
addi-
tion to the previously-ci tod reports that Line's principal proteges tried and failed to flee Peking in otheroneptember, there are reports that one helicopter containing lesser supporters of Lin and full of secret documents did manage to get off the ground at Peking oneptember but was forced down. There are sey*ral_credi-blc^reports-that the most important of these proteges
llf Ltn and his uife and son did not die in that crash (but uere instead returned to Peking by train or car, after other military leaders had fled in thehe presumption must be that they uere executed in the following week In official documents dated from l September, Peking insisted that all three uere dead -- an insistence uhich must have reflected a certainty that they uould never turn up alive- Sjticide ty all three Line seems unlikely, and obviously chey did not all die of natural causes at the same time
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uang Yung-shong, Wu Fa-hsien, and Li Tso-pengarrested on chat date, and that theseby_ the Peking Garrison commander, WUwould be
The Party meeting which had been convened oneptember continued intensively. No Party leaders, whether military or civilian, made any appearance at all in theeptember. And the meeting remained in session until the fate of Lin's principal proteges had been decided. There is no evidence that the regional military leadersroup attended this meeting; and indeed there' is evidencethe absence of flightsthat most of them did not attend, although some of the principal leaders of the Peking and Nanking HRs werein Peking.
Mao apparently adhered to the Chen Po-ta format in dealing with Huang, Wu, and Lindourth Lin protege, Chiu Hui-tso, who remained free untileptembe That is, Maoountain of charges to accumulate against them, building the case deliberately.
After the first four days of this meeting. Party leaders began to come back into view. Byeptember, the Party had constructed its initial account of Lin's caae -- featuring Lin's flight, after three unsuccessful attempts to activate an assassination plan -- in Central Committee CircularSepxeober._the. -regime -postponed-the-KEC (scheduled to open the next day), and at the same time cancelled the plans (if ever genuine) for a traditional National Day celebration. By eptember, Chou En-lai, Madame Mao and others were giving banquets again, and the Madamewho had seemed to have an adversary relationship with most if not all of the
purged military leadersas observed to be inhigh spirits. The four above-named proteges of Lin were all officially charged arid removed from their posts
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according to many reportsonreptember, dates consistent with the citations of Huang at the regional levelerson still nominally in authority as lateeptember, with Chiu's last publiconeptember, and with Party briefings to the effect that the conspirators had been rolled up byeptember. Although the Party insists that these fourHuang, Wu, Li, Chiuore implicated in Lin's plan to kill Mao (as well as the overall planninghere have been no reports of their execution.*
Yeh Chien^yfnq. the senior active vice-chairman of the MAC, was reportedly named onepteiaber to direct the HAC (still under Mao's cnairmanship) and to act as Minister of National Defense, replacing Lin Piao in both roles. The crisis was over.
The Roles of Others: As previously noted, some_ observers'ke_ the _initiatlveof_ Linthe purgey otherut all accounts_of thc_crlsis from *' from_ tire start,in purging the military leaders, and it is "believed'that this billing can be accepted.
- However, these same official accounts do give-it .credit to other leaders in assisting Mao in the crisis.
. The best of them give credit, in particular to Chou En-lai
'If they ere not eventually executed, after the Parly has wrung the last drop of information from them, it would seem that the Party does not fully Relieve its own storyin other words, does not believe,that they were among those planning to kill Hao-.lt seems most improbable that even Mao would think to "rehabilitate" an assassin-
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and Yen Chien-yingersion of events which tends to be confirmed by Chou's dislodgement of Lin as the second-ranking Party leader and by Yeh's rise to fourth place (behind Madame Mao, and replacing Huang) in the hierarchy publicized after the purge. Chou's great prestige and popularity and his and Yeh's good relations with most of China's military leaders must have proved very useful to Moo throughout the course of the Party meetingeptember and in preventing any important challenge to the purge from developing either in Peking or outside it. Other reports give credit also to Madame Mao, Chang Chun-chiao, Yao Wen-yuan, Wang Tung-hsing, and some lesser figures.
