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“
CONSPIRACY ” OF LIN PIAO REVISITED*
Ranganayakamma
Lin Piao
was a top level leader in the Communist Party of China (hereafter briefly CPC
or Chinese Party). Every one thought he was a leader almost equal to Mao. He
had been in the party for a long time, much before the ‘Long March’ days. In
1940, he was the commander of the Fourth Field Army. He was the Chairman of
Army Administration of South Central Area during 1950-54. He was a Deputy Prime
Minister in 1954. In 1955 he was a member of the Polit
Bureau. In 1958 he was the Vice-chairman of the Party. (Initially he was one of
the several Vice-Chairmen. But in the subsequent period, other Vice-Chairmen
were removed and Lin Piao was made the sole
Vice-Chairman. He attained such a top position.) He was the Defence Minister
from 1959 onwards. During this period, he attained the position of ‘Closest
Comrade in Arms’ of Mao from 1966 onwards. In 1969 he got another strange
position which you will see later. On the whole we should bear in mind that Lin
Piao was connected with the army, that he was the
Defence Minister and sole Vice-chairman of the Party.
Lin Piao’s name began to be heard prominently through the Cult
of Mao.
To understand the
dominant position which Lin Piao occupied in the party
and the extent to which the party degenerated, it is enough to examine one
particular issue. The Ninth Party Congress, held in April 1969 [This was the
conference which was held 13 years after the Eight Congress], declared that Lin
Piao was the closest comrade in arms of Mao and his
heir apparent (Snow, 1972: 251). This ‘Communist Heirship’
was the last position which Lin Piao got. This
declaration of heirship brought Lin Piao to the notice of the Chinese people as well as the
whole world as an important personality and the future chairman of the party
after Mao.
Along with Mao’s
cult, the cult of Lin Piao, the cult of his son Lin Likua [May be there was no grandson] began. [If Mao had a
son, the people of
Adding Lin Piao’s name to that of Mao, new slogans were given. ‘Rally around the party with Mao as the Chairman and Lin Piao as the Vice-Chairman’; ‘Long Live Chairman Mao and his
closest comrade in arms Lin Piao!’ [Good! If
there is a use with one cult there will be two uses with two cults and three
uses with three cults.]
A slogan to
glorify Lin Piao: ‘While our great leader Chairman
Mao is the founder-leader of People’s Liberation Army, Vice-Chairman Lin Piao is directly leading it. In response to this slogan, it
is said, Mao sarcastically commented: ‘Perhaps, the founder of the army is
unable to lead it!’. [How could Mao say, ‘do not
undertake your cult. Undertake my cult alone!’ Even if
he had told, nothing would have happened.]
Just as ‘Little
Red Book” containing Mao’s quotations was circulated, ‘The Second Little Red
Book’ containing Lin Piao’s quotations was also done
so (Han Suyun, 1976: 341). [We should feel happy for
Mr. Lin Likua’s ‘The Third Little Red Book’ had not
appeared. Or did it appear? Well, we do not get information about anything in
Politics of Lin vs. Mao
Though
political outlook of Lin Piao and Mao outwardly
appear to be identical, it is evident from certain issues that the two were
very different. In his Report to the Ninth Party Congress in 1969, Lin Piao observed that Cultural Revolution had achieved its
goals. Now the main task was to carry the economy forward. This meant,
abandoning class struggle and putting forward the thesis of ‘productive
forces’. Mao opposed this. He argued that the Cultural Revolution must
continue. [There are no details as to why Mao argued in favour of continuing
Cultural Revolution.] Lin Piao rewrote the Report in
accordance with Mao’s views (Lotta 1976: 3).
While
Lin argued in favour of a major role for army in the matters of administration,
Mao argued that party must be reconstituted and the army be kept under the
leadership of the party (Lotta 1976: 3).
While Mao opined that the primary task of Fourth
Five Year Plan was to develop the agricultural sector, Lin Piao
and other army officials felt that army must be modernized first. This was
popularly referred to as ‘Tractor-Tank controversy’ (Jain 1976: 68)
At the beginning
of 1969, when Sino-Soviet border dispute created an atmosphere of possible war,
Lin Piao argued that
Lin Piao opposed the proposal that party cadres must
participate in production. He described it as ‘forcible labour reform’. He also
opposed the proposal of sending youth to villages. He described it as
‘unemployment in disguise’. In the sense that the government was pursing this
policy due to its inability to give jobs (Lotta 1976:
4).
