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(a) Campaign 'Let a hundred flowers blossom' (1956). In June 1957, the campaign becomes a violent denunciation and persecution of 'rightist intellectuals', often qualified later on as 'evil geniuses'. The launching of the 'Great Leap Forward' in May 1958, and in August 1958 of the 'popular communes'. In August 1959, purging of Peng Dehuai (Defence Minister), who criticizes the movement of collectivization. Lin Biao replaces him.
(b) Stating in 1961, the recognition of a disastrous outcome of economic voluntarism. The Central Committee decides to 're-adjust' the objectives. Liu Shaoqi replaces Mao Zedong as president of the Republic. Between 1962 and 1966, fifteen million copies are sold in China of Liu's works, against six million of Mao's. Publication of the historical piece by Wu Han (deputy mayor of Peking), "The Purging of Hai Rui" (an indirect criticism of this event). In September 1965, at a conference of the Politburo, Mao demands but does not obtain the condemnation of Wu Han. He retires to Shanghai.
(a) In collaboration with Jiang Qing, Mao's wife, Yao Wenyuan publishes a violent article in Shanghai against Wu Han. It is aimed at the mayor of Beijing, Peng Zhen, held to be the chief of the 'black gang'. In January and February 1966, a first 'Group of the Central Committee for the Cultural Revolution' is formed to judge the case, paradoxically put under the authority of Peng Zhen. This group (called 'the Group of Five') disseminates the 'February Theses' which are quite insignificant, and which tend to limit criticism.
(b) Meanwhile another group is constituted in Shanghai, under the aegis of Lin Biao and Jiang Qing, which holds a 'discussion on the literary and artistic activities in the army'. The texts are transmitted to the Military Commission of the Central Committee (organ of the highest importance). The division of the party seems consummated.
(c) In May 1966, 'enlarged' meeting of the Politburo. Nomination of a new 'Central Committee's Cultural Revolution Group', and vehement condemnation of the group of Peng Zhen in a fundamental document for all subsequent events, known as the '16 May Circular'. It is necessary, the text says, 'to criticize the representatives of the bourgeoisie infiltrated in the party, the government, the army and the cultural milieu'. By 25 May, seven students of Beida University attack the president of the university in a large-character poster. True beginning of the student mobilization.
(d) Mao leaves Beijing. The authorities send 'work groups' to the universities in order to control the movement. Between the end of May and the end of July, the so-called 'fifty days' period, in which the brutal containment by these 'work groups' is predominant.
(e) On 18 July Mao returns to Beijing. Abolition of the work groups. From 1 August until 12 August, a session of the 'enlarged' Central Committee is held. It is not according to the rules. Lin Biao uses the army to prohibit the presence of regular members and to allow the presence of revolutionaries who come from the student world. The Maoist line in these conditions obtains a brief majority. Mao publicly supports the Beida University poster. He appears before the crowd on 9 July. Political charter of the revolution: the 'Decision in Sixteen Points'. It reads in particular: 'In the great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, the only method is for the masses to liberate themselves, and any method of doing things in their stead must not be used.' That is to say, there will be no repression of the initiatives coming from the student groups.
(a) By 20 August, arriving from high-school and university institutions, activist groups of 'Red Guards' spread out in the city, in order to 'destroy completely the old thought, culture, customs and habits'. In particular, a very harsh persecution of intellectuals and professors, once more considered, according to Mao himself, as 'evil geniuses'. Succession of immense gatherings of Red Guards in Beijing, following in particular the right given to them to circulate freely on the trains, for the sake of 'large exchanges of experience'. Criticism of Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping in posters, tracts, cartoons, small newspapers…
(b) Starting in November, first political incidents linked to the intervention of the Red Guards in factories. The anti-Maoists use the official unions and certain peasant militias against the revolutionaries, who themselves begin to be divided into splinter groups ('factionalism'). Violence here and there.
(a) The authorities in place in Shanghai provoke disturbances by encouraging all kinds of 'economist' demands in the workers' milieux. Particularly acute problem: the salary of temporary peasant workers, and the question of bonuses. Transportation strike, and hunting down of student groups. In January 1967, a set of Red Guards and of 'rebel revolutionaries' have formed 'factory committees' by occupying the administrative offices, the means of communication, etc. They overthrow the party committee, and decide to form the 'Shanghai Commune'. Endless negotiations among the groups. Domination of the workers' groups and still a very limited presence of the old cadres of the army and state.
(b) The 'power struggles' become generalized in the entire country, starting in February 1967. Great disorder in the state and the economy. The very unequal politicization explains why the putting into place of new organs of power is anarchic and precarious. Tendency to purge and 'judge' all the old cadres, or conversely, manipulation by the cadres of 'revolutionary' groups that are more or less fake. Settling of accounts mixed in with revolutionary zeal.