There is the additional question of whether any ot those leadersr otherscontributed to the purge of the military leaders by feeding Mao false or slanted information on their activities before Mao set out on his summer tour or during the tourespecially in Shanghai, hi* last stop before returning to carry out the purge. For example, the question, piight.be put as_totheocument, and/or the_he_ attempts by Lin's group*toassassination planiiib"ie cKairman Mao tTp^acJccpt 'sucK'm'isi'n^ It is not "hard to believetO-Kao. Madame Mao, inival for Mao's affectionsould have done what they could to encourage Mao's suspicions of Lin. The record alsoat Chou En-lai, theHap's lieutenantsconflict with Lin in some respect'si arther" Party leaders . The record suggests, however, that Mao did not need any help in changing his mind about Lin: that Lin compromised himself0 on at least theof the PLA's
(and his own) responsiveness and probably on other matters, that he damaged himself seriously0 by challenging Mao on the issue of the chairmanship of the regime, and
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chat hefor purging even prior to -histoforeign policy and variousor not one accepts thecoup".
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V. The Post-Lin Line and Leadership
The handling of the intensely embarrassing case of Lin Piao and his proteges, for both domestic and foreign audiences, hasard problem for Party Leaders. The Party at first attempted to conceal the fall of Lin's group. Party briefings on the case did not begin until October. Public commentaries on the case have been in terms of "swindlers like Liumphasizingand illicit'organizational activity, but more recently blaming Lin's group for specific policies. The Party has recently been circulating theocument attributed to Lin's group, which criticizes Mao for grave defects in character and errors in policy, and the media are quoting some of these positions. In this exercise, the populace is supposed to "lnarn from negativeut this may prove counter-productive.
The PLA is being returnedore nearlyrole, and is being told that an obedient and humble PLA need not fear a large-scale purge. airly substantial purge of the PLA__has already been carried out, but"thus-farmaller scale than might'"Have* been "expected. Haoremain_ the dominant figure,ho'se" "status"and "authority have been greatly enhanced. Mao and Chou are operatingelatively small central team, composed largely of their own proteges.
The Public Line: Lin Piaodeputy leader" inaily as late aseptemberhree days after his deathnd appearedrovincial broadcastctober. Neither Lin nor any member of his group has been mentioned by the media since. Chinese officials under questioning by foreigners for months denied that Lin was dead (merely "politicallynd there has beenery selective-media discussion of his
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crimes. no mention that he is charged inter alia with planning the assassination of Chairman Mao, although Chinese officials have now privately admitted this). Just as in the case of Liu Shao-chi, whorolonged period after his fall was not denounced by name, Lin's group is discussed in terms of "swindlers like Liu Shao-chi."
The commentaries have of course emphasized the principle of Party leadership, es opposed to plotting, double-dealing, splitting, and so on. The favoriteis Mao's "Practice Marxism, and not revisionism; unite, and don't sp.lit; be open and above-board, and don't intrigue and conspire." Many commentaries have denounced those who "put sectarianism into actionestablish their own mountain strongholds,
form their own groups of diehardnd so
on.
Recently, the media have been attributing to Lin's groupby strong implicationange of repudiated political, economic and military policies. These policies have been both to the Left and to the Right of Mao the moving Center, and in general it is not possible on present evidence to identify Lin's groups distinct from Mao and other leadersith them.
While Peking has been insisting on the principle of the Party's "absolute leadership" and upon the needenter and for obedience to that center (inter alia denouncing the purged military leaders for their alleged principle of "manyhere has continued to be public and private talk about "collective leadership"Party organs at all levels. This is applicable to all Party cadres, but seems aimed in particular at military administrators, high-handedn the past.
As early as last October, Chou En-lai wasasserting privately that the Party center was already under "collectivend he is said to have been
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telling provincial leaders more recently that they must embrace this principle. There has of course been no serious effort to persuade Party cadres that Chairman Hao is simply one membernd Chou himself is said to make clear that the "collective" everywhere remains under Mao's leadership. Mao remains above the Party, "collective" leadership begins below his level. But where the Party begins, "collective" leadership is supposed to begin, and many articles and broadcasts have spelled out its operation at lower levels.
Within Party committees, the importance of the first secretary is to be reduced. (This is to be true of PLA Party committees as well.) The importance of civilian cadresis the military is to be enhanced, just as local Party committees are to have more authorityis military Party committees. The majority's will is to be respected. And so on.
All this is to be "voluntary." The first secretary is voluntarily to reduce his authority. If heilitary man, he is voluntarily to give larger roles to the civilians. And wnile he must if necessary promote "correct minority views" (those in accord with nationale must not force them on the other Committee members." The thought appears to be: everyone will "vpluntarily" comply with the Party center's orders,he knows that he will be purged if he does not.