]Is this the same
man who argued that those who oppose Mao must be expelled from the party and
every one must follow Mao’s views even if they didn’t understand those views?
What would be his answer if people asked Lin Piao,
‘you have insisted that we must follow Mao, haven’t you?’]
It appeared that
Lin Piao’s group opposed a firm view of the party
that
There were
differences in the party on the question of
In 1971, the
Pakistan Army resorted to genocide in
Thus it appears
that Lin Piao was right in certain matters and wrong
in certain other matters. How far these incidents are true? What sort of person
was he on the whole? To know these aspects, brief and passing observations
found in some books are not enough.
We need detailed
information about his views on each and every issue. Such information is not
available in the relevant books on
Though Lin Piao also spoke of the theory of Productive Forces like the
rightists, there appears some difference between him and rightists. It seems
that he was a headache to some extent
for them. Some observers feel that the only difference is the use of Ultra-leftist
jargon.
The Ultra-leftist
trend was dominant during the Cultural Revolution. Some cadres were removed
from the party on the ground that they resorted to Ultra-leftism.
However, none characterized Lin Piao as an
Ultra-leftist during that period.
There seem to be
three kinds of groups in the party when Lin Piao was
very popular: Mao’s group, Lin’s group and the rightists’ group whose principal
representative was Chou En-lai. At one time, reducing
the dominance of Lin Piao was the main problem of
other groups. Mao’s group, joining hands with the rightists’ group began to
contain Lin Piao’s group. [Why should
Mao’s group join hands with rightists? Mao’s group could have reduced the
dominance of rightists by joining hands with Lin Piao’s
group, couldn’t they? –We do not get answers to such questions as these. All
this is like, to use a Telugu saying, keeping
the buffalo in the tank and bargaining for its horns’. Who joined hands
with whom and why? Every thing is a speculation. We can raise questions and
seek answers only when we know the actual truth.]
Whatever be the
truth, it is indisputable that attempts were made to contain Lin Piao’s group.
Attack on the
Lin’s group started with the criticism of Chen Po-ta,
who was considered to be Lin’s man, as a traitor of the revolution. The charge leveled against Chen Po-ta was
related to the office of the ‘President’ of People’s Republic of
The CPC informed
other fraternal Communist Parties about its condemnation of Chen Po-ta. Referring to this, Enver Hoxha, the First Secretary of the Albanian Labour Party
wrote as follows in his diary on
Chen Po-ta had been committing mistakes since 1925. [He must have
gorged mud when he was a child!] He was a member of the Kuomintang; at that
time he wrote articles against the CPC. When he accompanied Mao to
Drawing our
attention to the charges which the ‘Chinese comrades’ made against Chen Po-ta, Hoxha commented critically.
While Chen Po-ta was carrying on Mao’s cult, ‘what
were the others doing? Sleeping?….’ thus questioned Hoxha, forgetting how he defended Stalin’s cult! [Are you
not curious to listen to Hoxha’s answer to a possible
question, ‘While Khrushchev was intensifying Stalin’s cult, what was Stalin
doing, sleeping?]
Should we assume
that Mao was not aware of the list of charges put up against Chen Po-ta to conclude that he was a traitor? Should we think that
a CC member was declared as a traitor without the knowledge of the party
chairman? Did Mao consider those charges reasonable?
Some more actions
were taken against Lin Piao’s group.
In January 1971,
Peking Military Area was reconstituted (suspecting that Lin’s group was
dominant); a commander, a political commissar and a minister were transferred
(Rice 1974: 504?)
In April 1971,
when the Working Meeting of the CC was held, some of its members (who were also
in Polit Bureau) made self-criticism saying that they
were repenting for supporting Lin in the past. Chou En-lie announced this later
(Rice 1974: 505?)
In 1970, Edgar
Snow in his news report to a French news paper informed that he learnt that
extraordinary developments were going to take place in
Between August
and September 1971, Mao left
Thus, after some
background work had been done by the opponents of Lin Piao
to fell him, the actual story began with a sudden incident. (The following
information is taken mainly from Van Ginnekan’s
book.)
On September 12,
a meeting of party leaders was held suddenly in
On September 13,
all the flights in
Some of the world
news agencies released a news item that all the flights in
The news that Lin
fled the country spread to other countries but Chinese people were not aware of
it. The Chinese newspapers did not give that news. It was clear that Lin, his
wife and son were not in the country. What about their whereabouts? Where did
they go?
