"The Four" & events in China 1976 (4): April etc 1/2

[rolf.martens@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Rolf Martens)]

"The Four" & events in China 1976 (4): April etc 1/2   [Sent:13.05.96]

This is part of a discussion on the Jefferson Village Virginia
Marxism list and is also sent to newsgroups.


[¤1.    INTRODUCTION]

[This posting above all contains some excerpts from a book  by 
Beijing foreign correspondent Clare Hollingworth entitled "Mao" and 
published in 1985, with comments by me in brackets and with some 
quotes also from the Peking Review, concerning the events on 
Tiananmen Square in Beijing on 05.04.1976, which is one of the 
two important points in the Chinese people's struggle against the 
phoney-"Left" one of those two groups which were opposing Mao Zedong's 
correct line at that time, namely, the "Gang of Four". The other 
important point is the great blow against that Gang in October '76.]

[Clare Hollingworth worked in Beijing for several years in the '70:s 
as correspondent for the British conservative newspaper The Daily
Telegraph. She was present in Beijing, for instance, in 1976. The
full title of her 1985 book is: "MAO and the men against him". Like
practically all other bourgeois journalists, she defends, and writes 
according to, the thesis that Jiang Qing and the "Gang of Four"
(named so by Mao Zedong in 1974) were not a phoney"Leftist" and
real Rightist group but a genuinely Leftist one. Despite this, her
reporting, which on certain points are in such agreement with others
that it seems probable that it's not entirely mendacious, at least, 
IMO merits attention and should be compared with, for instance,
that of the Peking Review at the time. In 1985, the Deng Xiaoping
openly-Rightist clique of course was in power in China.- RM]


[¤2     SOME BACKGROUND INFORMATION. From page 288]

"It is now suggested that Chen Boda, under the direction of 'the
traitor Lin Biao', opened the campaign to criticise Premier Zhou
as early as October 1966 when he gave orders that 'Everyone can
be criticised except Chairman Mao, Lin Biao and Jiang Qing',
which meant, 'Criticise Premier Zhou'. A poster criticising the 
Premier was put up in the university in January 1967 but was taken
down within two days on the express orders of the Chairman. From
that time onwards, despite the great respect and popularity the
Premier enjoyed with the 'broad masses', it is now known that there
were constant open and undercover attacks led by Jiang Qing
against him. Although the healthy leaders were frequently 
photograped laughing and joking together, perceptive friends such
as Prince Norodom Shianouk and even the late Edgar Snow were
deeply worried."

[On the details of this, I have no confirmation. And generally speaking,
many lies in the mid-'80:s were presented by the Deng clique under
the heading "It is now known that...". So there certainly is need for
caution. But the drift of this paragraph fits in well with other 
information. Zhou Enlai was a great revolutionary and an important
ally of Mao Zedong. I hold it to be very likely that there indeed were
such unjustified attacks on him as Ms Hollingworth maintains, on the
part of Jiang Qing. When below that correspondent reports on the
events on Tienanmen Square on 05.04.1976, this fits in with other
information too. Concerning her statements on the events which
preceded the 05.04.76 mass protests I have no confirmation, and
on one point at least she obviously "forgets" something - see my
comment. I find it useful to include part of her "background story"
too, anyway.]


[From pages 291 ff:]

"*Chapter 16*"

"*The Power Struggle in the Open*"

"The death of premier Zhou Enlai on January 8th, 1976 was the
catalyst for the smouldering power struggle of 1974/5 to burst
into the open." [It's natural for a correspondent of the "Daily T." to
refer to "power struggle" instead of class struggle, of course.]
"Although his death at seventy-eight had long been expected the
whole nation appeared grief-stricken. Jiang Qing took took
enormous precautions to isolate the Chairman as Premier Zhou
lay dying," [again, caution - this was written in 1985, so it's not clear
whether this is one of the Deng clique's "It is now known that..." lies
or not] "in an effort to prevent the anticipated, automatic promotion
of Deng, who had been effectively filling the role of Premier for the
last year."

