The Collapse of Pre-mortem Succession Arrangements

The end of the early Cultural Revolution brought a transition from ideological struggle to relatively naked power struggle. This is partly because principled ideological opponents had been eliminated in the

purge. But probably an even more important factor was the sharp curtailment of central power that resulted from the movement. To begin with, the central Party-state apparatus was decimated by mass criticism and sweeping purges. As for the regional apparatus, Mao had in the course of the movement convinced its leaders that he would not hesitate to throw them to the wolves without any semblance of due process. Thus, they had no recourse but to learn to fend for themselves if they wished to survive—and many did so with considerable skill, becoming "self-reliant" in the process. The "revolutionary masses," a vocally supportive but rambunctious melee, had been silenced by their demobilization. The resulting "power shortage" intensified the scramble for power—as in a market, as supply declined, demand increased. The catastrophically abortive Lin Biao succession should be placed in this context. This analysis of the incident will begin with a brief review of its itinerary, then proceed to an examination of underlying inter-successor and successor-incumbent conflicts.

Rescission of Successorship and Polarization

The ostensible reason for Mao to disown the pre-mortem arrangements he had made on behalf of Lin Biao was a dispute over the state chairmanship that Liu Shaoqi had vacated—an essentially ceremonial position that seems to have acquired disproportionate symbolic significance in the uncertain political milieu. Mao's own position was not immediately at risk: Lin apparently anticipated a postsuccession challenge from Zhou Enlai, and sought leverage against him from the nominally superior position of chief of state. He suggested that Mao himself assume the position, expecting him to decline and offer it to Lin. As expected, Mao rejected the post, first offering it not to Lin but to Zhou at a February 1970 meeting of the Politburo Standing Committee; the latter, however, declined, fearing that Mao planned to replace him as premier with Zhang Chunqiao.^[1] In March, upon issuing directives on revision of the State Constitution, Mao first indicated his preference that the position be abolished. Yet Lin once again proposed to Mao that the position be filled in July, when a committee for revision of the Constitution was established under Mao and Lin; once again Mao rejected the idea. "If there is no chief of state, where can we put Vice-Chairman Lin?" wondered Lin's wife, Ye Qun.^[2] To Lin, Mao's veto was a clear signal that he had fallen from grace—how far, he could only speculate, but the precedents were not encouraging—and he began to seek recourse to desperate expedients.

On the first day of the Second Plenum of the Ninth CC (August 23–September 6, 1970, at Lushan), Chen Boda proposed to the twenty-

[1] Reuters (London), February 9, 1970; in FBIS , February 9, 1970, p. B7.

[2] Han Suyin, My House Has Two Doors (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1980), pp. 505 ff.

five assembled delegates that the agenda be tabled and there be discussion of a new State Constitution that would include the post of State Chairman, nominating Mao to fill this post. Chen's motion was supported by the eight military leaders of Lin's faction, but the military region commanders sustained Mao in his objections to the idea. After two and a half days of debate, a majority of the Plenum rejected the proposal and approved disciplinary sanctions against Chen. On September 15 Mao issued a "letter to the whole Party" calling for a rectification campaign to "raise the ability to distinguish true and false Marxism" (tigao bianbie zhenjia Makesizhuyi de nengli )—that is, to criticize "false Marxist" Chen Boda.^[3] Lin declined Mao's invitation to join in the criticism of Chen. In December 1970, at an enlarged Politburo meeting convened at Beidaihe (the "North China Conference"), Lin and his supporters were criticized but a majority still declined to take a strong position against Chen; finally, in April 1971 (at the "Meeting of the Ninety-nine"), the "eight big generals" were obliged to submit self-criticisms for their support of Chen's proposal, thereby driving a wedge between Lin and his most powerful military backers. In January 1971, Mao had the Thirty-eighth Army transferred from Beijing and moved to "let some air in" to the CC's Military Affairs Commission (formerly dominated by Lin) by appointing his own supporters. Early in 1971 a campaign was launched admonishing military cadres to overcome arrogance, conceit, harshness, and other nonproletarian behavior.^[4]