On September 20,
the Government declared that Republic Day celebrations to be held in
This situation
continued till the end of September.
On September 30,
a Mongolian newspaper reported that a Chinese aircraft made in
The Russian news
papers also carried a news item: The cause for this plane crash was not known.
There were nine half-burnt bodies, weapons and documents. It looked like an
air-craft of Chinese air force.
On September 30,
the Mongolian government asked the Chinese ambassador to Magnolia as to why the
Chinese air-craft entered into their territory.
The Chinese
ambassador passed on this information to
On October 3,
The Chinese
ambassador passed on the views of Mongolian government to
Did the
ambassador see the aircraft? Did he find the dead bodies? Or did they remove
them before he visited the spot? Did Mongolian government examine the whole
issue? Is it true that there were documents in the plane? —We do not find
information on these issues.
Now, about the situation in
The newspapers in
From November
onwards the newspapers began to publish some comments in a subtle manner on Lin
Piao without mentioning his name ‘some emperors, army
commanders, princes, prophets, sages tried to turn the wheel of history
backwards’ wrote People’s Daily of
November 7. On the same day, the
At the end of the
same year, an article in Red Flag
chanted thus, ‘double tongued counter-revolutionaries — however much they hide
themselves, however much they try to conceal their real faces — can never
escape from the piercing examination of Chairman’s vision and from comprehensive
and collective action of revolution masses who are armed with Chairman Mao’s
thought.’ (Van Ginnekan 1976: 279).
Han Suyin (1976: 336) tells us that many articles had appeared
in Chinese press since the Ninth Congress. All of them were aimed at Lin Piao without mentioning his name. It was difficult even for
Sinologists to identify the targets in those articles.
However subtle
the campaign might be, every one understood the real issue. But
not in a proper manner but by way of whispers. There might have been
some provinces where people did not know all this.
Was it not a
matter of humiliation to the people if they came to know about happenings of
their country through the news media of other countries instead of their own
media? If foreign tourists in
As it gradually
began to unfold that the entire subtle propaganda was against Lin Piao, people were unable to understand why so much
opposition to Lin. There have been eulogies of Lin since five years — through
the newspapers, radios, meetings etc. Two years ago, he was described as the
‘heir apparent’ of Mao. Why this propaganda against such a person? What did he
do? People would put all these questions to the local party cadres. What would
they answer? In fact, it was not convincing to them. Lower level cadres were
not at all inclined to conduct campaign against Lin Piao.
In February 1972, some attempts were made to explain this issue to cadres in
the capital of Yunan province under the guidance of a
military commander. Some cadres were afraid of the very idea of condemning Lin Piao. Some cadres did not like even tell people about Lin.
Some cadres thought that such propaganda against Lin would cause damage in
other ways. Some cadres did not even consider this as a point for discussion.
A party worker in
In
The Chinese
government initially passed on some news about Lin Piao
to other countries where fraternal communist parties were ruling. Albanian
Party secretary Hoxha recorded this in his diary on
In February 1972,
a top Chinese official informed about Lin Piao to the
delegation of the French parliamentarians (Daubier
1974: 268).
The Chinese
embassy in
News about Lin Piao was known so clearly in foreign countries. But they
did not announce it in
According to some
writers, on
All this
indicates that, though the defence minister and the top most leader
in the party disappeared on
Why did they
delay to inform their own people? Would any reason, however sound it might be,
justify this delay? ‘Assuming that Lin Piao fled to
foreign countries and would wage war on
“Our defence
minister has fled the country. He may wage war against us. Or, he may instigate
a revisionist coup in some parts of the country. We have to face this
challenge.” – Unless the party thus tells the people, the people cannot be
ready to defend the country and revolution, can they? Unless the people of the
world know about Lin Piao’s threat to Chinese
revolution, people of the other countries cannot resist his attempts, can they?
Only then they would be able to put pressure on their government not to help
Lin Piao. Without any connection with the people of
their own country and other countries, can a handful of party leaders defend
the revolution? What was the reason for Chinese Party for not announcing
publicly about Lin Piao? It was necessary for all the
groups in the party to oppose Lin Piao, wasn’t it?
What objections even hardcore rightists would have? The party did not care as
to what the people would think of the party on this issue. The party simply
dumped the jargon, “Believe the People! Rely on the People!” but not relied on
people in this respect without informing the people about an extraordinary
event. The party leaders chanted mantras, “Millions of People
armed with the thought of Chairman Mao….” Those millions of people were so
armed to face the forthcoming challenge that they were not aware who their
enemies were!
