(Yan and Gao, 1996: 215). The major newspapers in June of 1966 started writing
editorials and stories encouraging the public to study the thought of Chairman
Mao by reading . On June 6 both the Liberation Army Daily and the People’s Daily
simultaneously published a front page article calling on the Chinese people to
study Mao Zedong Thought and reading Selected Works of Mao Zedong. The headline
read, “Raise high the Great Red Flag of Mao Zedong, Carry to the end the great
proletariat revolution.” (Yan and Gao, 1996: 215) It was no coincidence that the
Liberation Army Daily and the People’s Daily both carried the same story about
increasing Mao Zedong thought study. It symbolized the rise in power of Lin Biao
who with the start of the Cultural Revolution and the expulsion of Liu Shaoqi
had increased his power within the communist party. Lin Biao’s ideas of
education and indoctrination into Maoist thought had with the publishing of the
story in the People’s Daily in June of 1966 moved from the army to all of China.
From this point on until he lost favor with Mao in 1970 Lin Biao became the
cheerleader of the Cult of Mao directing the national frenzy that enveloped
China with its adoration of Mao Zedong (Dutt and Dutt, 1970: 80).
Under the leadership of Lin Biao the leading newspapers in China printed
stories urging readers to read the works of Mao. As of yet the only books
available to the public was the four volume long Selected Works of Mao Zedong;
the Red Book had not yet become available to the pubic. In the fall of 1966 the
People’s Daily published such headlines as, ‘Mao Zedong thought is the red sun
within our bosom,” and stories in newspapers were filled with such lines as,
“Chairman Mao’s books are not gold, but are more precious then gold; not steel,
but stronger then steel.” (Yan and Gao, 1996: 183) Pictures from this time
depicted happy Chinese citizens reading pamphlets by Mao such as the, “Man Who
Moved The Mountain.” But as of yet the number of pictures in 1966 that pictured
Red Books was limited and only included members of the armed forces. But the
stories in the newspapers and other propaganda put out by the government such as
radio broadcasts stirred up a great fever in support of Mao and the study of Mao
Zedong Thought. On August 12 following the Eleventh Plenum of the Eighth party
congress copies of The Selected Works of Mao Zedong were distributed at major
universities before they were shut down to prepare for the Cultural Revolution.
During the rest of 1966 newspapers reported daily on the sale on The Selected
Works of Mao Zedong. The government lowered the price of the set of books to two
yuan so that every person could posses a copy of the Selected Works. Sales were
brisk then starting in January of 1967 Lin Biao made Quotations From Chairman
Mao available to the public. Everyone immediately wanted to buy it. Group study
sessions of the book became common. At many Red Guard rallies during the next
several years Red Guard troops set whole pages of the book to song (Yan and Gao,
1996: 248). Lin Biao ordered the presses of China to print millions of copies of
the Red Book and distribute them to the public. The Chinese media encouraged the
reading of the Red Book by printing stories extolling the virtues of those who
committed the book to memory. (Yan and Gao, 1996: 249)
Granny Liu spent days and nights studying the works of Chairman Mao.
When she forgot, she called other to teach her. Granddaughter Yuhzen slept with
her and would thus be awakened ten times a night. Even though the granddaughter
could not sleep well, Granny Liu would say endearingly to her, “Yuhzen, one more
word you can teach granny is one more measure of loyalty to Chairman Mao and one
more bullet for Liu Shaoqi.”….Granny Liu also eagerly disseminated Mao Zedong
Thought. For more than sixty years she, had not known how to sing. Now, learning
from her daughter and granddaughter, she sang every where….Proudly Granny Liu
said, “This old women can’t really handle a tune. But what I sing is my feeling
for Chairman Mao. When I disseminate Mao Zedong Thought, the more I sing the
younger I get.”
Thus from January of 1967 to Lin Biao’s death and the end of the
Cultural Revolution everyone in China it seemed wanted to be a Granny Liu; a
person who worked for the greater glory of Mao Zedong and China. The Red Book
provided the Chinese people both with a basic although cryptic introduction to
Maoist thought and it also provided them with a connection to their leader. Lin
Biao was able to successfully indoctrinate the entire nation not just in an
idolization of Mao but also in a frenzied studying of his quotes.
The period from 1966 to 1971 is marked by Chinese publications filled
with pictures of Chinese citizens studying the Red Books on communes, in fields,
in classrooms, at rallies, and at ad-hoc study groups that met from along the
Pearl River in the south of China to the plains of Tibet. The number of pictures
in China Reconstructs of people holding Mao books increased from just a trickle
prior to 1967 to almost fifty percent of all at the Height of the Cultural
Revolution. Along with this upward trend in the number of Mao books was an
increasing number of flattering articles about Lin Biao. One article in 1968
called him both a valiant fighter for the revolution and a loyal follower of Mao.
The irony of this quote was probably missed by most readers at the time but
looking back it was Lin Biao who created the Cult of Mao to further his own
goals within the communist party and not Lin Biao’s goals of helping Mao. The
percentage of pictures of the Red Book and articles about Lin Biao during this
time reflected not just the frenzy over the Cult of Mao in China but also the
power of Lin Biao it was through his work that the Red Book became a talisman
for the Chinese people.