(c) The central authority is then concentrated in the Central Committee's Cultural Revolution Group, the State Council, led by Zhou Enlai, and finally the Military Commission, controlled by Lin Biao. It is this authority that decides on a formula for the new powers, called the 'triple combination': one-third of representatives from the 'revolutionary masses', one-third of party cadres who have withstood the test or 'corrected' themselves, and one-third of military personnel. The revolutionary 'mass' organization must first unite among them (the 'great alliance'). The name of the new organ is 'the Revolutionary Three-in-One Combination Committee'. The first provincial committee of this kind is formed on 13 February (in the province of Kweichow).
(a) At the same time that the critique of Liu Shaoqi begins in the official press (still without mentioning his name), disorder spreads everywhere. Numerous incidents of violence, including armed ones, oppose either the Maoists to the conservatives, the security and armed forces alternately to the former and to the latter, or else, finally, the Maoist groups among themselves. The mass organizations split up very frequently. The revolutionary leadership also divides itself. One tendency aims to unify the revolutionary organizations as quickly as possible, and everywhere to put into place committees that will give due space to the old cadres. In fact, this tendency quickly seeks to reconstruct the party. Zhou Enlai, who, it is true, is in charge of the maintenance of the elementary functions of the state, is the most active figure in this direction. Another tendency wants to eliminate a very large number of cadres, and to expand the purge to the administration, including the army. Its best-known representatives are Wang Li and Qi Benyu.
(b) In July, the Wuhan incident puts the region and, finally, the whole country, in a climate of civil war. The army in this city openly protects the traditional cadres and the workers' organizations that are tied to them. Wang Li, sent on an envoy by the central authority, which seeks to support the 'rebels', is locked up and beaten. It is necessary for external military forces to intervene. The unity of the army is thus threatened.
(c) Appearance of the posters against Zhou Enlai. During all of August, moments of anarchic violence, particularly in Canton. Weapon depots are sacked. Dozens of people die every day. The British Embassy is set on fire in Beijing.
(a) In September 1967, Mao, after a tour in the province, decides in favour of the 'reconstructive' line. Fundamentally, he supports Zhou Enlai and gives the army an extended role (where the factions do not manage to reach an agreement, there will be 'military control'). The extreme-left group (Wang Li) is eliminated from the central organs of power. 'Study sessions of Mao Zedong Thought' are organized for everyone, often under the aegis of the military. Slogans: 'Support the left, and not the factions', based on a statement included in Mao's report: 'Nothing essential divides the working class.'
(b) In many places, this rectification is practised by way of a violent repression of the Red Guards, and even of the rebel workers, and as an occasion for political revenge (this is the 'February Counter Current'). As a result, Mao calls once again for action by the end of March 1968: it is necessary to defend the revolutionary committees and to fear neither disturbances nor factionalism.
(c) However, this is the last 'mass' brawl. The central authority decides to put an end to the last bastions of the student revolt, which are abandoned to the often bloody wars among splinter groups, all the while avoiding, at least in Beijing, direct military control. Detachments of workers are sent into the universities. The central group of the Cultural Revolution receives the most famous 'leftist' students, who have physically resisted the entry of these workers. It turns out to be a dialogue of the deaf (the most notorious 'rebel' student, Kuai Dafu, will be arrested).
(d) The directive 'the working class must be in command in everything' seals the end of the Red Guards and of the revolutionary rebels, and in the name of 'struggle, criticism, reform', opens a phase devoted to the reconstruction of the party. A huge number of young revolutionaries is sent to the countryside, or to faraway camps.
(a) The Ninth Congress of the Party, in April 1969, ratifies an authoritarian return to order, largely structured by the army (45 per cent of the members of the Central Committee) under the direction of Lin Biao.
(b) This militarist period, which is terribly oppressive, leads to new violent confrontations in the midst of the party. Lin Biao is eliminated (probably assassinated) in 1971.
(c) Until Mao's death, a long and complex period, marked by the endless conflict between Deng Xiaoping and many old cadres who have returned to business under the protection of Zhou Enlai, on one hand, and, on the other, the 'Gang of Four', which embodies the memory of the Cultural Revolution (Yao Wenyuan, Zhang Chunqiao, Jiang King and Wang Hongwen).
(d) Right after the death of Mao, in 1976, the four are arrested. Deng takes over power for a long period, which is indeed largely defined by the implantation of capitalist methods (during the Cultural Revolution, he was called 'the second highest among the officials who, despite being of the party, have taken the capitalist road'), with the maintenance of the party-state.