When war-like
situation emerges in reality, then they will start giving calls: “Come on! Come
on! Wake up? March! Resolve yourself! Defend the country!” When these stupid
people genuinely jump forward, sacrifice selflessly and accomplish gigantic
task, our gentlemen will come again to the forefront, push the people to the
back and say, “Sleep until another war begins. Until then we do not need you.
What do you know of all that politics? We will take care of all those things!
Saying thus, the leaders will be engrossed in long discussions on what should
be the designations for the new positions and who should occupy them. Since it
held a careless attitude toward people, the Chinese party dealt with the people
in that manner on the issue of Lin Piao. If this was
not the reason can any one offer any other explanation for its behaviour?
Criticism against
Lin Piao began directly since October 1972. The
criticism was that Lin Piao was responsible for
Ultra-left mistakes and many crimes committed during Cultural Revolution. It is
true that Lin Piao followed Ultra-left trend. But,
never did they criticize so in the past. Now they were criticizing.
To the question,
‘why did Lin Piao flee so suddenly?’ the answer they
offered was, ‘Because his conspiracy has been exposed!’
As a reply to the
question, ‘what was that conspiracy?’, there began
different stories. The stories that we are going to listen were not narrated by
the CPC at one place. We could collect one piece here and another piece there.
The following is a mixture of several pieces which some writers (e.g. Burkhart,
Van Ginnekan, Hoxha)
mentioned in their writings.
Lin Piao was holding the post of Vice-Chairman of the party. If
he killed Mao, Lin Piao thought, he would become
Chairman soon since he was already the Vice-chairman. [Clever
idea! We can’t deny. What about the histories of emperors who followed
conventions of inheritance? If the old king did not leave the thrown forever,
how long would the prince pass his time in hunting birds and riding horses? He
too would reach forty-five or fifty years of age. Desire to sit on the thrown
and rule would keep on increasing. Thus he would have his own problems. When
Lin Piao possessed heirdom
— the heirdom using which, sons kill their fathers
and younger brothers kill older brothers —what was wrong if he used it? When we
convert Communist Party into a Law of inheritance of feudal emperors, we have
to enjoy the fruits of such consequences, shouldn’t we?
Lin Piao, out of zeal to become the Chairman, called two
military officers and said, “Look officers! Today our great leader Chairman Mao
will go in this train in this route. Both of you have to plant bombs on the
rail track: one at one place, another at another place. Understand! Go!”
Of the two
officers, one gentleman had a tender heart. Like butter.
We do not know about the heart of the second gentleman. The first gentleman
immersed in a deep sorrow, ‘should I kill Chairman?’ He went home, lied down on
a cot and fully covered himself with a blanket. His wife started pestering him,
“Sir, are you suffering from fever? Are you suffering from….”
The gentleman paused for a while and called his wife, “Hey, come here! I have
something to say!” He narrated everything to her and asked her, “Tell me a way
out”. She was a doctor. She thought for a while [Without scolding her husband
thus, ‘why did you accept to do such a thing as this?’] and told him, “Don’t
worry. I will give you an idea.” She,
then, gave him an injection that made him ill. He became temporarily blind. If
he could not see, he could not plant a bomb on the railway tract. Therefore, he
felt happy and lied down. Then that doctor-cum-loyal wife made a phone call to
somebody and told him all the details. “A rail accident that would have killed
Chairman Mao was averted due to the butter-like heart of my husband. But there
is threat to Mao’s life at another place. The place is….” Then the official
removed Mao from that train immediately. Thus, Lin Piao’s
conspiracy was exposed.
While this was going
on, another story unfolded. Lin Piao’s second wife’s
daughter made a phone call to Chou En-lai and said,
“My father and others are fleeing today to some place.” Chou En-lai made a phone call to Lin Piao’s
house which was in a rural coastal area, some hundreds of miles away from
Peking Lin’s wife Achun received the phone and told
that Lin was not at home and he went to a dance programme. As soon as Chou En-lai put down the phone, she called her husband. We don’t
know what they talked. In five minutes all of them started in a car toward Paithaho airport. The car driver suspected that something
was wrong. He refused to drive. Lin Likua shot the
driver immediately and necked him out of the car. He
himself drove the car fast to the airport. When they reached the airport they
came to know that Chou En-lai ordered the
cancellation of all the flights. But Lin Piao some
how managed the personnel in the control tower. The plane was ready. While
filling the fuel, Lin Likua was hurriedly looking at
his watch. Then an officer in the airport got suspicion. He got a big oil
tanker kept as a hurdle on the runway to prevent the plane from taking off. As
it was not possible to run, the plane flew vertically upwards. Lin Piao boarded the plane in such a hurry that he jumped into
the plane through the window without even climbing the steps. He even left his
cap. He did not check whether there was sufficient fuel in the plane or not.
