“In the early days of the Cultural Revolution, there was an incident in Shanghai in which Red Guards kidnapped senior leading cadres from across the province.
The kidnapping mentioned here should not be understood in its original literal sense. The general term “kidnapping” refers to the kidnapper’s use of violence or deception to abduct, detain and imprison another person, and to blackmail the kidnapped person on the condition of his or her life and safety to achieve some illegal purpose, such as extorting money and ransom for the arrested guilty accomplice. In this regard, there are many familiar examples, such as the kidnapping of the famous industrialist Rong Desheng by bandits in Shanghai in the 1940s, and the kidnapping of Italian Prime Minister Moro and North Atlantic Treaty Organization official Brigadier General Dozier by the Red Brigade, a far-left terrorist organization in Italy in the 1970s and 1980s.
The kidnapping described in this article is different in that the kidnappers not only did not use sticks, knives or guns, but not even a single rope. Neither was violence used in the kidnapping, nor was it for the purpose of achieving the illegal goals of individuals or a few, but for the most revolutionary and noble purpose that hundreds of millions of people enthusiastically supported at the time – to carry out the “Cultural Revolution” in accordance with the teachings of Mao Zedong. And it was for this same purpose that the abductees honestly followed their unarmed captors without resisting or trying to escape. –Such a strange thing could only have happened during the unprecedented (and probably unprecedented) “Revolution”.
The target of this inter-provincial kidnapping was Li Jingquan, the top leader of Southwest China at the time.
Li Jingquan is a name that most young people today would find unfamiliar. In fact, he was once an important “party and state leader” in mainland China. At the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution, he was a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, First Secretary of the Southwest Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, First Political Commissar of the Chengdu Military Region of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, and Vice Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress. Before the Cultural Revolution, he faithfully implemented Mao Zedong’s instructions, whether it was to arrest the rightists, counter rightist tendencies, or to rectify the “rotten grassroots regime” in the “Four Clean-ups” campaign, to arrest “He led the southwest, especially Sichuan Province, like an army in a war, and did a great job, never lagging behind and never being soft. Because of his military style, cadres are accustomed to call his military position “Li political commissar”. At that time, leading cadres generally regarded him as a leftist among senior cadres who followed Mao Zedong, together with Ke Qingshi, the former first secretary of the East China Bureau, and Tao Chuan, the first secretary of the South Central Bureau.
Li Jingquan himself probably did not expect this unprecedented “revolutionary fire” to burn on himself, after the beginning of the campaign, he actively led the Southwest Bureau and the Sichuan Provincial Committee, following the Beijing model, uncovered the so-called Sichuan “three village gangsters” led by veteran cadres Ma Zhitu, Li Yaqun, Shading “and a lot of “cattle ghosts and snake gods”. As late as October 1, 1966, he was the leader, wearing a military uniform like Mao Zedong, reviewing the National Day parade, including the Red Guards, in Chengdu’s South People’s Square.
However, the “Cultural Revolution” was truly unprecedented and no one would have expected that it would develop to the point of “knocking down everything”. Among the leading cadres, not only the so-called “traitors” who were caught in the “pigtails” of history, but also the so-called “gangsters and black-line figures” who were more right-leaning in their work, the whole thing went on and on. Almost all with the word “long” have been “shelled”, “fire”. Li Jingquan naturally also “in the robbery”.
The Red Guards’ internal conflict “capitalist” accidentally disappeared
Southwest Bureau in Chengdu, “Cultural Revolution” since, Li Jingquan has been in Chongqing, Chengdu and other places back and forth, actively “leading the movement”. But why did the Red Guards go across the province to Shanghai to arrest Li Jingquan? It turns out that before this happened, a dramatic “capitalist disappearance” incident.
In October of that year, the CPC Central Committee held a central working conference in Beijing on the theme of “criticizing the reactionary bourgeois line”, where Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping were forced to admit their “mistakes” and make an examination. Li Jingquan attended the meeting and understood Mao Zedong’s determination and the spirit of the Central Committee. According to the Central Committee’s request, all places after the Central Working Conference should hold a meeting of cadres at three levels to convey and implement the spirit of the Central Working Conference, so that the majority of cadres can get rid of the “Cultural Revolution” as soon as possible “very little understanding, very little seriousness, very little effort” state, and The “Cultural Revolution” was “not understood, not taken seriously, and not done well”, and the cadres were actively involved in this movement “launched and led by Chairman Mao himself”.
