China in the midst of a revolution
Local editorials from 50 years ago are being reprinted every Monday and Tuesday in this column. This editorial appeared in the Morning Herald, a predecessor of the 蘑菇视频 on Dec. 26, 1966.
“All men must die, but death can vary in its significance.”
So spoke Mao Tse-tung, chairman of the Chinese Communist party and still the apparent ruler of the Chinese mainland.
The occasion was a 1944 memorial meeting for a soldier who had died in an industrial accident. Mao continued: “When we die for the people, it is a worthy death.”
Like all men of history, Mao has long been preoccupied by death. Now at the three-quarter century mark, he recently told an American interviewer — rather improbably for an orthodox Marxist-Leninist — that he was getting ready to see God very soon.
Mao suffered a stroke 10 years ago. Stanley Karnow, an outstanding American Pekingologist, observes: “Judging from Peking’s insistence on his (Mao’s ‘excellent health,’ he is probably feeling his age.” From some accounts, Mao is a stooped, palsied old man, possibly suffering from Parkinson’s disease.
Mao’s age may be the root cause of the biggest purge in the 17-year history of Communist China. Intimations of mortality, however unwelcome, may be urging the old chairman to try to put his house in order.
At first, the military and party press merely attacked “bourgeois” intellectuals for veering from the teachings of Mao. Then, in late May, the “cultural revolution” began to zero-in on highly placed party officials in Peking.
According to The People’s Daily, the official party organ, “The tremendous drive and momentum and boundless wisdom of the working people manifested in the (purge) movement far exceed the imagination of the lords of the bourgeoisie.” Now even Lin Piao, Defense Minister and No. 2 man in Peking since early last summer, may be in trouble with Mao. If so, Lin’s fault is that as the principal engine behind the cultural revolution, he has failed to “get” the men who presumably lead the opposition.
In a secret speech Lin delivered in August to the party’s central committee, he promised: “On the present occasion, we are going to dismiss” a number of people, promote a number of people, and … there will be a general reorganization.”
Possibly the reorganization has not been general enough to satisfy, despite the Red Guard convulsions. Heads have certainly fallen, but even a few empty tumbrels can disturb the devoted executioner.