During the Cultural Revolution, Zhou Enlai and Lin Biao accompanied Mao Zedong to meet with the Red Guards
Zhou Enlai and Lin Biao were both Mao’s main assistants in launching the Cultural Revolution, and Zhou played a bigger role.
No matter how domestic scholars defend Zhou Enlai’s words and deeds during the Cultural Revolution, they cannot erase the fact that Zhou Enlai did actively participate in and promote the development of the Cultural Revolution. As we all know, Zhou Enlai was Mao Zedong’s great butler, and many of Mao Zedong’s ideas were finally realized through Zhou Enlai’s specific manipulation, which, to use a figurative phrase, means that “the planning was in Mao, the accomplishment was in Zhou. We can be examined through some specific examples.
(1) The question of Luo Ruiqing. Now all the official statements and memories of the CPC are unanimous, that is, the Luo Ruiqing incident was a malicious frame-up by Lin Biao, who took Luo as a condition to support Mao’s launching of the Cultural Revolution, and the Shanghai meeting held in December 1965 to solve the Luo Ruiqing problem, all the participants except Mao and Lin had no idea what the purpose of the meeting was. It seems that Mao’s top officials were kept in the dark until he embarked on a major strategic deployment. If this is true, how could so many participants have understood Mao’s true intentions in Time, and how could they have actively implemented Mao’s strategic plan? Is Mao Zedong such a person who wants to fight unsure battles? And what role did Zhou Enlai play in the process of reversing Luo? Wang Li, the earliest participant in the Central Cultural Revolution Group, revealed some mysteries in his memoirs. Wang Li said, “In December, the Central Committee called Deng Xiaoping to go to Shanghai immediately because of the Luo Ruiqing incident. …… After Deng Xiaoping left, Luo Ruiqing came. He felt very nervous about himself, like ants on a hot pot, he inquired what happened? Why did the meeting not notify him? We also do not know, and later came a telegram to Luo immediately to Shanghai. We later learned that measures had been taken to prevent Luo from escaping. During the Cultural Revolution, Li Jingquan was criticized, saying that when Luo Ruiqing went to Chengdu, Li Jingquan even gave him two baskets of oranges. In fact, the policy at that time was to stabilize Luo first. Luo was not free when he arrived in Shanghai.” [2] There are several issues that are clear here, that is, it was the strategic deployment of the “Central Committee”, that is, Mao Zedong, and arranged for the senior officials to “stabilize Luo first”, and not only that, but even to “prevent Luo from escaping”. “, and so on the Shanghai side of all the deployment is ready to notify Luo to Shanghai to attend the meeting, in order to successfully complete the deployment of the reverse Luo. Obviously, Luo Ruiqing himself felt some strange, otherwise it would not “feel very nervous, like ants on a hot pot. If Li Jingquan, Yan Hongyan and other local officials had no knowledge of the fall of Luo, how could they implement the spirit of these instructions from the “Central Committee” to stabilize Luo? In fact, according to informed sources, Mao Zedong had already greeted his subordinates through some old marshals, and all the old marshals and generals attending the meeting, except He Long, who did not know the real intention of the meeting, knew what the purpose of the meeting was. When Luo arrived in Kunming, Zhou Enlai specifically instructed Yan Hongyan in a phone call to keep an eye on Luo Ruiqing. Therefore, Mao Zedong’s plan to overthrow Luo was an important strategic deployment to clear the frontier for his launching of the Cultural Revolution to defeat Liu Shaoqi. Zhou Enlai was not only informed, but also acted with active cooperation on the issue of overthrowing Luo. Luo Ruiqing’s wife, Hao Zhiping, said in her own recollection, “In order to make some preparations for the meeting, Ruiqing had to call back to Beijing, where only Comrade Peng Zhen was at Home. Comrade Peng Zhen said: I only know the meeting, I do not know what meeting. Later, Comrade Peng Zhen called the Prime Minister to ask, the Prime Minister probably knew the content of the meeting, and may have given Peng Zhen some wind. Comrade Peng Zhen called Ruiqing again and said, “Go, you will know when you go.” [3] After Luo’s arrival in Shanghai, it was also Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping who were instructed by Mao Zedong to talk to Luo and tell him, “Don’t go to see the President, and don’t go to see Lin Biao.”[4] From these circumstances, Zhou Enlai not only participated in the preparatory activities for Luo’s downfall beforehand, but also did a lot of work afterwards, as Zhou gave Luo a letter at the May 21, 1966 At the enlarged meeting of the Politburo on May 21, 1966, Zhou characterized Luo Ruiqing and others by saying, “Peng, Luo, Lu and Yang, who were exposed in the Central Committee this time, are capitalist factions in power in the leading organs of the Central Committee.” “The main problem is to prevent revisionism in power. Peng, Luo, Lu, and Yang are taking our positions one by one, with the pen, the gun, and the party power.” [5]
