MODERN HISTORY

To what extent was Madame Mao responsible for the ?

Since the years after Madame Mao’s death there have been many accounts of her life trying to penetrate the shroud of mystery surrounding her life. There are many speculations on her motivations and the raison d'être of her actions during the Cultural Revolution.

Some historians have argued that acted on behalf of her husband, that she was forced into becoming the figurehead for the Cultural Revolution and that she had no choice in anything that she did.

In February 1965, the Chairman dispatched Jiang Qing to . Her mission was to lay the ideological powder-trail which, at the opportune moment, he would light, triggering the tortuous events that would plunge into the fiery chaos of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.”1

Philip Short argues, “Mao acted in a devious and convoluted manner for the consideration of deniability.”2 He claims that had anything gone wrong with Mao’s plan he “would have blamed it on the excessive zeal of Jiang Qing, whose public role in cultural affairs would have made her a credible scapegoat.” 3

Even Madame Mao herself tries to absolve her responsibility for her involvement in the Cultural Revolution.

“I was Chairman Mao's dog. What he said to bite, I bit.” 4

Other historians argue that the Cultural Revolution was the culmination of Madame Mao’s revenge against all those she felt had wronged her – party authorities that had slighted her or actors and actresses who had taken roles that she had coveted. History has cast Madame Mao as an enthusiastic instigator of many of the “excesses” of the Chinese Cultural Revolution.

Ross Terrill declares that Jiang Qing was a “vicious woman who helped dispose of many people.”5 That due to her “personalized, arbitrary …a revolution was betrayed; a great people were taken for granted like a herd of tame sheep; a nation was diverted from economic development to the vain rituals of court politics.”6

The truth probably lies somewhere in between those two extremes. Madame Mao was an extremely strong and resilient woman who had deep-rooted beliefs in Communism and Maoism. She dreamt and hoped for a capitalist free China, for a China where equality reigned over all else.

Cushioned by the environment within a cocoon of power, she had made a series of identifications between her own personality and the Communist cause.

Her rebelliousness, born when she saw her father attack her mother, she aligned with the class revolt of the dispossessed against ‘capitalists’ and ‘landlords.’ Her quest for vindication as a woman she now saw as requiring the gathering into her hands of supreme power within the Communist Party of China”7

1 Philip Short, Mao A Life (London, 1999), pg. 527 2 Philip Short, Mao A Life (London, 1999), pg. 533 3 Philip Short, Mao A Life (London, 1999), pg. 533 4 Madam Mao 5 Ross Terrill, Madam Mao: The White-Boned Demon (Stanford, 1984), pg. 322 6 Ross Terrill, Madam Mao: The White-Boned Demon (Stanford, 1984), pg. 322 7 Ross T Terrill, Madam Mao: The White-Boned Demon (Stanford, 1984), pg. 323

Perhaps she believed that the end justified the means. She started out with all the right intentions, however she got caught up in the power struggles and the bloodthirstiness that dominates politics and got lost along the way. Her ideals and ambitions would become confused, a confusion that would result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and the destruction of thousands of years of history.

Of course she was not alone in her ideals and ambitions nor did she act alone. Her decisions in the Cultural Revolution were supported and strengthened by her husband. Jiang could not possibly have achieved her power and influence without the support Mao had from the army and without the masses’ worship of Mao.

She was not coerced or forced into anything; neither did she act out of revenge or vindictiveness. She cherished the revolutionary cause and defended her beliefs even to her death.

Later, even in captivity, for fifteen years Jiang Qing’s unrepentant spirit and revolutionary optimism never faltered, she never backed off her stand that “it's right to rebel against reactionaries!”8 Shortly before her death there were reports of how she would read news about what was going on in China and bitterly comment, “This is not Chairman Mao's revolutionary line.”9

Jiang Qing was a vital part of the Cultural Revolution. Many important documents of the Cultural Revolution stemmed from Jiang’s personal views and tendencies.

She helped deliver what Mao called ‘the signal’ for the beginning of the Cultural Revolution. Under Mao and her leadership an article was written criticizing the play “Hai Jui Dismissed from Office,” which was a thinly disguised attack on the revolution. It was this article that sounded the call for the masses to expose and remove those in the party who were capitalist sympathizers. She was also instrumental in writing the May 16th Circular - a very important statement of principles, which set out the goals and methods for the Cultural Revolution.

Jiang Qing was heavily involved in the arts (stemming from her previous experience as an actress) and deeply believed in combining the arts and the Party’s political agenda. Jiang Qing gave voice to a new generation of theatergoers and actors who made urgent demands on the arts.

A new consciousness was developing among the people and they wanted plays, ballets, music and other artistic works that reflected the new society. They wanted cultural works that exposed the old society they had fought so hard to overthrow, they wanted a culture that would support and push forward the ongoing struggle to radically transform society. Jiang Qing united with this sentiment and was instrumental in developing a new revolutionary culture that was widely taken up by the masses.

She controlled the propaganda and cultural departments through her revolutionary Peking Operas and modern plays using the three-in-one combination (leading groups made up of three components: leadership cadres, playwrights and the masses). She used the classical arts to take up topical political themes and deliver her propaganda.

Our operatic stage is occupied by emperors, princes, generals, ministers, scholars and beauties, and on top of these, ghosts and monsters...There are well over 600 million workers, peasants and soldiers in our country, whereas there is only a handful of landlords, rich peasants, counter- revolutionaries, bad elements, Rightists, and bourgeois elements. Shall

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We serve this handful, or the 600 million? The grain we eat is grown by the peasants, the clothes we wear and the houses we live in are all made by the workers, and the People's Liberation Army stands guard at the fronts of national defence for us and yet we do not portray them on stage. May I ask which class stand you artists take? And where is the artists’ ‘conscience’ you always talk about?”10

Thirty-odd years on from the event, Madame Mao has become the scapegoat for all that had gone wrong with the Cultural Revolution. She has become known as the “white-boned demon” the “personification of evil”, the instigator of all the excesses and extremes of the Cultural Revolution. However what occurred during the Cultural Revolution occurred as a result of two people’s fanaticism - it could not have been possible without either one of them. Madame Mao acted in concert with the help and support of her husband, Chairman Mao to further the ideals and beliefs that she held to.

Chairman Mao provided the military and political support that Jiang Qing needed to spread her doctrines and propaganda and bring about the Cultural Revolution.

“Be resolute, fear no sacrifice and surmount every difficulty to win victory.” - .

This was the kind of life Jiang Qing lived from the moment she became a revolutionary until the day she died. As a woman who defied tradition's chains, she faced tremendous and added obstacles throughout her life.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Short, P., Mao A Life, (London, 1999)

Schram, S., Political Leaders of the Twentieth Century Mao Tse-Tung, (Great Britain, 1966)

Hinton, H.C., An introduction to Chinese Politics, (Great Britain, 1973)

Snow, E., Red Star Over China, (Great Britain, 1938, revised edition 1968)

10 Madam Mao