Jiang Qing
From Free net encyclopedia
Jiang Qing (Template:Zh-cpw) (March 1914 – May 14, 1991) stage name Lan Ping, the fourth wife of Mao Zedong, and also known as Madame Mao was a Chinese political leader most famous for forming the Gang of Four.
Contents |
Early years
She was born as Lǐ Shúméng (李淑蒙) in Zhucheng (诸城), Shandong Province. She is also known as Lǐ Jìn (李进) and Lǐ Yúnhè (李云鹤) and was an actress under the stage name of Lán Píng (蓝苹). She joined the Communist Party of China in 1933 and worked as an actress in Shanghai from 1933 to 1937. In 1939, Kang Sheng introduced her to Mao Zedong in Yan'an, and she and Mao were later married. After 1949, she worked in the Ministry of Culture.
Rise in power
She became a member of the Politburo in 1969. She was appointed as the deputy director of the Cultural Revolution in 1966 and formed the infamous Gang of Four with Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan and Wang Hongwen. From that point on, she was the most powerful figure in China during Mao's last years and became the most hated figure of Mao's totalitarian regime.
Jiang incited radical youths organized as Red Guards against other senior political leaders and government officials, including Liu Shaoqi, the President of the PRC at that time, and Deng Xiaoping, the Deputy Premier. Internally divided into factions both to the "left" and "right" of Jiang Qing and Mao, not all Red Guards were friendly to Jiang Qing.
Jiang also directed operas and ballets with communist and revolutionary content as part of an effort to transform China's culture. The Eight model plays were created under her rigorous supervision as a deputy director of the Cultural Revolution and, due to her influence, were the only plays permitted from 1966-1976. As she rigidly tried to enforce her vision of art throughout all areas of art, she alienated the Chinese public. She was known to be extremely petty, executing old enemies such as directors and actresses she knew from her days as an actress in Shanghai. Although she championed the Communist ideals of obedience and equality, Jiang longed to wear the feminine fashions and sophisticated hairstyles of the West. When the Filipino First Lady Imelda Marcos visited in the '70s, Jiang was said to be extremely jealous of her clothes and makeup.
According to Jung Chang's and Jon Halliday's biography of Mao Zedong, Jiang's favorite hobbies included photography, playing cards, and watching foreign movies, especially Gone with the Wind. She was seriously hypochondriac (diagnosed by Mao´s physicist Li Zhisui), hated noise and would force her servants to wear clothes made from sheepskin so as to minimise noise in her Beijing Palace.
Image:Jiang qing poster.jpg Jiang first collaborated with then 2nd-in-charge Lin Biao, but after Lin's death in a plane crash in 1971, she turned against him publicly in the Anti-Lin, Anti-Confucius Campaign. She also spearheaded the campaign against Deng Xiaoping when he fell out of favour in the mid '70s (later saying that this was under Mao's orders). When an earthquake in Northern China killed 165,000 she was reputed to remark: "Merely thousands have died. Let us not stop the People's campaign to imprison the bourgeois elements of the Communist Party [referring to Deng Xiaoping]". The Chinese public became intensely unhappy at this time and, rather than blaming Mao, chose to blame the more accessible and easy target Jiang Qing. After the death of Mao, the infamous Gang of Four quickly fell from power and were blamed for the destruction of the Cultural Revolution. She was arrested after the death of Mao and the end of the Cultural Revolution (1976).
Later years
At her trial in 1981 she was the only member of the Gang of Four who bothered to argue on her behalf. The Defense's Argument was that she was obeying the orders of her husband at all times. It was at this trial that Qing made the famous quote "I was Mao's mad dog. Whoever he asked me to bite, I bit". She was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve in 1981, and the sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment. She was released for medical reasons in 1991. She died soon after. Later the government claimed that she committed suicide in her apartment, ten days after her release.
References
- Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, Mao: The Unknown Story (London, 2005); Jonathan Cape, ISBN 0679422714
- Ross Terrill, The White-Boned Demon: A Biography of Madame Mao Zedong (New York: Morrow, 1984). ISBN 8013316
- Roxane Witke, Comrade Chiang Ch'ing (Boston: Little Brown, 1977). ISBN 77000935
- Jung Chang, Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China (London, 1990)
See also
es: Jiang Qing fr: Jiang Qing nl: Jiang Qing ja: no: Jiang Qing fi: Jiang Qing sv: Jiang Qing zh: