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Gao Gang, “King of Northeast China,” Committed Suicide Twice
Gao Gang was one of the senior leaders of the Chinese Communist Party before and after the founding of the regime. In the 1930s, he worked with Liu Zhidan to establish a CCP base in the Shaanxi-Gansu region and served as a political commissar; later, he assisted Mao Zedong’s troops who had fled northward to gain a firm foothold in northern Shaanxi, and was therefore highly valued by Mao, serving as secretary of the Northwest District, member of the Political Bureau of the CCP Central Committee, commander of the North Manchuria Military Region, and deputy political commissar of the Northeast Democratic Alliance Army.
In September 1949, Gao Gang became the Vice Chairman of the Central People’s Government, and later the Commander and Political Commissar of the Northeast Military Region. In September 1949, Gao Gang became Vice Chairman of the Central People’s Government, and then Vice Chairman of the People’s Revolutionary Military Commission of the Central People’s Government. Gao Gang became one of the most challenging people to Mao’s authority at that time.
In order to prevent the expansion of local power, Mao ordered in August 1952 that Gao Gang (Northeast Bureau), Rao Shushi (East China Bureau), Deng Xiaoping (Southwest Bureau), Deng Zichuan (South Central Bureau) and Xi Zhongxun (Northwest Bureau), the top leaders of the five local bureaus, be transferred to Beijing to assume leadership positions in the central government and the State Council. At this time, Gao Gang was very dissatisfied with the power of Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai and others, so he was determined to “bring in” some people to confront them, and among those Gao Gang tried to “bring in” was Deng Xiaoping.
On this history, Deng Xiaoping said in 1980 about “some historical issues of the Party”: “I know this matter very well. After Comrade Mao Zedong proposed in 1953 that the Central Committee should be divided into first and second lines, Gao Gang was very active. He first received support from Lin Biao before he dared to let go of the idea. At that time, the northeast was his own, the central south was Lin Biao, and the east of China was Rao Shushi. To the southwest, he used the approach of soliciting and formally negotiating with me, saying that Comrade Liu Shaoqi was immature and that he wanted to win me over to Comrade Liu Shaoqi together with him. I clearly expressed my attitude, saying that Comrade Liu Shaoqi’s position in the Party was historically formed, and that in general terms, Comrade Liu Shaoqi was good, and that it was inappropriate to change such a historically formed position. Gao Gang also approached Comrade Chen Yun to negotiate, and he said: get a few vice chairmen, one for you and one for me. In this way, Comrade Chen Yun and I only felt that the problem was serious and immediately reflected to Comrade Mao Zedong to draw his attention. Gao Gang wanted to push Comrade Liu Shaoqi down, taking the approach of making deals and scheming, which is very abnormal. So the struggle against Gao Gang has to be affirmed.”
From Deng’s words, we can see that it was Deng who tipped off Mao and made him pay attention to this matter. on December 24, 1953, Mao warned of the existence of small organizational activities in the Party without naming him at the meeting of the Central Political Bureau, and on February 7 of the following year, at the Fourth Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee, Liu Shaoqi made a report on the “Resolution on Enhancing Party Unity ” report, without naming Gao and Rao criticized. At this time, Gao and Rao had already lost their freedom, and were not even qualified to sit in the audience.
Also according to Gao Gang’s secretary Zhao Jialiang’s “Past events under the half tombstone: Gao Gang in Beijing”, one of the effective strategies to defeat political enemies was to charge them with “communicating with foreign countries”. Based on a letter from Stalin’s personal envoy Kovalev to Stalin, Zhou Enlai asserted that Gao Gang had revealed to the Soviet Union that there were pro-Soviet and anti-Soviet factions in the Communist Party, and labeled Gao Gang as “collaborating with foreign countries”.
From February 15 to February 25, 1954, Zhou Enlai led and called for the exposure and criticism of Gao Gang’s “anti-party conspiracy”. Gao Gang attempted suicide with a pistol on February 17.
On the last day of the symposium, February 25, Zhou Enlai made a concluding speech, listing the “ten crimes” of Gao Gang’s conspiracy to split the Party and seize power of the Party and the state, and defining the nature of Gao Gang.
In his speech, Zhou Enlai also made an unlimited outline and baseless assertion that “Gao Gang’s sins have cancelled out his partial contribution to the revolutionary struggle and proved that his motives for participating in the revolutionary struggle in the past were impure”. This heart-breaking statement finally put Gao Gang to death.
Later, at a meeting of senior cadres attended by 2,400 people, Zhou Enlai went further, saying that “Gao Gang’s extreme individualistic mistakes had developed to the point of carrying out conspiratorial activities to split the Party and attempt to realize his personal ambition to seize the leadership of the Party and the country.”
On April 29, 1954, Gao Gang submitted “My Reflection” to the Central Committee and committed suicide on August 17 by taking a large amount of sleeping pills.
Zhou Enlai then reported to Mao and Liu that “after six months of discipline by the Party, Gao Gang, without any remorse, committed suicide and died on August 17.”
After Gao Gang’s death, he was buried in Beijing’s Wanan Cemetery. Zhou Enlai instructed that Gao Gang could be ritually buried and that the tombstone could not be inscribed. When the Cultural Revolution began, Gao Gang’s tombstone was smashed in half.
Five months after Gao Gang’s death, at the National Party Congress held in Beijing, Deng Xiaoping read out the “Resolution on Gao Gang Rao Shushi’s Anti-Party Alliance”, this time naming him publicly, first pointing out that Gao not only did not bow down to the Party and admit his guilt, but also committed suicide to show his betrayal of the Party. The additional crimes include “treating the northeast as Gao Gang’s independent kingdom, …… this anti-party alliance divides the Communist Party into two: one is created by the base and the army; one is the party in the White Zone” and so on. The first thing you need to do is to get rid of them. Rao still resists to the end, and continues to attack the Party.”
Soon after the resolution was announced, Rao Shushi was declared dead, and there is no clear statement as to whether he committed suicide. The two former “comrades in arms” for Mao were finally purged by Mao on charges of anti-Party activities. Soon after, their followers were also purged from the Party.
Gao Gang, who only opposed Liu Shaoqi personally, was thus characterized as “anti-Party”, setting a precedent for the CCP to treat intra-Party issues as enemy issues.
According to the information disclosed in “The Last Word,” a sequel to the memoirs of former Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, it seems that Stalin betrayed Gao Gang to Mao because Gao Gang had revealed a lot of internal information about the CCP to Stalin. Why did Stalin betray Gao Gang? Khrushchev believes it was Stalin’s attempt to gain Mao’s trust.
Since the CCP still treats this historical file as confidential, we cannot yet know Mao’s real intention to purge Gao and Rao. However, Mao’s skillful tactics in fixing people have been repeatedly “appreciated” in later history. Gao Gang was not the first or the second senior Communist official to be persecuted to death.
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