(2) The May Politburo meeting and The prevention of counter-revolutionary coup deployment. Nowadays, when almost all CCP party histories talk about the Cultural Revolution, they regard Lin Biao’s “518 speech” as a personal ulterior motive of Lin Biao to use the Cultural Revolution to alarmingly bring down a large number of old proletarian revolutionaries. Lin Biao’s speech began with the words, “It would have been better for other comrades of the Standing Committee to speak first. The comrades of the Standing Committee asked me to speak first, and now I will speak a little.” Obviously, Lin Biao’s speech was made with the unanimous consent of Mao Zedong and the other members of the Politburo Standing Committee, representing Mao’s intention to launch the Cultural Revolution, and was an important deployment of Mao’s Cultural Revolution. Then Zhou Enlai made a speech with the same content on May 21. Zhou said, “I agree with the speeches of many comrades. I fully agree with Comrade Lin Biao’s speech, which was very good. In a socialist country, there must be class struggles within the Party and the state, especially in the current historical era when imperialism and colonialism are on the decline and socialism and communism are on the way to victory. Lenin long ago said: ‘After the proletariat seizes power, the bourgeoisie is going to revolt. The power of the bourgeoisie is many times greater than the power of the proletariat.’ ‘The small producers are producing capitalism spontaneously every day and every hour’. The President said that these two points should be propagated, and that they should be frequently warmed up, and that these two phrases should be propagated and warmed up frequently. ……” Zhou also said, “This time, Peng, Luo, Lu and Yang, who were uncovered in the Central Committee, are the leading organs of the Central Committee who are in power and have gone capitalist. It seems inevitable that revisionism will emerge, both at the central and local levels. It is not right to say that in which country the work is done well, there will be no revisionism, which ignores the objective existence of the left, the center and the right, which is ‘a pool of stagnant water’. The main problem is to prevent revisionism from coming to power. Pang, Luo, Lu and Yang are seizing our positions one by one, with the pen, the gun and the party power. The second is to prevent a revisionist coup d’état. The third is to prevent a revisionist military coup.” [6] In terms of specific deployment, Zhou Enlai wrote jointly with Ye Jianying to Mao Zedong and the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee on May 15, proposing, “To form a working group in the capital with Ye Jianying as its leader, Yang Chengwu and Xie Fuzhi as deputy leaders, and Liu Zhijian, Li Xuefeng, Wang Dongxing, Zhou Rongxin, Zheng Weishan, Fu Chongbi, Wan Li, and Su Qianyi as participants, to safeguard the security of the capital. Directly responsible to the Standing Committee of the Central Political Bureau.”[7] On the same day as Lin Biao’s speech, Zhou Enlai wrote to Mao Zedong: Regarding the Beijing garrison, after consultation with Comrade Yang Chengwu and the Beijing Military District, it was proposed to transfer the 139th Division of the Sixty-third Army in Shijiazhuang and the 193rd Division of the 65th Army in Zhangjiakou to serve. 26th Zhou Enlai attended the first meeting of the Capital Working Group chaired by Ye Jianying On the 31st Zhou reported to Mao Zedong on the meeting and the deployment of additional troops to strengthen the capital’s guard force and other issues. [8] Zhou Enlai confessed when he received the revolutionary rebels in the bus port on January 27, 1967: “Regarding the working group in the capital, it was after the discovery of Peng, Luo, Lu and Yang anti-Party group, the chairman felt that the defense of the capital was very important and tasked me to take charge of this matter and organized a working group in the capital, consisting of the Military Commission, the Ministry of Public Security, the State Council, the Central General Office and some other departments, with the following tasks 1. to defend the security of Zhongnanhai. 2. to defend the capital and strengthen the garrison. 3. to defend key departments, such as: Zhongnanhai, Diaoyutai, the Ministry of National Defense ……, etc. 4. to defend the security of the capital, to get rid of the black account, the five types of elements. 5. to deal with some undesirable people among foreign expatriates.” [9]
It is obvious that in the matter of preventing the so-called counter-revolutionary coup, Zhou Enlai not only spoke but also did a lot of substantive work personally. Mr. Yu Ruxin, a famous researcher on the history of the Cultural Revolution, has an insightful analysis of this: the overall decision-maker of the “prevention of counter-revolutionary coup” was Mao Zedong himself. It is undeniable that Lin Biao responded positively to this decision because of his own interests, but it is more undeniable that Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping, especially Zhou Enlai, also responded positively and resolutely implemented it. In this process, if there is any difference between Lin and Zhou, what we can see is that Lin Biao talked more and did less, while Zhou Enlai did more and talked less, that’s all. [10] This analysis should be very pertinent.