Party Briefings: Party cadres were told in and in some places well into October, that Lin and
'He'has no guidance as to hov to proeeed if themajority refuses to accept the /'correct" He is trapped between the too imperatives of obedience to the center and submission to majority uill.
other missing military leaders were urgently engaged in "war preparations" against the Soviet threat. Official briefings apparently began at the provincial level in early October. In some of them, Peking apologized for. having misinformed its own cadres in earlier briefings, in effect admitting that it had not known how to handle the case.*
As noted previously, the Party had prepared byentral Committee circular giving an official version of Lin's case, featuring an assassination plan and Lin's flight. 'This was the central documentet of documentsothers of which related to collusion between Lin and Chen Po-ta at the0 plenum, the "counter-revolutionary" activities of Lin's son at various points in China, and the disposition of Lin's protegeshich were used for briefings at all levels through The best of the material from these briefings has been presented in earlier sections.
Beginning inho Party has beenecond set of comments, centering onocument previously cited. As noted, briefings Dnocument credibly backdate the plotting of Lin's group to January andredible date (early September) for incriminating evidence to have come into tlao's hands. However, the document itself, while probably based on notes of some kind by members of Lin's
'Throughout October, Chinese sources osition to knouainly UFA officials and diplomats, ood record of credibility on such matters -- either asserted that Lin uas ill or (less often) that Lin^uas uell but busy uith national affairs. Chinese officials -- including Chou En-lay -- systematicallyeries of distinguished foreign visitors.
group (generally reported to be Lin's son and other middle-level Air Force officers, acting with Lin's encouragement) has almost certainly been embellished by the Tarty.
The document is of special interest for several reasons: (a) it ties Lin tightly to Chen Po-ta,that the Party intends to present Lin sooner or later as an Ultraleftist, but (b) it portrays Lin as identifying and trying to exploit popular grievances, issues on which Mao is genuinely vulnerable, and (c) it is being circulated and discussed by the Party itself, on Mao's order, not' (as it might appear)ro-Lin and anti-Mao underground.
The documentseveral fragmentary accounts of which are at handcriticizes Mao in general terms as befuddled and incompetent, and at the samethe code used for Mao throughout, apparently meaning an indiscriminate destroyer), an who had extinguished "realndyrant who would rank with the most infamous tyrants of Chineseao is said to have carriedolicy of "divide andsing one group against another, and to have been treacherous and cruel toward all of his lieutenants. He is further said to have disaffected Party cadres, inter alia by sending them to the 'Mayollective prisons"), to have behaved shamefully toward mass . the Red Guards), sending them into combat and then making them scapegoats for his own mistaken policies, and (most importantly for the alleged writers of the to have "suppressed" the PLA itself after the0 Party plenum. Mao is further criticized
"One particular tyrant was named, uith whom Mao had been compared by earlier critics: the 'Emperor Chin Sht huong, (c. , who, like' Mao, had wrought great changes at enormous human cost.
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for having damaged the economy with his various campaigns, for deliberately keeping the Chinese poor, for his "down to the countryside"ollectiveor freezing wages, and so on. With respect to foreign policy, the document as reported criticizes Mao from both left and right positions: on one hand, he is charged with having been too timid, failing to give sufficient support to other Communist states. North Vietnam) andmovements, and on the other hand with being too bold, having placed China in an adversary relationship with both the USSR And. and having isolated the regime internationally.
In contrast to Itao's policies, the documentstates, Lin's group was totruestate, under the slogandemocratic, rich, free and peacefulnd was inter alia to release and rehabilitate those purged by Mao on false charges. In Eoreign policy, it was the group's intention to carry out the "five principles of peaceful coexistence*1 (in some unstated but other way thannd specifically was to enter into talks with both the USSR and.iew to improving relations.
Several of the charges against flao are essentially valid, and reports on these briefings from refugee sources haue noted that many members of the audience agreedwith some or all of them, Mao's directives have indeed often been unclear or contradictory, he did indeed destroy what democracy existed in China before he came to power, and he has indeedivide andurging individuals and groups when they seemed to threaten his own position or when he needed scapegoats for his own mistaken policies. (Witness the successive fortunes of the Party-machine leaders around Liu Shao-chi, the first group of military leaders to be purged, most of the central CRG leaders around Chftn Po-ta, andyet to come when the alleged do'cument'was allegedly writtenthe HAC leaders around Lin himself,) Mao did
A-66
indeed undermine the status and confidence of Party cadres for years to come, ho did indeed incite the Red Guards and then turn on them, and he did indeed take steps to reduce the prestige and authority of the PLA after0 plenum. His policy has indeed been to keep the Chine* people poor and virtuous, exploiting them co the utmost to build the state. And his "revolutionary" diplomacy during the Cultural Revolution did indeed isolate and damage-Peking. These are all charges that have been made against Hao before, charges which Chinese leaders and intellectuals have been purged for. making, and which importantf Chinese society probablyas reportedcontinue to believe.
