Jiang Qing on trial at the Communist Party’s highest court in 1980. (Photo source: Internet)
Fifty-five years ago yesterday (May 16), the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee adopted the May 16 Circular, marking the outbreak of the “Cultural Revolution”. Some Maoist-leftist groups announced in advance that they would hold a so-called “commemoration of the 55th anniversary of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution” in the capital yesterday afternoon. But the event was reportedly canceled under official pressure. However, some leftists had previously held a “Li Jin Party History Status Symposium” to commemorate Jiang Qing, the core figure of the Cultural Revolution, and it is suspected that former CCP leader Mao Zedong and Jiang Qing’s daughter Li Ne had participated.
On May 12, Gao Yu, a well-known mainland journalist, tweeted that Maoist groups, including the Wu You Zhi Xiang and Beijing Red Song Society, were going to hold a commemorative event for the Cultural Revolution on May 16. According to Gao Yu, “A dozen people in Beijing are hounded for a gathering, so it is rare for so many units (whether they are legal organizations registered with the Civil Affairs Bureau is unknown) to convene a general meeting in a dignified manner?”
According to this notice, about nine Maoist organizations held a commemoration of the 55th anniversary of the Cultural Revolution at 1:30 p.m. on May 16 in Beijing’s Hongta or Guangyuan auditorium. However, Gao Yu later posted that he heard the commemorative event was held in Shanghai instead.
According to the pro-communist Hong Kong media “Sing Tao Daily” reported today, yesterday afternoon called the person in charge, the other side said “offline activities are canceled, it is not convenient to engage in, people are not together, tonight will engage in a Tencent online meeting.” Asked whether the official pressure to cancel, he responded that “it does not matter”.
It was also reported that the 14th of this month was the 30th anniversary of the suicide death of Jiang Qing, a central figure of the Cultural Revolution. A photo circulated on the Internet shows an old woman in a red dress, suspected to be Jiang Qing’s daughter Li Ne, at a dinner party entitled “Li Jin’s Symposium on the Status of Party History” held by the leftists.
Jiang Qing was the wife of Mao Zedong, also known as Li Jin, for whom Mao wrote poems. After the Cultural Revolution, Jiang Qing was accused of being the head of the Gang of Four and was sentenced to “counter-revolutionary” imprisonment, with Deng Xiaoping regaining power and the Gang of Four thrown out of the Communist Party. He committed suicide on May 14, 1991 while on medical parole.
For the “Li Jin party history status symposium” photos circulated on the Internet, netizens have been discussing.
“The first time I saw him, he was a member of a group of people. Is it Jiang Qing, the primary member of the counter-revolutionary group?
“Even Jiang Qing’s name are afraid to mention, this will open a bit sneaky, a bit like the underground party can be meeting, that they also know to do things that are not visible.”
“To get together to find a reason just, drink too much directly ktv.”
“In his eyes Deng is the antagonist.”
“It is to reopen the case for the Cultural Revolution.”
“How many regimes are so flip pancake flip dead.”
“Li Jin is a silly girl from Shandong, who has been in the harem for many years but does not understand politics.
Questions about whether the authorities’ attitude toward Jiang Qing has changed subtly also arose last month.
Cai Xia, a former professor at the CPC Central Party School, tweeted on April 5 that the authorities banned private tributes to Zhao Ziyang on the Qingming Festival this year, but opened Jiang Qing’s tomb to the public, “making it clear who the CPC authorities are afraid to promote.”
According to public information, the Cultural Revolution began on May 16, 1966, when Mao Zedong, then chairman of the Communist Party’s Central Committee, and the Central Cultural Revolutionary Group mobilized thousands of Red Guards from the top down to launch a campaign on all fronts in mainland China. Officials encouraged criticism, house raids, and denunciations, which led to a decline in traditional Chinese culture and morality, a severe impact on the overall economy, a huge number of victims, and the destruction of a large number of cultural relics during the “destruction of the Four Olds. The movement lasted for ten years and is therefore known as the “Ten Years of Unrest” or “Ten Years of Catastrophe”.
The official acknowledgement of the Cultural Revolution is that it was a calamity caused by the internal struggle between the two sides in Zhongnanhai, and the Sixth Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in 1981 characterized the Cultural Revolution as “a civil unrest that was wrongly initiated by the leaders and exploited by counter-revolutionary groups, bringing serious disasters to the Party, the country and the people of all ethnic groups. However, the CCP still does not dare to directly admit that this was a campaign initiated by Mao Zedong to eradicate dissident forces within the Party.
According to the CCP, the campaign was used by counter-revolutionary groups. But observers believe that the so-called counter-revolutionary group refers to Mao’s deputy Lin Biao and the Gang of Four, including Mao’s wife Jiang Qing, who used them to eliminate dissidents rather than Mao.
Deng Xiaoping characterized Mao’s sins as “more merit than demerit,” downplaying the insane campaign that caused the collapse of Chinese society and the death of millions of innocent people, while Xi Jinping went even further after coming to power, saying in 2013 that the last 30 years should not be used to negate the first 30 years, nor should the first 30 years be used to negate the second 30 years, confusing the two periods before and after the reform. The two eras are confused. Until now, talking about the Cultural Revolution is still prohibited.
This year’s new edition of “A Brief History of the Chinese Communist Party” further downplays the sins of the Cultural Revolution and Mao Zedong by removing the phrase “Mao Zedong (was) primarily responsible for the Cultural Revolution.
Voice of America quoted Rong Wei, editor-in-chief of the International Quarterly of Contemporary China Review, as saying that the current Chinese Communist Party authorities can only wishfully rehabilitate the Cultural Revolution. It is difficult for the party to agree with Xi Jinping on the evaluation of the Cultural Revolution, and it will not allow and support Xi’s “left turn. The post-50s generation, who have lived through the Cultural Revolution and are still the backbone of Chinese society, are also strongly opposed to a return to the Cultural Revolution.
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