(3) The emergence and growth of the Red Guard movement. At the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, Mao Zedong supported the Red Guard movement in Tsinghua High School in order to mobilize the students to revolt against the so-called “revisionist line”, which made the movement spread rapidly throughout the country in full swing. Most of the Party historians in China attribute Lin Biao’s words and actions during the Cultural Revolution to ulterior motives, such as the speech Lin Biao made on August 18, 1966 as one of his crimes for instigating the Cultural Revolution, saying that “Lin Biao made an inflammatory speech at the reception meeting”, which led to the rapid development of the Red Guard movement in urban and rural areas across the country, like a prairie fire. [11] Not to mention that Lin Biao’s speech, which he was ordered to read, came from Tao’s writing team and embodied Mao’s strategic intent, [12] Mao even appreciatively told Lin Biao at this conference to celebrate the Cultural Revolution that “this movement was on a large scale, and it really mobilized the masses and had great significance for the revolutionization of people’s thinking throughout the country. ” [13] In fact, Mao Zedong expressed his approval of Lin Biao’s speech to the Central Cultural Revolution Group on August 8, his speech at the closing session of the 11th Plenary Session of the 8th Central Committee on August 12, and his speech at the Central Working Conference on August 13. [14] Zhou Enlai himself admitted at the September 25 symposium of the heads of the Red Guards’ rebellion headquarters in the capital’s colleges and universities that “all three speeches by Comrade Lin Biao and myself were censored by the President. [15] So how did Zhou Enlai actively participate in this unprecedented movement? The current official biography of Zhou Enlai acknowledges that Zhou Enlai did actively participate in this campaign, but most of the explanations attribute Zhou’s words and actions to “great incomprehension,” “disobedience,” and “passivity. However, most of the explanations attribute Zhou’s words and actions to “very little understanding,” “disobedience,” and “passivity,” and try to correct the excessive and extreme practices, try to reduce the damage caused by the “leftist” errors, and wait for the right time to correct the mistakes. [16]
The Red Guards had to go to Beijing to meet the Great Leader, which posed a big problem for Zhou Enlai’s State Council, which had to arrange for their accommodation, transportation and safety, but this was Mao Zedong’s vision. Wang Li recalled that “the big cascade was Chairman Mao’s consistent idea …… that students from all over the world should go to Beijing for free and make a big fuss in Beijing before he was happy.” Since this was what Mao insisted on doing, Zhou Enlai was also determined to obey [17].
In his speech at Tsinghua University on August 5, Zhou said, “I came to your conference as a member of the Central Committee to learn from you honestly and to support you resolutely in carrying the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution to the end.” [18] On August 27, Zhou said at a meeting of the Red Generation in the capital, “We came to help you set up a liaison station …… We have the responsibility to help you, not only set up the main station, but also set up sub-stations to give you the convenience of doing the revolution. For you to set up a special telephone line, prepare transport, Food and accommodation.” [19]
At the August 31 meeting with the revolutionary teachers and students from abroad in Beijing, Zhou said, “Now the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution has begun a new climax. Young people all over the country have organized Red Guards and other revolutionary organizations, which is a great revolutionary initiative. Our Red Guards, who have broken the “Four Olds” and established the “Four News”, are the vanguard of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Your spirit of daring to think, to speak, to do, to break through, to be revolutionary and to rebel has received the enthusiastic support of the workers, peasants and revolutionary cadres all over the country. We hail the heroic workers and peasants! Hail to our Red Guards! Hail to the revolutionary youth!” [20]
Zhou Enlai also made elaborate arrangements for Mao’s eight receptions of the Red Guards, from organization, arrangement, reception, transportation, accommodation, security and many other aspects, Zhou Enlai was a strict gatekeeper and carefully planned. For the first time, Zhou Enlai arranged to meet the Red Guards in Tiananmen by Mao, and after the meeting, a summary was made on the spot, and each group reported to Zhou Enlai. Zhou grasped this very tightly, after the summary and study the next meeting program. Most of the staff members who participated in the Capital Working Group Command came from the General Staff and the combat and defense departments of the Beijing Military Region, while Wu De, the main leader of Beijing, and Huang Zuozhen, the Secretary General of the Beijing Municipal Committee, participated. Before each of the next seven receptions, the route had to be surveyed around and then the best plan chosen based on lessons learned. According to a report by Xinhua News Agency in the People’s Daily on November 27, Chairman Mao reviewed 11 million “cultural revolutionary troops” on two consecutive days on November 25 and November 26, and 2.5 million on the eighth occasion. 21]
It can be seen that both Zhou Enlai and Lin Biao made similar speeches, but Lin Biao only supported them verbally, while Zhou Enlai was the planner and conductor of the specific actions. As one of Mao’s most important assistants in promoting the Cultural Revolution, Zhou Enlai actively participated in and cooperated with the implementation of the various guidelines of the Cultural Revolution. Without Zhou’s strong support and resolute promotion, Mao’s crazy ideas could hardly have been realized so smoothly. Even though Zhou “did not quite understand” it beforehand, he stood by Mao’s side firmly and unreservedly in his actions, and carried out Mao’s policies and guidelines of the Cultural Revolution earnestly, making the frenzy of the Cultural Revolution come to a climax again and again.