Chinese citizens read the Red Book because of the appeal and aura that
surrounded it. The Red Book connected individual Chinese citizens with their
leader. It enabled the average citizen who would never meet Mao in their
lifetime to possess a piece of him and his words. During the Cultural Revolution
Mao became a god in the eyes of the Chinese people no criticism of him could be
tolerated, nor the slightest deviation from his instruction permitted. Every
word he uttered was taken as truth he became in effect a living Buddha, and like
Buddha his writings became like sutra’s. His quotes like passages from the
sutra’s were memorized, chanted, set to song, and reproduced on billboards and
on the beams of houses. (Rodzinski, 1988:121) The Red Book became during the
Cultural Revolution a holy sutra carried by every citizen everywhere and studied
endlessly. Some would say that the Red Book became the bible of the Cultural
Revolution but this theory has several flaws. First, if this is true then the
Mao would be the Jesus Christ of his time, but Mao unlike Jesus reached
unquestioned power during his lifetime and unlike Jesus had no one above him;
Mao was god not the son of god in China. Second, the Red Book is not parallel to
the bible in its symbolism. The bible is not committed to memory by most
Christians unlike the sutras which Buddhists learn long passages from. Mao
followed in the footsteps of the Buddhist framework of religious organization.
Under the Cultural Revolution Buddhism and Confucianism were wiped out, Red
Guards destroyed Buddhist temples and tortured monks; but in this religious
vacuum Mao placed himself as Buddha and his writings as Sutra’s.
The Red Book during the Cultural Revolution provided a semblance of
structure and unity in the chaos of the time. Even though rival Red Guard
factions frequently clashed and the nation was thrown into turmoil the Red Book
acted as a bond between the Chinese; they were all followers of Mao even as
their nation dissolved into anarchy. The Red Book provided a framework in which
for people to criticize others and also a bond between citizens, the party, Red
Guards, and Mao. The study of the Red Book also provided a de-facto type of
education while the schools were shut down. People learned to read in study
groups while learning the Red Book’s quotes. In these ways the Red Book was
valuable in that it created a type of order out of the chaos of the Cultural
Revolution.
One of the fascinating things about the Red Book was that nearly ever
Chinese citizen possessed one but only a few of them could read it. This was one
of the things that made the Red Book so popular was that it created with the
idea that the Chinese populace was educated while many remained illiterate. This
was one of the reason study groups were formed; so that a reader could read the
Red Book to a group of illiterate peasants who would then memorize long passages
so that they could feign literacy. In many places all other books but those by
Chairman Mao were banned. Reading in Chinese society was held in high esteem
even under communism and the idea of each citizen being a scholar was an
appealing idea to both the peasants and served the purposes of Lin Biao who saw
that the more widely the Cult of Mao and Mao Zedong Thought was spread the more
his power would increase.
But by 1970 the end of the Cultural Revolution had begun. Many within
the party believed the Cultural Revolution had gone to far, destroyed to much,
and were scared that they would become the next party member to be openly
criticized by Red Guards. Lin Biao’s success in promoting the teachings of Mao
made him the successor to Mao starting in August of 1966 but his role was
formalized in at the Ninth Party Congress convened in April of 1969 (Ming-Le,
1983: 49). After this Lin Biao tightened the grip of the military on Chinese
Society. Lin Biao maneuvered to take advantage of the Sino-Soviet Border clashes
in the spring of 1969 to declare martial law. Lin Biao quickly encountered
opposition to his growing power. Mao himself became concerned about what he saw
as a successor to eager to assume power, and starting in the fall of 1970 Mao
maneuvered to limit the power of Lin Biao (Ming-Le, 1983: 47-52).
In August of 1970 a national conference was held called the Second
Plenum which was a conference of people chosen at the 1969 national conference
to decide national policy. The Second Plenum was held in Lushan and chaired by
Mao Zedong. At this conference Lin Biao maneuvered to make himself president of
the republic. His clique of followers which included Chen Boda circulated such
statements as, “Lin Biao is an uncommon genius he is one of the great teachers
like Marx, and Lenin and Mao” (Ming-Le, 1983: 50) Lin Biao saw that holding the
office of the presidency which became vacant after the death Liu Shaoqi in 1969
was a tool by which he could assume control over China and fulfill his lifetime
ambition. On August 25, 1970 Mao convened the conference and upon hearing of Lin
Biao’s plan destroyed it in a matter of two days. Mao did this in three ways.