On November 2, Li Jingquan, together with Liao Zhigao, secretary of the Sichuan Provincial Committee, convened a meeting of the heads of the Red Guards and other mass organizations in Chengdu to convey the spirit of the Central Committee’s work conference and the Central Committee’s notice on the convening of a meeting of the three levels of cadres, asking the Red Guards to actively support the convening of the meeting of the three levels of cadres in Sichuan Province. The representatives of the Chengdu unit of the Red Guards, the largest rebel Red Guard organization in Chengdu at that time, immediately expressed their firm support for the provincial party committee to convene a meeting of the three levels of cadres, but demanded that the meeting should not be a formality, but must be a meeting that truly implemented Chairman Mao’s revolutionary line and criticized the bourgeois reactionary line, and to this end, Li Jingquan and Liao Zhigao were asked to Before the meeting of cadres, Li Jingquan and Liao Zhigao must make a public inspection to the people of Chengdu, and all cadres who participated in the meeting of cadres at the third level and cadres above the 17th grade in Chengdu must be present to listen to the denunciation and criticism of the masses of workers and peasants and revolutionary teachers and students. Li Jingquan and Liao Zhigao said that they had to consult the central government before making a decision.
On November 9, the Chengdu unit of the Red Guards again approached the Southwest Bureau and the Sichuan Provincial Committee to inquire, and learned that the Central Committee had agreed to Li and Liao’s public examination to the people of Chengdu. So, the Southwest Bureau and the Sichuan Provincial Committee agreed with the Red Guards in Chengdu to jointly hold a “Ten Thousand Guns to Bombard the Southwest Bureau and the Provincial and Municipal Committees for the Bourgeois Reactionary Line” on November 13 (Sunday) at 9:00 a.m. in the South People’s Square, where Li Jingquan and Liao Zhigao would make a public examination to the masses. Tao Chuan, a member of the Politburo Standing Committee and advisor to the Central Cultural Revolution Group, who had risen to the number four position in the core of the CPC leadership and was assisting Zhou Enlai in his daily work, also attached great importance to this conference, calling Li Jingquan several times to inquire whether he was physically fit for such an examination. He hoped that he could gain the understanding of the masses through this examination and come out again as a “revolutionary cadre” to “lead the movement”.
On November 13, 1966, the congress was held as scheduled. It is said that 250,000 people attended the conference. This was the highest profile and largest criticism conference in the southwest since the beginning of the Cultural Revolution. In order to ensure that the conference was carried out properly, the Southwest Bureau, the Sichuan Provincial Party Committee and the Red Guard Chengdu Army agreed that the Southwest Bureau, the Sichuan Provincial Party Committee and the Chengdu Municipal Party Committee would be responsible for the logistics, and the Red Guard Chengdu Army would send pickets to maintain order at the venue.
At that time, the rebels were still in a minority, and most of the party and government organs were still functioning normally, so many units were notified by the party and government organs to organize the masses to attend the meeting, and the public security department also arranged some personnel to serve as a guard. As the cadres generally do not understand the “Cultural Revolution”, it is inevitable that some of the statements in the notice of the meeting can not keep up with the situation, such as “listen to Li Jingquan to make an examination” as “listen to the political commissar Li to make a report ” and so on. On the other hand, there have been rumors that the rebels have “illegally kidnapped Political Commissar Li” and “besieged Political Commissar Li to be sick”.
All these “movements” reached the ears of the rebel Red Guards and aroused the suspicion of some people. The Red Guards were at odds within themselves. Red Guard Chengdu unit of Sichuan University detachment (i.e., Sichuan University 826 combat regiment) and the Beijing Geological Institute, led by some Red Guards to Rong staff, that the head of the Red Guard Chengdu unit headquarters “right”, “repair”, before the meeting with Li Jingquan reached The agreement on the conference was a “deal with the principle”, and even the slogan “Down with Li Jingquan, reorganize the Southwest Bureau” did not dare to mention that the conference had become a conspiracy to muddle through with Li Jingquan’s fake inspection. So, they agreed with the Chengdu Workers’ Revolutionary Rebel Corps and other organizations to revolt against the Congress.