As Mao's moves against Lin monopolized public communications channels and official meeting forums, any attempt by Lin to resist was driven underground. In February–March 1971 he apparently authorized his son Lin Liguo to prepare a plan for a violent coup d'état. Although the "Outline of 571 Project" later revealed was alleged to have been such a plot, it was actually only notes taken on a random talk, containing abundant evidence of resentment but no operational plans. It seems safe to assume that foul play must have been afoot to precipitate the breakneck flight that culminated in the September 13, 1971, incineration of Lin Biao, his wife, and several aides—though Zhou Enlai asserted in the immediate aftermath of the incident that Lin had not even dared to implement his scheme, inasmuch as only a "handful of people" were

[3] The joint editorial for the new year (1971) stressed the need to study Marxism-Leninism to uncover "phony Marxists," and a drive was launched against "5/16" (the May 16th group), whose "backstage boss" was now said to be Chen Boda. Leo Goodstadt, "China: Calendar of the Conspiracy," FEER 74, no. 48 (November 27, 1971), pp. 20–25; see also China Topics (Hong Kong), May 19, 1969, YB527. The movements against Chen climaxed in a long series of articles anonymously criticizing him that appeared in RR , HQ , and GM between March and July 1971.

[4] Ying-mao Kau, ed., The Lin Piao Affair (White Plains, N.Y.: International Arts & Sciences Press, 1975), pp. xix–lxxvii.

willing to help him out.^[5] Much more detailed charges (but no new evidence) of plans to assassinate Mao and his supporters (including Zhang Chunqiao and Yao Wenyuan) were presented at the public trial a decade later, and an even more elaborate (but never consummated) plan was subsequently alleged by an anonymous but seemingly well-informed defector.^[6] The precise details of the confrontation thus remain elusive, but all accounts concur on its essentials: there was friction between Mao and Lin arising from Mao's decision to rescind his pre-mortem succession arrangements, leading to conspiratorial activity on both sides that culminated in Lin's death.

Inter-successor Conflict

Having received an unprecedentedly explicit endorsement as Mao's sole designated successor (it was written into the Party Constitution at the Ninth Congress), Lin committed the tactical blunder of alienating other major power-holders and attempting to staff the apparatus exclusively with his "own" people. Thus he found himself in a politically isolated position when his patron deserted him. To be sure, it would have been difficult to propitiate those who had previously figured in the succession lineup and stood to gain if Lin's heir apparency were disclaimed, but Lin might have attempted to co-opt them by promoting their efforts in functionally spcialized areas not politically threatening to him, or by offering tacit quid pro quos in his successor regime, and he made no apparent effort to do so.

Zhou Enlai was to Lin's right ideologically, but as a power pragmatist par excellence he would surely have been open to a cooperative working relationship. But Lin seemed to regard Zhou as a threat, and he not only balked at relinquishing control over Zhou's administrative organization but interfered in Zhou's field of special competence, foreign policy. Lin also inhibited reconstruction of the governmental apparatus by delaying, or failing to expedite, the rehabilitation of cadres. Zhou turned to Mao, who issued an injunction (in his speech to the Ninth Congress) to "liberate them without delay," but results were not forthcoming, leading Mao to complain of the situation in December 1969.^[7] Mao was in high

[5] NYT , October 7, 1972, p. 12.

[6] Yao Mingle, The Conspiracy and Death of Lin Biao (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1983). Although interesting and not implausible, the mysterious circumstances of its publication make it impossible to corroborate this version.

[7] When Mao saw Snow in December 1970, he made three points: One was an invitation to Nixon to visit China, one was the decision to scale down the cult of personality, the third was the decision to purge Chen Boda. Chen's name was not mentioned, but Mao observed that he was dissatisfied with the results of the Cultural Revolution, that he had been told a lot of "lies" about it. Chen Boda had been chairman of the CCRG. Snow, Long Revolution , p. 174; see also Huo Huisheng, "Chen Boda kuatai yu Mao pai mingyun" [Chen Boda's fall and thefate of the Mao faction], Zhanwang (hereinafter ZW ) (Hong Kong), no. 233 (October 16, 1971): pp. 15–19. Richard Nethercut, "Lin Piao and the Cultural Revolution," University of Hong Kong, Centre of Asian Studies Working Paper, May 1970.

dudgeon (somewhat delayed) about the chaos precipitated by the Cultural Revolution, as he indicated in conversations at the time, and seemed willing to strike any compromise necessary to facilitate rapid economic recovery; he may well have been concerned lest the Cultural Revolution become the sort of economic albatross the Great Leap had been—a catastrophe which, he must have recalled, had placed him on the political defensive for nearly a decade. Zhou's restorationist policies seemed a better bet economically than Lin's low-tech agrarian industrialization; forced to choose, Mao chose the more experienced if conventional Zhou, and the two joined forces at the Second Plenum in an attack against radicalism.