First, he sentenced Chen Boda to self-examination, this was a clear warning to
Lin Biao to stop his grab for power. Second, Mao threatened the members of the
conference by saying that he would leave if they brought up the issue of the
presidency. Third, Mao wrote in a public letter called, “Some Views of Mine,” a
criticism of those who claim but do not really understand Marxism. This letter
was clearly speaking about Lin Biao although it did not say so directly. The
conference at Lushan was a turning point for Lin Biao is symbolized his fall
from the graces of Mao because of what Mao perceived as his impatience to become
president. Mao was able to effectively eliminate Lin Biao as a threat by joining
forces with Zhou Enlai and by isolating Lin Biao’s assistant Chen Boda. (Yan and
Gao, 1996: 309) By January of 1971 Lin Biao was no longer in Mao’s clique of
advisors and Mao further distanced himself from Lin Biao and his work at
creating a cult of Mao by saying in December of 1970 that he felt the cult
created around him had grown to large (Yan and Gao, 1996: 313), what happened
between then and Lin Biao’s death in September of the year is the object of much
speculation. The official Chinese government’s story is that Lin Biao died on
September 13, 1971, in an airplane crash in Mongolia as he was fleeing to the
Soviet Union after having plotted unsuccessfully to overthrow Mao. According to
this account during the whole of 1971 Lin Biao was organizing a coup among
military officers. This account is very much in doubt and their is much
speculation that Lin Biao after falling out of favor with the party leadership
was assassinated by communist party (Ming-Le, 1983:228). This has been
reinforced by Mongolian reports in 1990 that say that Lin Biao a was not on the
plane that crashed in 1971.
The years of 1970 to 1971 were also marked by the winding down of the
Cultural Revolution as schools were reopened and Red Guard groups disbanded. It
is a historic irony that Lin Biao who gave Mao so much power by building up his
cult following was in the end a victim of the power that he created for Mao when
he tried to gain control of the presidency in 1970. The death of Lin Biao in
1971 brought to China a silent liberation from the Cult of Mao. The people
discovered that the person that they had for so long recognized as the high
priest of the Maoist Cult and Mao’s most loyal supporter was in fact a Janus
faced person who was in fact planning to overthrow Mao. Lin Biao’s two-faced
appearance awakened in the Chinese public a distrust in politics and a feeling
of deception in the Cult of Mao. The death of Lin Biao marked the end of the
mass rallies in Tianamen Square and the end of the Cultural Revolution’s crazed
delirium (Yan and Gao, 1996: 335).
The fall of Lin Biao is closely connected with the end of the Red Book.
After Lin Biao fell from the inner circle of Mao newspapers stopped publishing
accounts of Lin Biao’s genius and stopped also publishing pictures of the Red
Book. A graphical analysis of pictures during this period shows a sharp decline
in the number of pictures of the Red Book following December of 1970. This
closely correlates with the demise of Lin Biao as a member of Mao’s inner circle.
By the time Lin Biao died in September of 1971 barely any pictures of Lin Biao’s
Red Book were published in place of pictures of the Red Book and slogans urging
education in Mao Zedong Thought; were tractors, workers in factors, and farmers
plowing fields. All around China images of Lin Biao and his calligraphy were
destroyed (Kraus, 1991: 111) On of the most telling pictures is that of the
Albanian Nation Basketball team in 1972 being received by Mao in Beijing the
accompanying story says that the Albanians received Chinese handicrafts from
their hosts. In a nearly identical article published in 1967 the Albanian
Basketball team is pictured meeting Chairman Mao and Lin Biao and the
accompanying story says they received copies of the Red Book translated into
Albanian. These two articles show the tremendous transformation that took place
in China during the intervening years between the articles.
The rise and fall of Lin Biao is inextricably connected with the rise
and fall of his Red Book. When Lin Biao first became head of the army in 1959 he
saw that if he wanted to rise in power he could do this only by currying favor
with Mao Zedong; to this end he promoted Mao Zedong Thought within the army and
later throughout China. Lin Biao built up the Cult of Mao Zedong Thought through
a combination of playing on the needs of the Chinese people during a time of
chaos by publishing the Red Book and by extolling the virtues of memorizing
Mao’s quotes in newspapers. The story of Lin Biao is the fascinating story of a
man who rode the production of propaganda to great heights but his story also
provides an insight into propaganda and what it tells us about China. Pictures
in China Reconstructs from 1966 to 1974 show that propaganda was not just a tool
of the Communist party but also a reflection of internal power struggles within
the party during the Cultural Revolution. When Lin Biao gained power so did the
number of images of the Red Book and when Lin Biao lost power the number of
images of his Red Book dropped to nearly zero. Propaganda during the Cultural
Revolution was not just a way for the communist party to control the people but
it also was a reflection of individuals power within the party. The history of
Lin Biao meteoric rise and demise is told not only in the history books but also
in ascent and fall of his most prized piece of propaganda the Red Book.
References:
Dutt, Gargi and Dutt, V.P. (1970) China’s Cultural Revolution. India: National
Printing Works.
Kraus, Richard (1991). Brushes With Power: Modern Politics and the Chinese Art
of Calligraphy. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Kua, Michael (1975). The Lin Piao Affair. New York: International Arts and
Sciences Press.
Ming-Le, Yao (1983). The Conspiracy and Murder of Mao’s Heir. London: Collins.
Rodzinski, Witold. (1988). The People’s Republic of China: A Concise Political
History. New York: The Free Press.
Tsou, Tang. (1986). The Cultural Revolution and Post-Mao Reforms. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Yan, Jiaqi and Gao, Gao. (1996). The Turbulent Decade: A History of the Cultural
Revolution. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.