The effect of the Party's circulation of this documentexcerpts from which are appearing in the puhlic media is to associate Linumber of pojiular_grieitances, as Party leaders arc surely aware.circulation of the document thus might be interpreted as an initiative by other--Phou En-lai Co discredit Hao. While there are probably "fitTll'some "acTrrveTcaders of the CCP who are happy to see this case made against Mao (and chou is conceivably amonghe evidence is good that Mao himself took the initiative in circulating the document, on the rationale of from negative examples."
This is aCommunist leaders. He did it, in the "hundredenture, when Chinese intellectualscult" and his persecution of them. He did it
againcriticisms of his "leap forward'
venture made by the purged Defense Minister Peng Te-huai. He did it againhen Khrushchev's attacks on his policies were published In People's Daily and Red Flag. Itorm of ad hominem argument: the men making the criticisms are evil men, therefore the*criticisms are invalid, and are discredited with the evil men. In the present case, criticism of Mao is attributed to the worst
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of all Chineseho only one of them charged to this time with havingroup of Party leaders which planned to kill the demigod Chairman llao." At the same time, Party briefings are reportedly blaming Lin for many of the grievances noted in the document, which can only be done if Lin himselfs distinct from the -policies he pretended to favoris presented as an Ultraleftist.
Party media have recently denounced positionsto Lin's group inocument. One recent broadcast, for example, denounces those who will not persist in "classho have "maliciously slandered the dictatorship of the proletariat as 'dictatorship' and 'tyranny,'" who want to "liberate allhofascistho are "peddling so-called 'genuine socialism,'" who want to "surrender to social-imperialism" (theho argue that "when the people are rich, the country will be strong,'" and so on.
queBtion as to whetherhis will truly strengthen .Hao's" position. The case^him,ood one. While no mainland Chinese 'in his right mind"could be'expected to say publicly that ihe agrees with the case, private agreement seems likely ;to be reinforced by the consideration that Mao's own Ichesen successor took this view of him. Certain discredited leaders like Liu Shao-chi, and other active leaders such as Chou En-lai, would seem bound to look better by
"The charges against Chen Po-ta fall short ofChen supported" Croup, whifihown plans to kill
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The Purge Since September: The PLA has been told repeatedly that it is to be subordinated to the civilian Party leadership, that opposition to Party policies (including foreign policy) will not be tolerated, that Party policies must be faithfully implemented, that the PLA must learn humility, and that the authority ofadministratorsis civilian Party cadres is in general to be reducedn other words, that the PLA is to be returnedore nearly traditional role. It seems likely that the chastened PLAthat is, the great majority of PLA leaders and officerswill accept this, because the PLA has been told too that an obedient and humble PLA heed not fear another large-scale purge, on the order.
airly substantial purge of the PLA has already boon carried out, particularly if those who aropped out of sight in or just after the early months1 are included. However, some of those purged havebeen charged with "arrogance and complacency" and other offenses, not directly related to the purge of Lin's group. Moreover, the purge since the time of the purge of Lin's group in September has apparently been on a scale smaller than might have been expected somewhere between the small number implied by the Party and the large number that would have fallen if all of the proteges and Lin and those purged with him had been included.
and briefings which appear to be authentic have identified, in.addiin. Piao and the fiveat the centecoi" the "counter-revolutionaryome'll centralo-conspiratorssome of them dead, the rest imprisoned. More than- f the PLA, tho reported Director of Operations of the General Staff, some deputy directors of General Departments, some*Deputy Commanders and's of the CCAF afid other service arms and specialties, and officers of the Peking Garrison are
Mbbbbbbbb1
any of these missing persons have been repotted By other sources than Party documents and briefings, as having been purged with Lin's group, and some of them will probably prove to have been. However, several proteg of Lin and/or Huang remain active and in apparent favor.