In foreign policy, the available evidence suggests that Lin sought to consolidate his own position by provoking a confrontation with the Soviet Union along the Ussuri.^[8] The first border clash was appropriately timed (a month before the Ninth Congress), and was according to available evidence initiated by Chinese troops; the resulting crisis seemed ideally conceived to foster the sort of "garrison state" mentality most compatible with Lin's preferred style of military radicalism. He used it to justify the imposition of martial law on the exposed northern cities (in the rigors of which Liu Shaoqi expired), and to mobilize the masses to dig air raid tunnels, accumulate grain reserves, and otherwise support the PLA. Yet the escalation of tension along the border was a double-edged sword. While enhancing the functional indispensability of the PLA, it bolstered the argument for withdrawing troops from participation in civilian political organizations so they could return to their units and devote themselves to military training and preparation. It also jeopardized the radical international stance of equidistance between the two superpowers, so exacerbating tension with the one that it became expedient to turn to the other for supplementary deterrence—"Two against one is better than one against two," as Mao later quipped in explaining his opening to the United States. Rapprochement with the West was, however, less compatible with Lin's bureaucratic interests than any conceivable alternative,

[8] This is my own interpretation. Plausible alternative scenarios are explored by Thomas M. Gottlieb, Chinese Foreign Policy Factionalism and the Origins of the Strategic Triangle (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corp., R-1902-NA, November 1977); Kenneth G. Lieberthal, Sino-Soviet Conflict in the 1970s: Its Evolution and Implications for the Strategic Triangle (Santa Monica: RAND Corp., R-2342-NA, July 1978); and Thomas W. Robinson, "The Sino-Soviet Border Dispute: Background, Development, and the March 1969 Clashes," American Political Science Review (hereinafter APSR ), 66, no. 4 (December 1972), pp. 1175–1202; and Harold C. Hinton, The Bear at the Gate: Chinese Policymaking under Soviet Pressure (Stanford: The Hoover Institution Press, 1971).

as it tended to favor the modern urban industrial sector and shore up the moderate forces of archrival Zhou Enlai.^[9]

Lin's position was ideologically compatible with that of the radicals, and indeed at the outset he seemed to have established a useful alliance with Jiang Qing. At a time when Jiang was still persona non grata in Beijing cultural circles, Lin convened a "Forum on Literature and Art in the Armed Forces" in Shanghai under her patronage, and wrote a letter instructing that "from now on, the army's documents concerning literature and art should be sent to her." But further cooperation was complicated by the clash between grassroots radicals and regional military forces that erupted in Wuhan in the summer of 1967. This split the radicals into groups, military and cultural. A brief discursus on the background of this cleavage may be useful.

Jiang Qing provided the nucleus for what became known as the "cultural radicals" (wenge pai ) by assembling a group of relatively young radical literati to help in her reform of Beijing opera after her 1965 hegira to Shanghai, led by Yao Wenyuan and Zhang Chunqiao. Jiang also had a good connection with Kang Sheng, dating back to their common province of origin and to Kang's sponsorship of her Party membership and support of her marriage to Mao (under somewhat awkward circumstances). A second component of the group, however, revolved around Chen Boda, whose entrée was facilitated not by Jiang but by Mao, whom Chen had long served as secretary, editor, and ghost writer. Chen had also worked with Lin Biao, as the main compiler of the quotations from Mao's Selected Works to which Lin wrote an introduction before publishing in analect form.^[10] Chen brought in train a group of Beijing literati with whom he had developed contacts as editor of Red Flag and deputy head of the Academy of Science, including Wang Li (from the Red Flag staff), Mu Xin and Qi Benyu (of the Guangming Daily editorial staff), and Guan Feng, Lin Jie, Lin Bishi, and Wu Zhuanji (all researchers in the Department of Philosophy and Social Sciences, Academy of Science). In May 1966, when Peng Zhen's "Cultural Revolution Group" was disbanded, this rather disparate array of radicals was brought together under the