(4) The question of the rebellion against the rebels and the seizure of power. The retrieval of the power of the Party and the government usurped by Khrushchev-type people was an important element of the Cultural Revolution, and the May 16th Circular specifically mentioned the need to uncover those bourgeois representatives who had infiltrated the Party, the government, the army and the cultural sphere. One of Lin Biao’s major charges was that “in order to remove obstacles to the usurpation of power, he persecuted Party, government and military cadres in a heartless manner and incited the rebel faction to impose on them the names of ‘capitalists’, ‘counter-revolutionary revisionists’, and ‘triple rebels’. The “three anti-revolutionary elements” and other charges, to carry out a brutal struggle, ruthless combat. And Zhou Enlai “expressed Premier Zhou’s firm opposition to such perverse practices of Lin Biao and Jiang Qing.” [22] So, was Zhou Enlai “resolutely opposed” to the rebellious movement? In response to the fears and doubts of the secretaries of the regional and provincial committees after the so-called “Shanghai January Revolution” in 1967, Zhou Enlai said in his speech on January 14 that “the President has grasped the general direction very tightly, but we cannot keep up with it, we have to keep up with it, mainly because the political and ideological work is not enough, the ideas are not clear, the ideas are opposed to each other The central ministries and commissions, the mouths, ministries, local regions, provinces and municipalities can not keep up with the ideas, understanding a little to catch up, now is the emotional resistance, some still stand in opposition, not to implement the proletarian line, the latter two cases more than the former. “The name of this line is called the bourgeois reactionary line, some say the line of the bourgeoisie against the revolution; in short, the nature is the same.” [23] On the question of whether and how to seize power, Zhou Enlai said at the January 17 forum of the rebel faction in colleges and universities and various organs that “in Shanghai, revolutionary workers, cadres and employees, in places controlled by those in power who follow the capitalist road in the Party and those stubborn elements who carry out the bourgeois reactionary line, should we seize power? To seize power! The Red Flag magazine reviewer article wrote clearly that power should be seized. Those who need to seize power must not hesitate.” “What we seize is the right to lead, and we can seize power first and then gradually reform. The political and legal system, the Beijing Public Security Bureau seized power! The Central Cultural Revolution to help them, the conditions are ripe to seize power first, the conditions are not ripe first supervision, seize power! The first is the leadership, we must manage it, supervise it, (Jiang Qing interjected: business do not know how to take, business can slowly learn it! We have no experience in this area, we have to rely on your revolutionary practice, after you practice, we then summarize, improve a little.” [24] Zhou then conveyed the spirit of Mao Zedong’s instructions at the enlarged meeting of the Central Military Commission on January 21, “Regarding the seizure of power, the newspapers say that the power of the party in power on the capitalist road and the stubborn elements who adhere to the bourgeois reactionary line is seized, not so, can it be seized? Now it seems that you can not be carefully divided, should be seized before, not metaphysical, otherwise subject to restrictions. After the seizure, what is the nature of the faction in power, in the later stages of the movement and then judge.” [25] Zhou Enlai’s speech was even worse than Lin Biao’s, and even Wang Li thought that “Premier Zhou’s transmission of Chairman Mao’s words had serious consequences. This led to a full-scale movement to seize power across the country, which was unstoppable, with Shanxi, Shandong, Guizhou and Heilongjiang provinces following suit, forming the first climax of a nationwide seizure of power. Since then, the rebellious seizure of power in various provinces, cities and regions has continued, leading to a larger-scale unrest situation. This was partly the result of Mao’s strategic vision and deployment of the Cultural Revolution, and of Jiang Qing and the “Shanghai Gang”, but it was also inextricably linked to Zhou Enlai’s role. What we see is that Zhou Enlai followed Mao’s lead, and we do not see how Zhou Enlai “resolutely resisted” this movement to seize power, let alone how Zhou Enlai differed from Lin Biao on this issue.
(From The Cultural Revolution: Historical Truth and Collective Memory, edited by Song Yongyi, published in 2007 by Field House, Hong Kong)
Recent Comments