There has apparen.tiy_be.fln no general exodus_of PI-Afigures frgm_tiVc central. governipettt_macTii"nery. Almosti th"e" PLA veterans known or believed to headand_minis*:ries have made appearancespurge, and severalhem have been identified in these posts. Indeed, the"'one new Minister surfaced since the purgeLA man.* The one visible difference, since the purge, is that PLA officers in government posts have tactfully ceased to wear their PLA uniforms. it isthatapart from the officers of the Ministry of National Defensehese veteran PLA officers no longer nave any PLA connection, as there ere no military ranks to be retained. They may simply be ex-PLA men, and may be reliably responsive to Chou En-lai and his lieutenants for the same reasons that induced Chou to appoint them in the first place. With rare exceptions. Pai Hsiang-kuo, who remains active), these PLA figures in government posts have not been regarded as proteges of Lin and other purged leaders, but rather as reliable men with proven managerial skills.
For more than five years theilitary Region (MR) headquarters have been the only regional authorities in China. Apart from the concentration of Lin Piao'S proteges in concurrent posts in the MAC standing committee
'One PtA leader who had been servingeputy t'iniste of Foreign Affairs has recently be^tr reassigned as an ambassador, but another has replaped him.
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and HAC administrative unit and General Staff prior to the purge, the most striking concentration of Lin or Lin/Huang proteges was found in theae headquarters, with ten of thender such commands at the time of the purge. As noted earlier, these men were in general not identified with Lin as closelynot given tho same degree of preferment during the Cultural Revolutionas were the central leaders purged with him, but they were close enough to have their own status brought into question with Lin's fall. If the principal/protegewere the main criterion for rendering judgments on othereaders after the purge, most of the top-level leaders in the HR headquarters could be expected to fall.
There were and are, however, two strong factors favoring most of the MR leaders, at least for the time being. One is that some are knownand otherso have assured Mao of their support before his purge of the central leaders. Another isarge-scale purge of the MR leaderson whom the central leaders still depend for the effective government of China outside Pekingis unlikley while the central militaryis still being reorganized.
ief ings _haye identified --
addition to theilitary leaders alreadya ry_ors"3 P_igures of. thejlR headquarters, ranging as high as'commSride? and first political"officer-tff-an MH, are missing. 'Other Party briefings have suggested that some of theseave been or are soon to be purged for complicity with Lin's central group, and, again, non-Party sources assert that yet others have been or will be; as in the case of the
mi
_sing central leaders, some of the missing regional figures will probably prove to have fallen.*
in
It may be that several of the HRlace and apparently in favor will be removed in the course of the next year or two, when the leaders in Peking feel secure enough to take action against certain of them left in place for the time being in the interest of stability after this first round of examination of them. But it looks as though most of .them. including-many of .the Lin/Huang proteges who occupied more than half of thepositions- in theat the. time of Lin^sjand Huang *s* fall"to survive.
It has been surmised that one consequence of the purge of the central military leaders may be to put an
lich an MR commanoer or first political officer is
end to the system of military-political leadership in
on-
c mi
urrently the first secretary of the provincial Partyin which his MR headquarters is located. since the purgR suggest that this may have been under
'it is imoossiole to provide any meaningful figure
fop the commanders of the armies disposed m these IIPs. Many of these armies have been commanded by proteges Oj Lin and/or Huang, and it is presumed that tne purge oi these two ranking central leaders has had consequeneer for some of these armies^
For example, hi Yuan, a
loTgtime%rotege of Lin anS Huang, commanded theh Army as of spring0 when it moved from ,the Canton to the northwest, and he has not been heafd from since; he may still have that army, or hove been given anotner command, or have been purged.
considerationwith each case examined, and decided on its meritsut will not be general. Of the ten MR commanders who have held these top military and toppositions in their areas concurrently, six have now been expressly identified in both posts since the purge. These are Hsu Shih-yu in Nanking, the late Chang Kuo-hua in Chengtu, Chen Hsi-lien in Shenyang, Tseng Szu-yu in Wuhan, Yang Te-chih in Tainan, and Ting Sheng in Canton (only recently named to the top Party postn certain other cases in which such dual identifications could have been made when the leader appeared, the media have been evasive. <
As has been seen, the provincial leadershipixed military-political character. Of therovincial-level Partyrovinces, three major ten are or at least have been headed by I'R leaders, and in almost: every one of the otherases the first secretary of the Party committee is known or believed to be the provincial MD or municipal garrison commander or first political officer, usually the latter.* In thoseommittees not headed by MR leaders, the Party committee post is generally more important than themilitary post.