[Yes, but who had also, at that time, already been under public
criticism for some months, although not mentioned by name yet, as
the target of the just struggle against the "Right deviationist wind to
reverse correct judgements". So it was by no means "automatic"
that he would be appointed Premier. The "Daily T." correspondent
must have known this in 1976; she had "forgotten" it in 1985.]

"Certainly the Chairman was ailing but the 'inside people' claimed
it was Jiang Qing who personally prevented him from attending any
of the sad celebrations that marked the Premier's lying in state,
cremation and the scattering of his ashes 'over the country he loved'.
In addition it was noted that Mao made no public tribute to his 'old
comrade' despite the fact he must have seen hundreds of thousands
of Chinese on his much-used television screen openly weeping with
uncontrolled grief. Diplomats and foreign correspondents were
bewildered, too, by the fact that the only representatives who 
accompanied the body to the crematorium through the Avenue of
Heavenly Peace were the radical Wang Hongwen" [by no means a
genuine radical but one of the "Gang of Four" already criticised at
party meetings by Mao Zedong since 1974] "and Wang Dongxing,
formerly Mao's bodyguard. However, there was general relief when
Deng Xiaoping read the eulogy, as requested by the dead Premier,
who had made no secret of his desire that Deng should succeed
him."

[Here Ms Hollingworth again "forgets" the correct criticism, since 
autumn 1975, of Deng's renewed Right opportunism. She slanders 
Zhou Enlai as being a supporter of Deng despite this. Precisely the 
same thing had then already been maintained by the "Gang of Four"
propagandists Avakian and Lotta, USA, in their books "Mao 
Tsetung's Immortal Contributions", 1978-79, repectively "And Mao 
Makes 5", 1978.]

"Throughout the land, in small isolated communes as well as large
cities, memorial ceremonies were held but comparatively little
appeared in the radical-controlled press about the man who had
served the Chinese Communist Party and people for fifty-four
years. Foreigners were requested not to organise any public
ceremonies , and when national mourning was at its height,
orders were suddenly issued prohibiting any further expressions
of grief and people were told to take off their black armbands."

[Here Ms Hollingworth obviously is writing about something which
she herself observed at the time. She hardly can have invented
what says in her last sentence above.]

"While foreigners living in Peking were concerned that Deng was
not named as Premier and did not appear in public, they appeared
to believe that in the end the Chairman would appoint him on the
grounds that he had been well trained by Zhou. By the end of 
January I discovered almost by accident that Deng was already in
disgrace for a second time....."

"....Later that day I wrote a report saying Deng would not succeed
Premier Zhou and that he was already in disgrace somwhere in
the countryside. (Unhappily, ths important piece of information 
failed to attract the eye of the news editor and the piece was
drastically cut and used on an inside page where it passed
virtually unnoticed.)" [Since it was "bad news" to the "Daily T."]

"During the last days of January Deng's disappearance was
followed by that of Ye Jianying, the Defence minister, an Li
Xiannan, the 'financial wizard´', both of whom were close friends
of Premier Zhou." [Or rather, popular with the "Daily T".] "At the
same time posters appeared in the university attacking 'capitalist
roaders' (some of them even mentioning Deng by name) while the
theoretical journal, *Red Flag*, reviled 'rightist elements'. The
sensational power struggle resulted in a compromise as Hua 
Guofeng, Minister for Public Security, the agriculurist from Mao's
home town, was named Acting Prime Minister on February 8th by
the *People's Daily* in a report on the reception of the new
Venezuelan Ambassador." [Also in Peking Review No. 7 / 1976,
13.02.76.]