This conference was revolted, in the aftermath of the Red Guard Chengdu unit vanguard detachment on November 18 issued a detailed account of the “letter to the people of the city”: “11:00 a.m., the meeting began, the conference orderly group leader just finished speaking, immediately by the Northland “Eastern Red Commune” propaganda car revolted the presidium of the General Assembly. Some of the heads of the Chengdu unit of the Red Guard Chuanda detachment and the Chengdu field army of the Red Guard also followed the rebellion of the Bureau. The reason for their rebellion was that the podium was solemnly and grandly decorated, with ‘colored flags’ flying and a huge band on the stage, not like a censorship and denunciation conference, but like a celebration conference. It was therefore ‘right’ tilted opportunism. Northland ‘Oriental Red Commune’ propaganda truck and shouting to pull Li Jingquan down …… “In the confusion, Li Jingquan was once taken off the podium by the rebels. “At this time the students in Beijing wanted to reorganize the presidium again. The presidium members were at their wits’ end about the situation, afraid of wearing ‘right’ leaning hats and consequently committing a real ‘right’ leaning mistake and becoming ‘slaveist’ and agreeing to the reorganization of the presidium, in The original Bureau was increased by one Beijing student. At this point, the meeting was quiet, and the Bureau arranged for Li Jingquan to make a review. During the review, Li Jingquan was crowded with people around him, and a foreign student took advantage of the situation and grabbed Li’s microphone to prevent the review. So the venue was chaotic all over again. The conference bureau had to focus on maintaining order in the venue. Just at this time, some people sent Li Jingquan away ……” (Red Guard Chengdu unit political department sponsored by the Red Guard newspaper November 19, 1966 supplement)
In the confusion, people only thought that the venue picketers had taken Li Jingquan away from the venue to ensure his personal safety. Soon afterwards, there was a surprising news that the escort of Li Jingquan that day was not the Red Guards, but plainclothes officers organized by the public security department posing as Red Guards, who took advantage of the chaos at the venue to move Li Jingquan away!
Li Jingquan since the age of 18 to join the revolution, long years of work in the army, conquering the north and the south, the wind and food, has long fallen ill, he was already nearing his prime, where to withstand this unprecedented torment. After being escorted away from the conference venue, he was transferred to several unit guesthouses in the suburbs of Chengdu, where the rebellion wave had not yet started, to recover from his illness, and then to Gou County, Peng County, Xichang, Dukou, and Yuanmou and Kunming in Yunnan Province. During this period, Li Jingquan kept in constant telephone contact with the Southwest Bureau and the Sichuan Provincial Committee, concerned about the “healthy development” of the Cultural Revolution movement – in the words of the rebellion “behind the scenes to sabotage the Cultural Revolution”.
At the end of December, on the advice of the Secretariat of the Southwest Bureau, Li Jingquan telephoned the General Office of the Central Committee through his secretary to ask for permission to go to Beijing, but received no reply – the situation in Beijing had become even more chaotic by then, with slogans and large-character posters criticizing Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping by name already posted on the streets. Tao Cast, who was desperately trying to control the situation, was already unable to protect himself and was beaten down just three days after the New Year.
The wind was getting tighter and tighter, and on January 4, 1967, the day Tao Cast was suddenly announced to be pulled out and beaten down, Li Jingquan went to Shanghai.
The rebels got a telegram from the Central Committee and the Red Guards drew up a “battle plan”
Since Li Jingquan was transferred away, the rebels lost a living “target” for criticism.
The most famous Red Guard rebel group in Chongqing at the time, the Chongqing University August 15 Combat Group, sent a few hundred people to Chengdu just before the criticism conference, with the main purpose of taking Li Jingquan to Chongqing for criticism. After arriving in Chengdu, they stayed at Sichuan University, just in time to attend the criticism conference at Renminan Square. But I didn’t expect that the criticism meeting would end up in a fiasco, and I didn’t expect to hear after the meeting that Li Jingquan had disappeared!
The “advancing column” of Chongqing University could not catch Li Jingquan, how could they go back to the police? After searching for him, they issued a “wanted notice” in the name of the Red Guards to the top leader of the southwest region. Although the text of such a “wanted” order was very aggressive, it had no legal effect and little practical use. It was impossible to catch Li Jingquan with the “revolutionary zeal” of these young men alone.
As the New Year of 1967 passed, a wave of mass rebellion swept across the country and began to develop from “knocking down everything” to “a full-scale seizure of power”. At that time, the office of the Southwest Bureau received a telegram from the General Office of the CPC Central Committee around January 10, asking Li Jingquan to go to the masses, check his mistakes if there were any, and not to be afraid of the masses.