[9] Evidence that the PLA disagreed with the idea that the United States was no longer as great a danger to China as the Soviet Union may be found in Huang Yongsheng's speech of July 31, 1971. Improved relations with the United States might lead to a reduced military budget, particularly in the areas of ICBM and advanced aircraft development. Lin, "Speech on Mao's Works" (1966), as quoted in Thomas Robinson, A Political-Military Biography of Lin Piao , Part II . 1950 –1971 (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corp., 1971), p. 324. Lin Biao, "Informal Address at Politburo Meeting" (May 18, 1966), as trans. in Martin Ebon, ed., Lin Biao: The Life and Writings of China's New Ruler (New York: Stein & Day, 1970), pp. 253–67.

[10] Claude Julien, "The Lin Biao 'Mystery': Part I. From Promotion to Decline," Le Monde , December 28, 1971, pp. 1, 3; translated in FBIS, January 4, 1972, pp. B1–B5.

chairmanship of Chen Boda and Vice-chairmanship of Jiang Qing (with Zhou Enlai as "adviser") as the "Central Cultural Revolution Small Group" (CCRG). Nominally an ad hoc committee operating under the auspices of the CC, the CCRG's actual power rivaled that of the Politburo during much of the period of spontaneous mobilization.

When radical Red Guards came into conflict with more conservative local military forces in July–August 1967, the CCRG was blamed for having encouraged the young rebels to arm "for self-defense." At this point Jiang Qing scapegoated the Beijing branch of the CCRG. Wang Li, Lin Jie, and Guan Feng were purged one after another in the fall of 1967; Qi Benyu followed in January 1968, a move that forced Red Flag to suspend publication for three months. This clean sweep of Chen Boda's protégés cannot have endeared Jiang to Chen. As the only member of the Politburo Standing Committee without an organizational base, Chen was left in a high but stranded position, and he apparently began to combine forces with military radical Lin Biao. It soon became clear that Lin had ambitions of his own, for which he could use a capable symbol specialist. Official documents have revealed that it was Chen who prepared the first draft of Lin's ill-fated report to the Ninth Party Congress.^[11] Having chosen sides, Chen fell from Mao's grace, as the latter escalated his criticisms of the PLA in November 1969 (Chen made no public speeches or statements after October).

After 1967 Lin seems to have had little use for Jiang Qing and the Shanghai subgroup of the CCRG, whose political interests could be disentangled neither from the Chairman on whose patronage they depended nor from the local antimilitary radicals whose support they still cultivated. Jiang Qing's star reached its zenith in the spring of 1967, when cultural and military radicals were still in coalition. She made frequent (and apparently effective) appearances before Red Guard rallies, and, in May, Red Flag published two of her speeches. After the Wuhan incident in August 1967 she promptly went into eclipse. Only six of the original seventeen CCRG members survived the autumn of 1967, and the vacancies were never restaffed. Following the rustication of Red Guards in the fall of 1968, Lin Biao reportedly obtained Mao's permission to have Jiang curtail her political activities, and her public appearances diminished accordingly. Jiang Qing and her protégés remained notably silent at the Ninth Party Congress, and Lin Biao, in a lengthy review of the Cultural Revolution, attributed even the revolutionary model operas (yangbanxi ) to the "revolutionary masses" without so much as mentioning her name. In August, Lin proceeded to have the operas revised

[11] Jacques Guillermaz, The Chinese Communist Party in Power , 1949 –1976 (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press; 1976), pp. 461–68.

"under the direction of the Party CC," again without her involvement; this revision highlighted the role of the Red Army. The CCRG was apparently disbanded at the Ninth Congress, receiving no further mention in print until December 1970. At this point Jiang Qing and her Shanghai protégés reemerged to present a series of soirees to visiting delegations on behalf of the Foreign Ministry^[12] —suggesting that her support was now being solicited by Zhou Enlai in the emerging confrontation with Lin. That the cultural radicals supported Mao and Zhou in this struggle is made clear in the 571 documents, which provided for their assassination.