[¤3.    A COMMENT ON THE OPENLY BOURGEOIS AND
        AVAKIANIST "COMPROMISE" BULLSHIT THEORY]

[A "compromise"? Nothing of the sort. Mao Zedong and the other
real communists were combating two deviations, the openly
Rightist one of Deng Xiaoping and the phoney"Left" one of the 
Gang of Four. That was why Hua was appointed Acting Premier
instead of either Deng or, for instance, Zhang Chunqiao, who
within the CPC held "higher rank" than Hua but who was one of
"The Four". The same rotten "compromise" theory also has been 
put forward by the Avakianists. In their "RIM Declaration" of 1984,
for instance, which so unfortunately was endorsed by the PCP,
too, later the same year, and which since then has been
translated into more than 20 languages, they put out the vile
slander that "China's diplomacy" "to a great extent" was being
"controlled by the revisionists" - which, if true, would have meant
that state power in China "to a great extent" already was in the 
hands of those revisionists.] 

[The spearhead of this hefty chunk of disinformation, straight from 
the lie factory of the CIA or from that of the KGB or from both of 
them, and handed out by some people who had the bad taste to 
call themselves "Maoists", was directed precisely at the brilliant 
proletarian revolutionary line of chairman Mao and at the Great 
Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China, 1966-76. I attacked this 
dastardly lie, among other things, in my 12.08.94 article, later posted 
as "UNITE! Info #3en" on 01.01.96, in which the reactionary character 
of that bullshit "Declaration" was publicly exposed for the first time.]

"As Hua's promotion, from the fifth-ranking Vice Premier to the
top, was announced the press and posters broke into violent
criticism of Deng and Zhou's associates". [Again this "mix-up".]
......"Jiang Qing threw her weight around in Peking by
encouraging anti-Deng posters to be set up...." [Later, Deng
Xiaoping's group, also joined by Hua Guofengs' group, who since 
November 1976 had embarked on a path of open treason, claimed 
that the 1975-76 criticism against Deng had been solely an attack 
by the Gang of Four. This of course by no means was the case. ]

"..........The triangular power struggle" [as Ms Hollingworth thought
it was, and not the struggle between the proletariat, on the one
hand, and two bourgois deviations, on the other, those two
deviations also contending with each other, which was the actual 
case] "continued as Hua, who held the Chair as Premier,
attempted to placate the radicals without offending the right-
wing 'Marshal' on whom he was also dependent".

 [The openly bourgeois correspondent "analyzes" the struggle in the 
same manner as the Avakianist bullshit "radicals", of course. But 
here comes some reporting on actual events which merits attention.]


[¤4.    MS HOLLINGWORTH'S ACCOUNT OF APRIL EVENTS] 

"Strangely enough it was the broad masses who brought matters
to a head during the Quing Ming Festival in early April on Tiananmen
Square. Obviously preparations to mourn the death of Premier Zhou
during the traditional ceremonies of 'sweeping out the graves' had
been made weeks in advance. On March 30th a huge wreath 
dedicated to Zhou was placed on the Martyr's Memorial on the 
square. I lived nearby and noted that from that moment groups of
people began to bring large wreaths of artificial flowers from
factories and outlying agricultural communes. Although the radio
stressed that people should not waste their time in making wreaths
or taking them to Tiananmen Square during a ceremony that 'was
meant for ghosts', adding that  commemorating the dead is an
outmoded custom, by Friday April 2nd the small stream of visitors  
had developed into a flood. Almost all the people in the square
wore black armbands and many wore buttonholes of white
homemade artificial flowers."

"In Peking news soon gets around and by Sunday the entire 
population believed it was the thing to do to go to the square.
Indeed, as I left the city early in the morning for a brief visit to the
Western Hills, I met tens of thousands of people on foot, in buses
and on bicycles converging on the city in an orderly manner. Some
were reciting the songs they had composed in praise of the late
Prenier whilst others were reciting poerty."