At that time, the organs of the Southwest Bureau also already had a rebel organization. The telegram was obtained by the rebels, so they had the “imperial sword”. On January 15, they went to Cheng Zihua, the secretary of the Southwest Bureau, who was being “supervised” and criticized by the Southwest Construction Committee rebels, and asked him where the telegram from the Central Committee to Li Jingquan should be forwarded. At that time, although the world had begun to chaos, but the leading cadres of the organizational concept is still very strong. Besides, who would dare to take the blame of “blocking the voice of the Central Government”? So, Cheng Zihua said that Li Jingquan had gone to Shanghai to recover from illness. But he didn’t know exactly where Li Jingquan lived in Shanghai.
In the past, there was a theory that the telegram was faked by the rebels. In fact, this is a speculation that does not understand the situation at that time. This telegram was completely in line with the spirit of the Central Committee at that time. After the “Cultural Revolution” was launched, Mao Zedong issued several household “supreme instructions”, one of which was specifically addressed to the leading cadres: “You must be politically commanding, go to the masses, and Together with the masses, you will make the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution better.”
On the very night of January 15, the Central People’s Radio broadcasted the editorial of the second issue of Red Flag magazine in 1967, “Respond to Chairman Mao’s Call, Go to the Masses,” which asked the leading cadres to carry out this instruction of Mao Zedong and pointed out that “the willingness to go to the masses and the courage to go to the masses are the fundamental dividing line between the proletarian worldview and the bourgeois worldview. A fundamental dividing line.” The editorial also sternly warned that if the leading cadres did not go to the masses, “the distance between them and the feelings of the masses will become more and more distant, and the distance between them and the revolutionary line of the proletariat represented by Chairman Mao will become more and more distant. Some of them even develop step by step to accuse the mass movement, suppress it, confront the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, and confront the revolutionary line of the proletariat represented by Chairman Mao. In this way, the nature of their contradiction with the Party and the people will change, transforming from a non-confrontational contradiction to a confrontational one.”
The “advancing column” of the August 15 Combat Regiment of Chongqing University had a detachment in the Southwest Bureau and was inquiring everywhere about Li Jingquan’s whereabouts. When the Southwest Bureau organ rebels saw that the Red Guards in Chengdu were in an uproar over the conflict between the two factions, they also told the Red Guards of Chongqing University that the Central Committee had called Li Jingquan to come out to meet the masses and that he was in Shanghai. When the Red Guards of Chongqing University heard the news, it was like a treasure. They immediately decided to go to Shanghai to arrest Li Jingquan and drew up a “battle plan”.
They first studied the problem: Shanghai is so big, how can we find Li Jingquan? They knew that the Shanghai rebels had already taken control of the situation, but they certainly did not know that a big “capitalist” like Li Jingquan was hiding in Shanghai, otherwise they would have driven him away. Therefore, to find Li Jingquan, we had to try to “outsmart” him through the “capitalists” of the East China Bureau. And then, so on and so forth ……
The “visitors from Beijing” to stay in a high-class hotel “combat team” to reveal their true identity
At 5:30 p.m. on January 17, a “combat team” consisting of three Red Guards from Chongqing University and two rebels from the Southwest Bureau, took Cheng Zihua and his secretary, who had been “borrowed” from the Southwest Construction Committee rebels, with a telegram from the Central Committee, and flew to Shanghai by plane.
Since Cheng Zihua was also the deputy director of the State Construction Committee and the State Planning Commission, after arriving in Shanghai, members of the “combat team” posed as staff of the State Planning Commission and called the secretary’s office of the East China Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, falsely claiming that Cheng Zihua was returning from a meeting in Beijing and passing through Shanghai, and that he had something to discuss with Wei Wenbo and Han Zheyi, the secretary of the East China Bureau.
At this time, Shanghai, like other parts of the country, was already in the midst of the “January Storm” of great turmoil and power grabbing, and the Shanghai Wen Wei Po, Jiefang Daily and some grassroots units had already been seized by the rebels. The official media broadcasted the “Letter to the People of the City” and the “Emergency Notice” of the Shanghai Rebellion, which were highly praised by Mao Zedong, and a “Congratulatory Telegram” was sent jointly by the CPC Central Committee, the State Council, the Central Military Commission and the Central Cultural Revolution Group to the Shanghai Rebellion. Inspired by this “congratulatory telegram”, a power seizure by the Third Command of the Shanghai Red Guards in conjunction with the Second Corps of the Shanghai Workers’ General Department to the municipal party and government organs took place on the 15th, but the power seizure was aborted because of the internal contradictions of the rebels and because Zhang Chunqiao and Yao Wenyuan were very dissatisfied with this power seizure without consulting them in advance and refused to acknowledge it. Therefore, at this time, the East China Bureau was still struggling with the daily work of its organs, and when the Administrative Office of the East China Bureau learned of the arrival of the “State Planning Commission”, it sent someone to put them up in the Jinjiang Hotel.