Successor-incumbent Conflict

Lin had ineptly handled his relations with other major political actors, but he might have weathered this storm had his relationship with the Chairman stood him in good stead. Thus Mao's change of heart was absolutely crucial to Lin's fall. Lin Biao was neither the first nor the last successor Mao would ever designate, but he would prove to be Mao's last chance to pass the scepter to a fellow radical with the requisite "power base" to govern effectively.^[13] In view of the damage to the radical cause and to his own charisma that Mao's second self-reversal would incur, the reasons therefor are worth thoroughly exploring.

One possibility that has been suggested is that Lin simply lacked the personal prerequisites for charismatic leadership. True, Lin was not prepossessing in appearance: slight, short, balding (hence the perennial cap), frail, afraid of sun, valetudinarian, a poor public speaker, he failed to impress the Red Guards to whom he appeared at rallies. He would

[12] The rump CCRG presented evening parties featuring revolutionary Beijing opera performances to delegations from the Communist parties of Albania, North Vietnam, Australia, Burma, Indonesia, and France. But they were held not under the auspices of the CCRG, but on behalf of the Ministry of Culture of the State Council. Dagong Bao (Hong Kong), December 24, 1969, p. 1. In an apparent effort to regularize cultural activities, the State Council formed a "Cultural Group" in August 1971, chaired by veteran cadre Wu De (a CC member, vice-chairman of the Beijing RC and second secretary of the Beijing Party Committee) but including a number of lesser cultural radicals. The membership included Liu Xianquan (CC member, chairman of the Qinghai RC, and first secretary of the Qinghai Party Committee), Shi Shazhua (alternate CC member and deputy director of NCNA), Wang Mantian (vice-chairman of the Tianjin RC and secretary of the Tianjin Party committee), Yu Huiyong (a composer of revolutionary Beijing opera), Di Fucai (member of a government department, of the Beijing RC, and of the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries), Huang Houmin (a leading journalist), Wu Yinxian (vice-chairman of the China Photographic Society and vice-president of the Beijing Cinema College), Hao Liang (a singer in revolutionary Beijing opera), and Liu Qingtang (a male ballet dancer). Although Jiang Qing, Zhang Chunqiao, and Yao Wenyuan often accompanied the group, none were listed as members. Ibid., p. 265.

[13] Dittmer, "Bases of Power," pp. 26–61.

proceed jerkily and uncertainly through a prepared text, his voice hoarse, lacking both resonance and an air of conviction. Possibly because he was aware of these personal limitations, before he emerged as a major figure in the early 1960s he led one of the most reclusive lives of any major Chinese politician. In speeches before a military audience, on the other hand, he is said to have spoken forcibly and directly.^[14] His revolutionary escutcheon was immaculate, his military contributions earning him a reputation as "the greatest tactical genius the communist armies had produced."^[15] Moreover, his usurpation of the heir apparency from a well-established successor designate demonstrated no mean political prowess.

More important than Lin's unimpressive personal demeanor (in what is after all a nonelectoral system) is the fact that he was able to conceive and briefly to execute a salvationary mission. Within a brief tenure he was able to introduce his own distinctive political structure and style of mass mobilization (to be more amply described in chapters 6 and 7). These conformed to Lin's military radical vision, with its strong emphasis on discipline, self-sacrifice, and unconditional obedience—egalitarian with respect to status and material incentives, but hierarchical with respect to power. For Lin all but worshiped power, as he made clear in many writings and statements. In perhaps his most famous speech, delivered in the dawning of the Cultural Revolution, he emphasized its violent under-pinnings: "Struggle is life—if you don't struggle against them, they will struggle against you. . . . if you don't kill them they will kill you." Thus "once they have political power, the . . . working people will have everything. Once they lose it, they will lose everything. Production is undoubtedly the base; however, it relies upon the change, consolidation, and development resulting from the seizure of political power." In another stark passage from the same speech, he tried to place his thoughts in some sort of theoretical context:

Among the areas of the superstructure—ideas, religion, arts, law, and political power, the last is the very center. What is political power? Sun Yat-sen thought it was the management of the affairs of the masses. But he did not understand that political power is an instrument by which one class oppresses the other. . . . Of course, suppression is not the only function of political power . . . [but] suppression is the most essential.^[16]

[14] Nethercut, "Lin Piao."