Ofeyeec retaries or first.secrotaries, only*"twoWang'Chi'a-tao-in
'As previously noted, the great majority of these 29
first secretaries (atre career PLA men, not career Party cadres.
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Hci lunqxianq andun-have failed to make_apaearances, in apparent favor,his figure is misleading, however, asmissing more recently: tha examina-
fa large .ma jori tywill_survive.'
The provincial-level military leadership (including the three major municipal garrisons) overlaps even more considerably with the provincial Party committee leadership than suggested above. In those cases in which the MD or Garrison commander or first political officer is the first secretary, the other is usually one of the subordinate secretaries. And in almost all provincial committees there is at least one additional military man, sometimes several.
Relatively fewot moreozenof the provincial-level commanders and first political officers of provincial MD's and major municipal garrisons have been regarded as proteges of Lin and Huang, who (outside Peking) preferred to concentrate their proteges in the far more powerful MR headquarters. Some of theseand municipal leaders too were given an opportunity to'assure Mao of their support before the purge Shansi, Ninghsia, and_haye_apparently been given "new "commandersurgeT'but in at least""three'bf"these cases the ex-commander remains in favor and in another key
'At least three second-ranking provincibl secretariesn Chekiang, Fukien, and Hupei re bfelieved to have been purged uith Lin's group. All uere PLA men, tuo of them Air Force officers.
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Twenty-six provincial MP cor^nders._pr__firsteaders of amies, forre presently.-missing. None of theyen named in_Party documents and briefings as. Implicated with Lin's group, but some may yet be. Here-apparent fave-r.
As at the regional level, some provincial military leaders who are concurrently tho provincialmay have to give up one of their posts. There have been(Jen Jung in Tibet and Yu Tai-chung in InnerK-since the purge in which anhas_been solidlyhoIding_the_Jvop_mi litary" rr>nrnrr*nr-ly. * Moreover, there have been some cases in which positive action has apparently been taken toeader of one of his posts, or toilitary leader fromacant political post. For example, in both SJiansi and Ninghsia thesecretary has apparently beerTTepiaced as commander while remaining as first secretary; in^jjunan, the first secretary of which was transferred to PckingT-neither of the military men who were second-and-third-ranking secretaries has been moved up; and similarly, in Tsinghai^ the first secretary either retains tho title after his transfer to Peking or it has been withheld from the ranking military figures in the province. There is no apparentmnve-rhe military leaders _from.all political posts or the political leaders from all military posts,oncentrations of power .may-
'Again, thejwasiy*, suggesting possible
indecision. . irst
political officer rather than first, or as aof the MR rather than fiolitical officer of or as a "responsible
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Alao, more old Party cadres may become political officers (cf. the recent appointments of Li Ti-'chahg"in the Chengtu MR and of Kane Hung-wen to the Shanghai Garrison).
The Present First Team: Mao (who is demonstrably not incapacitated)dominantn the terms in which he described his situation inhat is, he points the general direction, formulates or-approves the formulation of the regime'spolicies, and signs directives, leaving day-to-day operations to Chou Ep-lai and Chou's Party apparatus and government machinery.. And he is probably still dominant in the same sense as seemed to be the case prior to the purge of Lin Piao and his proteges: namely, that he has the power to elevate or to purge any other Party leader or small group of leaders.