In the Jinjiang Hotel, the “combat team” first found a deputy director of the East China Construction Committee, and inquired from him that the East China Bureau in power, Cao Diqiu had been knocked down and was supervising labor; Wei Wenbo had stopped working and was making checks; Han Zheyi was still in charge of some affairs under the supervision of the rebels. They analyzed that only by looking for Han Zheyi could they find out the whereabouts of Li Jingquan. So, they notified Han Zheyi to come. And to Cheng Zihua prescribed the caliber of Han Zheyi’s speech when he came.
After the call was made, they waited in the room for two hours.
It was only late at night that Han Zheyi arrived at the hotel under the escort of two workers’ rebellious members.
After Han Zheyi’s arrival, things did not go as planned by the “fighting group”, and an accident occurred.
The Red Guards of Chongqing University and the rebel faction of the Southwest Bureau published an article afterwards, also titled “Wise Capture of Li Jingquan”, with different accounts. According to the rebel faction of the Southwest Bureau, as soon as Han Zhe entered, Cheng Zihua asked, “Where is Li Jingquan?” The article by the Red Guards of Chongqing University, however, says that because Cheng Zihua appeared to be depressed after hearing about the situation in the East China Bureau, the “fighting group” feared that he would no longer speak according to their prescribed caliber, so they made a prompt decision to pre-empt Han Zhe as soon as he entered the door, and one of the Red Guards asked in a stern voice: “Where is Li Jingquan? “Where is Li Jingquan? What should be the crime for harboring a criminal of the Southwest people?” ……
Why is there such a discrepancy? I guess the writers of the article had different motives. The Southwest Bureau organ rebels probably wanted to show that Cheng Zihua, after their education, had sided with Chairman Mao’s revolutionary line, while the Chongqing University Red Guards mostly wanted to show how they had exercised great wisdom and courage under the arm of “Mao Zedong Thought”.
It was only after the end of the Cultural Revolution that the truth was clarified when the relevant parties checked the incident.
It turned out that, as soon as Han Zhe entered, Cheng Zihua really did not follow the caliber prescribed by the “combat team”, but opened the door to him and explained the real situation: he was not passing through here for some meeting, but was escorted by the Red Guards to arrest Li Jingquan (the author also saw a large-character poster in Chongqing back then, saying that the Red Guards were in (I also saw a poster in Chongqing that said that the Red Guards had caught Li Jingquan with the “help” of “revolutionary cadre Cheng Zihua”. (In fact, the truth of the so-called “help” is this).
When the Red Guards of Chongqing University saw that the fake show could not go on, they immediately took out their Red Guard armbands and badges, made their identities public, and asked the Southwest Bureau organ rebels to take out the central telegram and give it to Han Zheyi to read, saying that it had to be given to Li Jingquan. Li Jingquan was asked to return to Sichuan to accept the masses’ criticism in accordance with the Central Committee’s telegram.
Han Zheyi naturally did not dare to “block the voice of the Central Committee” and “confront the Cultural Revolution”, so he told the truth about Li Jingquan’s place of residence in Shanghai – the Ruijin Street Guest House of the CPC Shanghai Committee.
The “Combat Team” detained Han Zheyi at the hotel “in the name of the revolution” to prevent information from leaking out. They learned that Li Jingquan had 7 secretaries, doctors, nurses, security cadres and guards, and guard weapons, while these Red Guards and rebels were few and unarmed, what should they do? This is not difficult for them, because they have the “invincible” – “Mao Zedong Thought”, that is, Mao Zedong’s “Cultural Revolution The “supreme instructions” of Mao Zedong on the “Cultural Revolution”.
There was a guard post in front of the guest house of the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee, and at that time it was still a place where you could not just go in. What to do? The “Combat Team” sent two people to seek help from the Shanghai Public Security Bureau’s rebel faction. It was already 4:00 a.m., and the rebel clamor in the city had already stopped. The only thing that was going on in the streets of Shanghai was the cold wind tearing through the wall of slogans and large-print posters, but the Red Guards and rebels, who thought they were fighting for the truth, only felt that “their blood was boiling.