[15] MacFarquhar, Origins , 2 , p. 244; see also Lee Ngok, "Lin Piao's Military Tactics as Seen in the 115th division," University of Hong Kong: Centre of Asian Studies Working Paper, April 22, 1970; and Robinson, Biography ; and Liu Yunsun, "The Current and Past of Lin Biao," Zhonggong Yanjiu [Chinese communist studies] (Taipei), vol. 1, no. 1 (January 31, 1967): 61–77.

[16] Lin Biao, "Informal Address," pp. 253–67.

According to Lin's conception of charismatic leadership, power flowed ineluctably from the brilliance of the epoch-making hero-leader. He made his first flattering estimate of Mao's "genius" (tiancai ) as early as September 1962, in his speech to the Tenth Plenum of the Eighth CC. Four years later he repeated it: "Chairman Mao's sayings, works, and revolutionary practice have shown that he is a great proletarian genius. . . . He is unparalleled in the present world. Marx and Engels were geniuses of the nineteenth century; Lenin and Comrade Mao Zedong are the geniuses of the twentieth century."^[17] And, in words that Mao was to recall with bitter irony a few years hence (mocking, however, only the second clause in the sentence, never the first), Lin said that "Every sentence of Chairman Mao's works is a Truth, one single sentence of his surpasses ten thousand of ours." Throughout the 1960s, one may search Lin's public record in vain for any indication that his attitude ever deviated from awestricken sycophancy. "I . . . ask the Chairman for instructions and do everything according to his orders," he related to his colleagues in his speech to the Eleventh Plenum of the Eighth CC (upon his elevation to second rank in the Party hierarchy). "I do not interfere with him on major matters nor do I trouble him on minor matters. Sometimes I cannot avoid making mistakes and cannot follow the Chairman's thoughts." Because even he could not always "follow" Mao's thoughts, Lin told the masses, "we must carry out not only those instructions we understand, but also those we fail to understand for the moment, and must try to understand them in the course of carrying them out."^[18] Difficulties in understanding could be circumnavigated by simply memorizing isolated quotations, even entire sections, from his writings, and carrying them out to the letter.^[19] Lin's own exemplary ascent to glory was publicly referred to not as an instance of merit vindicated, but of fealty rewarded: "we should take Vice Chairman Lin Biao as our shining example in always remaining boundlessly loyal to Chairman Mao, to his Thought, and to his proletarian revolutionary line."^[20]

Lin made a concerted attempt to induce the broad masses to share his reverence for Mao Zedong and his Thought, and thereby implicitly also to adopt his conception of leadership. That conception may have emphasized elite-mass equality and reciprocal communication in theory, but in practice it fostered a vast status and power differential. Leaders should command and followers should obey—unconditionally, immediately, respectfully. Obviously, messages could not be expected to percolate up from the masses, but would echo the thoughts of the "genius" at the

[17] Ibid., p. 265.

[18] NCNA, Beijing, January 23, 1968.

[19] Lin Biao, "Speech on Mao's Works" (1966), as quoted in Robinson, Biography , p. 324.

[20] NCNA, January 23, 1968.

helm; because these thoughts were probably too complex for simple people to comprehend, they were reduced to simplified formulas and often reiterated. This emphasis on rote learning and mimesis of heroic models gave to military radicalism a certain ritualistic quality. There were "morning prayers, evening penitences, rallies falling-in, reporting for and quitting work and making duty shifts, buying and selling things, writing letters, making phone calls, even taking meals"—all of which were surrounded by icons of the Chairman, signifying loyalty.^[21] One observer well versed in Western religious traditions perceived the emergence of certain "liturgical forms" designed to reaffirm commitment to a "salvation history." Thus geographical sites associated with the Chairman became shrines from whence visitors would sometimes take a bit of earth or bottle of water as mementos.