It must be said that Mao's domination appears to be increasingly qualified in important respects- He is old, his health is probably deteriorating, he is absent from Peking much of the time. It seems doubtful that he could point China in any general direction other than the one he has been taking since the Ninth Party Congressdoubtful, that is, that he could turn China hard left again. He relies ior tha formulation of many and the implementation of all policies primarilyan, Chou En-lai, whose predilections are not the same as his. He has'probably (as always before) created new opponents in the latest purge. He has lost prestige for his demonstrated bad judgment in selecting successors, and, as noted, is probably losing more now in the circulation ofocument. He is still heavily dependent on the PLA for governing China outside Peking. Should he change his mind again and try to purge Chou En-lai and Chou's group (in favor, say, of the civilianr try to return the PLA rapidly to itsole (replacing all of the PLA figuresincludingroteges
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who head Party committees throughoutheredoubt that he could do it; it took himfour years to purge Liu Shao-chi and histwo years to purge Lin Piao's group, and hisrunning out. Increasingly, his lieutenants willpast him to the post-Mao situation, tryingtheir own positions by forming alliancesagreements on policy with other leaders. iTI henlrh ia probablyflpd thisalready setrnrx^ in whichdecisions increasingly get away from Mao.*
tba in Inetftn nf thf pa*r tun
years, for o'ther Party leaders, has to be__that onebehind Mao's back, only at Though somewhatthe boss, still the source of ultimate autKority. Mao has shown that he alone has been able to command theallegiance of other Party leadershowdown with another Party leader or group. One would suppose that other Party leaders, while making what arrangements they can for their futures, would continue to try above all not to provoke the old man's suspicion or hostility. The chief near-term .thr_eat_feo_JiflQ_Xrom other leadersb_li ry n! on, eruit-joifay somemt-_nnH ri rrnrmppcr hfln Linfcar of assassination, evident5 and stimulated again by tlie Lin Piao case, may_have_been
inhic, ro tn appmnr a* ntn^l for May Pay,
Below Mao's level, as noted often before, the situation in the Chinese leadership can never be described asecause Mao himself is not stable. Not even Chou En-lai, now clearly his favorite lieutenant, can regard himself as invulnerable. But Chou seems to manage his relationship with Maoll, and seems to
*Mao was out of sight from late February to late June, failing in that period to meet with too distinguished visitors whom he probably would have met if he had been feeling up to it. He reappeared far Madame Bandaranaike in June, and met another foreign visitor soon thereafter.
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betrong position to resist any challenge by any leader below Mao's level. As the Party's de facto secretary-general, he is at the top of the Party apparatus, now supervised (and probably loosely) by Hao only. In chis role he has probably acquired supervisory authority over the daily operations of the MAC and his old friend Yeh Chien-ying (who is also responsible to Mao asof the MAC). He remains at the head of the government, directing the workery active vice-premier (his friend Li Ksien-nien) and of another vice-premier and old friend (Nioh Jung-chen) who may be becoming active again, and of what isarge number of commissions and ministries, including the Ministry of National Defense (Yeh Chien-ying again). The general direction of Chinese policyboth domestic and foreignin the past three years has clearly been congenial to Chou, and he himself hao probably formulated some of the most important of these policies, getting Mao's approval and giving Mao the credit. President Nixon's visitisible personal triumph for Chou.
Chou is careful not tocommittedPiaol he is careful, that is, notor rivallioq-Hao. As observed-during President NfxolTs" visin"rV flttfgrgntjfrl to Mag; he gi.vcs_ Mao the credit forthose policies which he has himself has formulated (even trifling th'rngs,slogan offirst, competitionhich was original withnd he is careful to get Mao's approval for each important step he takes, for example inoint communique. As noted above, even Chou is not truly safe; but it seems likely that the very clever and experienced Chou will survive and prosper.
Hao and Chou are now the only two primary leaders. They seem to be operatingelatively small central team, as was the case in the year -prior bo the Ninth Party Congress of Seven members ofman
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elite teamave survived: Mao, Chou, Madame Mao, the propaganda specialists Chang chun-chiao ano Yao Wen-yuan, and the security specialists Kang Sheng and Wang Tung-hsing. (However, two of these, Madame Mao and
Kang, appear to_ beftvg, insix purged were two members of the Politburo(Lin Piao and Chen Po-ta) and four closeLin's. Another security specialist (Hsiehin favor. .The missing faces appear to have beenby: (a) five or six military leaders, YehLi Te-shcng,'Su Yu, Chiang Tsai-chlen, Wangperhaps Liu Hsien-chuan; (b) the three oldChi Teng-kuei, Hua Kuo-feng and Wu Te; i Hsien-nien; and (d) the foreign affairsKeng Piao and Chi Peng-fei. Several of thesenot now members of the Politburo are expected toto that body in the course of restoring it toof r more. One recent appearance of members ofarty and state" has suggestedold Marshal Hsu Ksiang-chien may be restored to that the veteran Navy commander Hsiaomay bo added, and that the very) writermay also be under consideration. ,All CCPincluded .venerable figures of little importance,and -
to the latest purges, the orqani zationa1
core of power had been the Politburo standing committee, which made those decisions which the Party's officers
(then Mao and Lin) had not already made, including the decisions as to which matters to pass to the full Politburo
for discussionossible vote. If the standingis again active, the obvious candidates for the vacancies arc Yeh Chien-ying, Li Hsien-nien (both close tond one or more of the younger people more closely identified with Mao himself. Chang or Yao).