There were still rebels in the Shanghai Public Security Bureau who kept on “fighting” “night and day”. It so happened that on the 17th, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China forwarded a notice from the Ministry of Public Security to public security departments at all levels on the launching of the Cultural Revolution, asking them to “resolutely implement and defend Chairman Mao’s proletarian revolutionary line, resolutely support the revolutionary leftists, and support all revolutionary actions of the leftists (including the ‘takeover’ of power) “. The Shanghai Public Security Bureau rebel faction, having heard the introduction of their Sichuan rebel “comrades”, decided at once to send three people to cooperate with their actions.
Uninvited guests arrive at the reception and the Red Guards get on the special plane
All arrangements were made, and it was already about 6:00 a.m. on the 18th. The “combat team” escorted Han Zheyi’s secretary to the Ruijin Street guest house where Li Jingquan was staying. With the public security officers leading the way, they entered the gate smoothly. When they entered, Li Jingquan’s entourage was preparing breakfast in the restaurant downstairs. The “combat team” gave these staff members “propaganda of Mao Zedong Thought” and “educated” them to “come to the side of Chairman Mao’s revolutionary line ” and “draw a clear line with the capitalist road to power”. When he saw someone showing resistance, he asked, “Are you defending Chairman Mao or Li Jingquan?” –Such a question, which naturally could only be answered in one way, did overwhelm many people back then.
The “fighting group” then left a few people to continue working with Li Jingquan’s entourage, while the others, together with three rebels from the Shanghai Public Security Bureau, went straight to the second floor room and found Li Jingquan without incident. They first searched Li Jingquan, then took out a telegram from the Central Committee and showed it to him, announcing that he was to be taken back to Sichuan to be criticized.
Li Jingquan, who had probably learned from the media the same spirit of the Central Committee as the telegram, did not express any doubts about the telegram, but suggested that he should wait until the hospital medical examination form was available before leaving, which was naturally rejected by the Red Guards and rebels as a “trick”.
After breakfast, the head of the “battle group”, the Red Guards of Chongqing University announced to Li Jingquan and his party: from now on, everything under their command. Li Jingquan and his secretary, guard and doctor would go back to Sichuan with them, while the other three members of his entourage would not be allowed to leave the guest house for 24 hours after their departure, and would not be allowed to make telegrams or phone calls outside, and would then return to Sichuan on their own, and report to the “August 15 Combat Group of Chongqing University to Rongjin Column” at Sichuan University in Chengdu. And warned: if you disobey, the consequences will be self-responsible.
–According to the leaflet of the rebel faction, one of Li Jingquan’s attendants, after listening to the propaganda of the rebel faction, rushed over and slapped Li Jingquan in the face to show that he had drawn a clear line with Li Jingquan and his revolutionary determination to stand on the side of Chairman Mao. Such a “revolutionary action” was not going to be good after the end of the Cultural Revolution.
Then, the “combat team” asked the East China Bureau for a special plane, and after the special plane was secured, they called Chengdu and excitedly told them that “the goods had arrived” and asked for a car to pick them up at the airport that afternoon.
That morning, the “combat team” escorted Li Jingquan, Cheng Zihua and his party to fly back to Chengdu on a special plane.
Li Jingquan was secretly escorted to the major August 15 column in Sichuan University, and in the early morning of the next day, the “advancing column” took Li Jingquan to Chongqing by car.
On February 19, 1967, the Revolutionary Rebellion Joint Committee, a “new red regime” established by the Chongqing rebel faction after the August 15 faction seized power with the support of the garrison, held a huge criticism meeting with hundreds of thousands of participants at Coral Dam on the Yangtze River. Li Jingquan was escorted to the meeting, hung with a black tag, and paraded through the main streets of the city in a truck after the criticism. At the end of April, Li Jingquan was taken back to Chengdu and handed over to the Chengdu unit of the Red Guards for criticism.
On May 7, with Mao’s approval, the CPC Central Committee made a “Decision on the Handling of the Sichuan Problem”, which formally criticized “a small group of capitalist parties in power led by Li Jingquan” and severely denounced them for “taking the capitalist road. “They were severely reprimanded for “treating Sichuan Province as an independent kingdom that is anti-Party, anti-socialist and anti-Mao Zedong Thought for a long time. During the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, Li Jingquan and others insisted on implementing the bourgeois reactionary line of Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping.” It was announced that Li Jingquan’s all positions inside and outside the Party were revoked. From then on, Li Jingquan was subjected to more fierce criticism and struggle. It was not until the end of the Cultural Revolution that the charge of being a “capitalist” was overturned.
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