It has been reported that the railway station in Tianjin has been converted to a Mao Zedong's Thought lecture hall. All other pictures were removed, all advertisements; a huge statue of Mao and more than one hundred portraits of him were set up, along with three hundred posters and quotations. School children begin their day by wishing Mao a long life and bowing to his portrait.^[22]

Even if we assume for the moment that Lin's professions of loyalty were absolutely sincere, the question arises: can two charismatic leaders coexist? Can there be two suns in the sky? At first Mao seemed to bask in the warm glow of Lin's praise for him, and he publicly embraced his new "closest comrade-in-arms" as he had never embraced another. He joked and laughed with Lin during their joint appearances on Tiananmen, glancing benevolently and paternally over Lin's shoulder at the text as he struggled through a speech.^[23] The two seemed inseparable. In fact, Lin made it a point never to appear in public except in Mao's company (about

[21] Li Yizhe, "Guanyu shehuizhuyi de minzhu yu fazhi" [Concerning socialist democracy and law], Ming Bao Yuekan [Ming Bao monthly], Hong Kong, November 27, 1975, pp. 11–20.

[22] R. L. Whitehead, "Liturgical Developments in China's Revolutionary Religion," China Notes (East Asian Department, National Council of Churches, New York) 7, no. 3 (Summer 1969). A young Red Guard writes of a close encounter with the Chairman in similar terms: "He was gone. All that remained of him was the touch of his hand on the hand of a few who had been lucky enough to get close to him. . . . Those Chairman Mao had touched now became the focus of our fervor. Everyone surged toward them with out-stretched arms in hopes of transferring the sacred touch to their own hands. If you couldn't get close enough for that, then shaking the hand of one who had shaken hands with Our Great Saving Star would have to do. And so it went, down the line, until sometimes hand-shakes were removed as much as one hundred times from the original one, spreading outward in a vast circle like waves in a lake when a meteor crashes into its center." Liang and Shapiro, Son of the Revolution , p. 123.

[23] Nethercut, "Lin Piao."

forty times altogether between the first mass Red Guard rally in August 1966 and the Ninth Party Congress in April 1969), and he was always photographed together with Mao, each time standing a deferential step behind. He also retreated together with Mao for two months or more on half a dozen occasions in the course of the Cultural Revolution. Though Mao later was to claim he found Lin's professions of esteem overweening, during the entire 1962–70 period when the cult of personality had its heyday Mao made no visible attempt to resist it, in fact lending public support to such mass tributes as the Tiananmen parades or the proliferation of Mao Zedong Thought study classes (organized in response to Mao's May 7, 1966, letter to Lin Biao urging the latter to "turn the whole country into a great school of Mao Zedong Thought"). In a 1965 conversation with Edgar Snow, Mao frankly defended the cult in terms of political expedience.^[24] The only indication to the contrary, a letter allegedly written to Mao's wife in June 1966, was not revealed until after Lin's death and there is reason to question its authenticity.^[25]

Sometime during the period from the Ninth Congress to its Second Plenum, Mao reconsidered. This was not merely a question of radical economic policies or even the chief of state position; Lin's entire conception of charismatic leadership he began to find objectionable. In a later conversation with Snow (December 1970) he first publicly indicated that the cult had gone too far and that he wanted it modulated.^[26] In 1971 a campaign was accordingly launched to study the Marxist-Leninist classics, thereby also shifting the emphasis in the rehabilitation of cadres from rote fanaticism to some demonstration of intellectual mastery—with which trained Party cadres may be assumed to have been more comfortable.^[27] The "theory of genius" (tiancailun ) was publicly denounced.

Mao changed his mind about his own cult partly because he sensed that Lin was splitting charisma into two components: a symbolic component, which was the recipient of worshipful awe, and an operational

[24] Jean Vincent, Agence France Presse (hereinafter AFP), Paris, February 11, 1968. Reviewing the meeting of the Shanghai RC in early 1968 at which the experience of the past year was analyzed, Mao said that the organization of the study classes was a good thing; many problems could be settled thereby. Classes to study Mao's thoughts were thus promptly opened everywhere. See NCNA, February 8, 10, 17, 1968; NCNA, Beijing, February 25, 1968. Many of these "study classes" were in fact informally established courts and jails.