The most important functions of the central Party apparatus are those of control of the military establishment.
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political control of economic organs, political security (investigation andarty organizational work, propaganda, and liaison with foreign Communist parties. The ranking figures in these fields are all members of the small team named above.
The standing committee of the :iAC now probablymore or less of Yeh, rhe less active vice-chairmen Nsu Hsiang-chlen and Nieh Jung-chon, the GPD director Li Te-sheng, theu Yu, the deputy chiefs Chiang Tsai-chien arid Hsiang Chung-hua and Wang Hsin-ting (Wang haseported as theunloca'ted Liu Hsien-chuan, Hsiao Ching-kuang. the Peking Garrison commander Wu Chung and firstofficer Wu Te, the Politburo alternates Wang Tung-hsing and Chi Teng-kuei, Deputy Minister of Defense Wang Shu-sheng, and some Military Region leaders who do not often get to Peking. The economic specialist on the first team is Li Hsien-nien, and Hua Kuo-fengC to be in training for this wor> inlJunanT^ PbTTtical security looks to be primarily in the hands of ilao's man Wanq_Tung-hsing, who still headsCommittee staff office, >irtTV_ass'ists"7frpm Li Te-sheng ork is apparentlyperyised byKuo-feng (or possiblylthough_a_ PLA
L ofmay-be-thc.director of the Organization Depart-mentT Chang Chun-chiao and""Vab"Wen-yuan "stisupervise
, propaganda work, and Yao may be the director of the Propaganda Department. The International Liaisonis known to be headed by Keng Piao.
It is still not known whether Chou En-lai as de facto secretary-general is workingmall de facto secretariat or simply with the MAC leaders and central
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department chiefs named aboveM| The obvious candidatesecretariat include the" obvious candidates for the Politburo standing committeeeh, Li, Chang,lus, one would think, Wang Tung-hsing and Hua Kuo-feng. The necessary specialties would be represented inroup.
will this team survive? or will this one too lose half of its members in another convulsion, when they are found to be "disloyal" to Mao, refusing to accept his institutional arrangements or to carry out his policies?
Another genuine challenge to Mao seems unlikely. Although this judgment proved to be mistaken in the case of Lin Piao and his closest proteges, Chou En-lai and his friends and proteges ought to be happy with the present arrangements and policies. It will "take some timeone would think, yearsto exhaust the possibilities of the present policies and thus pose the issue of "loyalty"harp formudden reversal of course. Apart from the question of whether Mao still hashou at least has always been able to execute these reversals. The present military leaders, some of them close to Chou, look to be both more docile and under better control than Lin's groupnd are not protegesingle military leader, as were those purged with Lin Piao. The remaining civilian "radicals" of the old central CRG may be less than happy with the present policies, but they have no base of power from which to challenge them; the most important and active of thesehang and Yao, with Chi Teng-kuei and perhaps soon Hua Kuo-feng, constitute the
relatively young group in the Politburo, those who, if they renain on their good behavior, have some chance of renaming in the leadership for many years to come.
UAQ_himself seems to remain the principal threat to_iihe,members .of ItKis'..neam. It isout Hao's policies to his satisfaction, even without the problems of abrupt reversals of course and the search for scapegoats. Under the pressure of Hao's demandscurrently the demandsarty apparatus and military establishment under1strict civilian control, and (again in recognition of realities) for repudiation of theexcesses of the Cultural Revolution any given leader can be found toecret sympathizer with Lin Piao, or to be engaged inr to beobstructing Mao's policies. htoreover, the still-mismatched groups of flaa's lieutenants can be expected to continue to coopcte for Mao's favor, even if they do not challenge Mao himself in any way. Thus it can be judged rfith some confidence that some members of Hao's current central teamboth military and civilianwill fall before Hao dies. Should Mao die before Chou, Chou could probably dominate the leadership (although not to the degree that Hao has dominatednd, if so, could be expected to make further changes, reducing the importance of whatever "radical" ideologues remain. Should both nao and Chou die in the next year or two, no single figure among the current leaders would seem strong enough to dominate the Party in any sense. There would have tohether called that or not. Ironically, the PLA, which has been put down so hard in the past year, *ould in those circumstances probably be in the best position to provide the dominant group or the dominant members of the group.
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Original document.
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