"Later in the day, when the square appeared to hold hundreds of
thousands of people - it does hold a million - wreaths were stacked
over fifty feet high on all sides of the monument. Hundreds were
hung on lamp-posts and others displayed on special tables and
trucks with ribbons or scrolls containing verses mourning Zhou.
Two volumes of poems have been produced from the poems
and tributes displayed during those days of mourning. There
were, too, notices criticising Jiang Qing in slightly disguised
terms such as 'Down with the Dowager Empress: down with
Indira Gandhi!" while others were indirectly critical of the
Chairman for failing to implement 'Premier Zhou's pragmatic
and progressive policies'. Throughout the day the gates of the
university had been closed in order to prevent students joining
the ceowds in the square but many climbed the high walls in
order to take their tributes to the square."

[Thus there were two different elements present in the mass of 
those statements: One rather openly attacking Jiang Qing, one in 
fact defending Deng Xiaoping. From which standpoint were the 
attacks on Jiang Qing, from the contending bourgeois standpoint 
of Deng Xiaoping or from the proletarian standpoint? Possibly, 
indeed probably, there were attacks of both these kinds. But it's an 
indubitable fact that *the masses* of Beijing and its surroundings 
were in action here. One can be certain of the fact that they would 
*not* have been supporting the standpoint of Deng Xiaoping. This
mass movement certainly must have been, in the main, a
revolutionary one, attacking the Gang of Four and defending the
line of Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai. Only a secondary aspect of 
the events was that of pro-Deng elements trying to take advantage 
of the situation.]

"In the early morning hours of Monday morning" [05.04.1976] 
"lorries belonging to the army but driven by members of the People's
Militia drove into the square and a few hundred uniformed men and
women tore down the wreaths and slogans and threw them into the
lorries. Then shortly after dawn I watched hundreds of efficient-
looking troops getting out of buses in barracks near to the square,
but these regular soldiers, as far as I know, remained in reserve
and were never used in the subsequent disturbances."

"When the word got around that the wreaths had been removed,
despite continuos warning over the radio not to go to the square
again, angry crowds collected demanding of the police and the
urban militiamen what had happened to the wreaths. The word got
around - this time quite wrongly - that they had been taken into the
Great Hall of the People. The crowd then surged towards the hall
loudly demanding admission but a few hundred policemen 
suddenly emerged from the hall and prevented the crowd's 
approach. This made them even more angry."

"The a young man, obviously a strong supporter of Jiang Qing, 
shouted from the top step of the memorial that the crowd's
demands were wrong and claimed there was no need to present
wreaths to the late Premier Zhou, who was 'The biggest
capitalist roader in the Party!' I watched as the crowd rounded  on
him in fury and threw him down the steps of the monument causing
him serious injuries. Groups got together as the day progressed
singing the 'Internationale'" 

[versions in different languages of which, incidentially, one participant
in the present debate on the Marxism list has asked for - I'll send a 
tape of the Chinese one to you as I've promised, Gina, and please 
think of it as sung against the Gang of Four and also against such 
similar people as the Avakianist Herbie the Hermaphrodite aka "Mr 
Quispe" / "Ms Ccorimanya", whom you're quite wrong to continue 
supporting]  

"and to demand access to the Mayor or the 'boss' of the security
bureau in the square. In the early afternoon, as the crowds were
ordered to disperse, one crowd in a moment of mass hysteria"
[no "Daily T. party" here, so it must be "mass hysteria", mustn't it?]
"set fire to an empty car and then to two jeeps and a small bus that
were following. Meanwhile, the crowds in other parts of the square
were laying even more wreaths apparently unaware of the burning
cars until they saw the smoke and smelled the burning rubber. 
Scores of people were injured as the crowds moved first in one
direction and then in another. Little if any anti-foreign sentiment
was expressed."

"The hurly-burly grew worse as the afternoon wore on and after the
jeeps were burned the crowd burst into the headquarters of one of 
the security forces, initially in an effort to discuss the problem of the
missing wreaths with a senior officer. Confidential files were hurled
>from the windows by angry young men and women before the
building was set on fire."

"Soon after six in the evening the loudspeakers broadcast an appeal
>from the Mayor of Peking, Wu De, to disperse and not 'to fall into the
trap that had been set for them'."

[Continued in Part 2/2]






  


 







  
 

 




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