[25] The letter, dated June 8, 1966, was first revealed in late 1972. It refers to incidents that demonstrate that it could not have been written before the third week of July, 1966 (in particular, references are made to Mao receiving foreign visitors, which are easy to check). The document probably dates from 1969 or even later. Cheng Huang, "China: Purloined Letter," 78, no. 49 (December 2, 1972): 10–11.

[26] Snow, Long Revolution , pp. 167–77.

[27] Ding Wang, Wang Hongwen Zhang Chunqiao Pingzhuan [Biography of Wang Hongwen and Zhang Chunqiao] (Hong Kong: Ming Bao, 1977), pp. 5–6.

component, which defined the mission. This split represents the purely power-oriented aspect of the conflict, and there is no question that Mao was acutely sensitive to it. In the summer of 1969 the formula designating military leadership began to appear: "The PLA, founded by Chairman Mao and directly led by Vice-Chairman Lin." But why can the founder of the army not also be the leader, Mao wondered, so the formula was revised to read: "The PLA, founded and led by Chairman Mao and directly led by Vice-Chairman Lin," and finally (in the draft State Constitution approved by the Second Plenum of the Ninth Congress), Mao was designated "supreme commander of the whole nation and the whole army" with Lin as "deputy supreme commander" of same.^[28] Lin was obviously trying to create a role for himself as Mao's most loyal follower and authoritative exegete, also allowing himself to be ranked among the "three assistants" of geniuses—Engels for Marx, Stalin for Lenin, Lin Biao for Mao—two of whom, it should be noted, duly succeeded their illustrious forebears.

Considerations of power may have been primary, but policy was also involved. In other words, the fact that Mao was unwilling to share his charisma should not obscure the fact that the two men's conceptions of the role of leadership did in fact diverge. The personality cult served a quite different function as a rhetorical justification for emancipation of the "revolutionary masses" from repressive bureaucratic authorities than it did as the dogma of a lock-step military dictatorship. Mao's writings and recorded obiter dicta are too replete with antiauthoritarian, even iconoclastic themes (true, his actions are more mixed) for us to doubt that Lin's conception of power must have been anathema to this erstwhile anarchist.^[29]

Consequences

The impact of the Lin Biao episode (jiu yi san shijian , or September 13 incident, as the Chinese call it) upon charismatic leadership was devastating, not only in the obvious sense that the exaggerated efficacy attributed to Mao's leadership resisted moderation (a "moderately infallible" leader?), but in the doubt cast on Mao's judgment by the rejection (and death) of a second hand-picked successor. It is difficult today to conceive of the shock this misadventure provoked when it was first disclosed to study groups at the end of November 1971. A former soldier recalled:

[28] China Notes (hereinafter CN ) (Hong Kong), no. 380 (October 8, 1970); China News Analysis (hereinafter CNA ) (Hong Kong), no. 777 (October 10, 1969).

[29] See Franklin W. Houn, "Rejection of Blind Obedience as a Traditional Chinese and Maoist Concept," Asian Thought and Society 7, no. 19 (1982): 18–31; and vol. 7, no. 21:264–79, especially pp. 270–73.

We received an order at night to assemble at the ceremonial hall. I had never seen the soldier before who read us the central documents. The meeting was closely guarded. Wherever we went we were watched, even in the restrooms. When I heard the central document I was shocked so much that my heart seemed to leap out, and I could not believe my ears. The meeting lasted for three days. We were not allowed to exchange opinions among ourselves. We were not allowed to leak the contents of the meeting. I dared not tell even my wife.^[30]

One might suppose the waning of charisma to have been at least counterbalanced by some closure of the vast elite-mass hiatus—and so it was. But because this waning resulted from an infraction of Maoist norms, it was taken to imply not that the masses were the true geniuses, but that they were also justified in their violation of those norms. As a former cadre put it:

At the beginning, I think people were very suspicious. Later it had a profound impact, to think that such a person of high position could become counterrevolutionary. It convinced people that Party people were no better than ordinary people. . . . The relations between the PLA and the masses got worse and worse after this, but this had nothing to do with Lin Biao.^[31]