"The Four" & events in China 1976 (6): Shanghai, Oct

[rolf.martens@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Rolf Martens)]

"The Four" & events in China 1976 (6): Shanghai, Oct   [Sent:13.05.96]

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


In this posting on the role of the Gang of Four in the struggle
which eventually led to the overtrow of socialism in China,
I bring an

EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT OF EVENTS IN
SHANGHAI IN OCTOBER 1976.

Below is an extract from the book (originally in German) by Klaus
Mehnert: "Kampf um Maos Erbe" ("Struggle over the Heritage of
Mao"), Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt GmbH,1977. The exerpt is
translated from a Swedish translation of the book, 1979, pages
38-39.Comments in brackets are ny me.

"The jubilation after the overthrow of The Four" [in October 1976]
"had, it seems to me, first of all its roots in the hope that those
insufferable campaigns now would have an end."

[There were of course many campaigns in China at that time, and
of various characters. First of all there were proletarian campaigns,
against various bourgeois ideas and policies. These were good and
absolutely necessary. Secondly there no doubt were a certain amount
of hypocritical phoney"leftist" boring reactionary campaigns which
practically nobody wanted. Adherents of the bourgeoisie, such as is
no doubt this author, probably disliked both kinds, so he might be
exaggerating here about how "insufferable" some of them were.]

This was paricularly clearly seen where you would least of all have
expected it, in Shanghai, supposedly the very bastion of The Four.
Independent Weatern eyewitnesses to events in Shanghai
unequivocally recount that precisely in that city, the jubilation over
the overthrow of of the Four appeared to be particularly genuine
and spontaneous. I quote an American professor, specialist in
Russian and communist history, who described the city during
those days as a mixture of Petrograd 1917 (Lenin's revolution)
and the Carneval in Rio:

"The atmosphere was electrical, since what was taking place did
so spontaneously. (.....) The wall posters (.....) fascinated millions
of people. The workers left their factories in order to look at them,
he policemen left their sentry-boxes to study them, the soldiers left
their barracks to scrutinize them.(.....) It was a revolt directed
against The Four, not in particular in favour of Peking." [Meaning,
the government.] "Hua's name was seldom mentioned." [That of Hua
Guofeng, appointed First Vice Chairman of the CPC on Mao Zedong's
proposal on 07.04.76 and now in October being appointed Chairman,
in connection with the striking-down of the Gang of Four.] "'We are
tired of being mobilised in our free time by The Four for
participation in their projects', people said."

"For ten days Shanghai, this city with a small surface area and
an enormous population, was constantly like a happy sardine can
crammed full with blue-clad people. (.....) .'This is not a
demonstration', people said. 'This is a celebration.' (.....) Often
it was arranged for all of us eleven million people in Shanghai
jointly to sing the 'Internationale'. (.....) Being immersed all day
in the most colossal of all concievable crowds, marching with them on
nimble feet, constantly seeing those red flags, the banners and the
people constantly pulsating and moving, hearing the songs of the
masses and constantly feeling the penetrating din of the drums,
and at the same time knowing that enormous masses of people out of
sight, but still not far away, were doing exactly the same thing
as we, and that we were all experiencing a turning-point in history -
that was an intensive, deeply affecting and indeed psychedelic
experience, of an intensity as strong as any man can bear."

[So far the extract from Klaus Mehnert's book with its quoted
eyewitness account of events in Shanghai in October 1976.]




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