H-PRC Qi Benyu, last surviving member of Central Group goes to see Karl Marx

Discussion published by Michael Schoenhals on Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Qi Benyu (戚本禹), the last surviving member of the Central Cultural Revolution Group, passed away this morning, 20 April 2016. Qi hailed from Weihai in Shandong province, but had been born in Shanghai in 1931. He joined the CCP in 1949. A link to his recollections of , Jiang Qing et al. (as published on the internet last year) appeared earlier on H-PRC, together with a few direct quotes, here: https://networks.h-net.org/node/3544/discussions/77468/qi-benyu-remembers-jiang-qing

To historians, what has to count as one of the most interesting pieces penned by Qi is a report《关于“调查 研究”的调查》dating from 12 May 1961. It amounted to a highly critical description of how intermediate and lower-level officials were supposedly perverting the Maoist policy of ”investigation and research.” A first-hand account, it was based on what Qi had seen and heard while on an extended “participant observation” stint in the Changxindian Locomotive Plant just outside . Many of the practices he described were examples of what we today often speak of as “corruption” and it is worth noting that both the Socialist Education Movement and Cultural Revolution were designed in part to rectify these same practices. Qi’s report was passed on to Mao by Tian Jiaying and was then widely reprinted in classified provincial Party journals (e.g. 《河北建设》No. 532, 10 June 1961), together with positive comments by Mao. The editor-compilers of the 《建国以来毛泽东文告》have reprinted almost all of Mao’s comments on pp. 504–505 of vol. 9 in their series, but for some reason quietly left out the following one-liner:“戚本禹同志是一个好同志，是1958年敢于反抗中央直属党委扶右派反左派的错误路线的领导干部之一——毛注”.

Citation: Michael Schoenhals. Qi Benyu, last surviving member of Central Cultural Revolution Group goes to see Karl Marx. H-PRC. 04-20-2016. https://networks.h-net.org/node/3544/discussions/121422/qi-benyu-last-surviving-member-central-cultural-revolution-group Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 1