Here there is
another small story. After Lin Piao’s plane flew into
the sky, another helicopter with Lin’s followers also flew out. Then its pilot
suspected that something wrong was going to happen. He refused to fly.
Immediately an officer shot the pilot with a pistol. The helicopter fell down.
Two officers shot themselves. Only one survived and he narrated the whole
story. This was how Lin Piao’s conspiracy was
exposed.
Hoxha called
this tale ‘a great detective story’. But will a single copy of a book be sold
if detective stories are so lifeless? Such stupid stories will be of no use
except to get defame that communists are incapable of
writing even detective stories. It was not stupid rural folks who fabricated
these stories. It was the party cadres in
The party was
well aware that so many cock and bull stories were in circulation in the
country. Yet the party did not reveal the actual truth, did not condemn these
false stories and tried to give a proper understanding to the people. The party
did not issue even a single report giving details with regard to when, in which
plane and from which airport Lin Piao fled.
If
we see the diary of the First (?) Secretary (Hoxha) of the party of labour of
“At last, after
nearly eleven months, the Chinese comrades, through our ambassador in Tirana,
have given us some official information about the ‘Ultra-leftists’ or the ‘Lin Piao plot’.
The Chinese
comrades tell us approximately this: Now we (the Chinese) say that the
ultra-leftists have been completely unmasked and the main one, the root of
them, was Lin Piao. He raised the banner of Chairman
Mao against Chairman Mao. During the Cultural Revolution he created a line left
in form but right in essence, wanted to overthrow the dictatorship of the
proletariat and restore capitalism in
Lin Piao, said the Chinese comrades, was a typical two-faced
element. Earlier, in the time of Wang Ming, Lin supported him, but at that time
he was young. This was considered a mistake due to immaturity. Later he united
with Mao, took part in the Long March, indeed did some good things, but also
made mistakes during his work, which he corrected..
Lin Piao was against the Korean War and the sending
of the Chinese volunteers there. He appeared to have admitted his mistakes, but
on the other hand, he had undermined everything, which was in the interest of
the party. When Chairman Mao launched the Cultural Revolution, he took up the
banner of Chairman Mao, but in fact he was working for himself.
They also told
us: Chairman Mao was not in agreement with the assessments and glorification
Lin made of Mao’s ideas and work. All that glorification, which built up Mao to
the skies, was anti-Marxist, because it put him above Marxism-Leninism, because
the Chinese soldiers and officers hung portraits of Mao round their necks,
because they bowed before the portrait of Mao every morning and made
self-criticism before this same portrait (as before icons of Christ).
The assessment
that ‘Mao Tse-tung thought is the highest
In fact, he
conspired to kill Mao on three occasions, say the Chinese, but they told us
only of one occasion, the one in which Lin Piao’s
son, Deputy-Commander of the Air Force, had formed a group of hundred people,
with which he was to kill
Mao and Chou En-lai, to capture the
premises of the Central Committee, and overthrow the state of the dictatorship
of the proletariat.
Lin Piao is accused of inciting enemy elements to carry out
sabotage against the party and to spark off clashes within the army during the
Cultural Revolution. He had created a group of loyal followers around himself,
whose members tried to build him up through flattery.
The Chinese
comrades said that Mao saw through Lin’s words right at the start, but did not
see his schemes. These conspiratorial activities came to light gradually,
especially after the 9th congress of the Communist Party of China.
As is known, the decision that Lin Piao was to be the
successor to Chairman Mao was approved at this congress. (This thing, too, just
as all the other things, we Albanians condemned long ago.) Lin Piao, seeing that Mao Tse-tung
was in good health, was afraid that the torch would never be handed on to him
and that was why he hatched up ‘the plot in order to seize power as rapidly as
possible’.
Lin Piao, the Chinese told us, felt that Mao would understand
these things, therefore at the 2nd Plenum
of the CC in 1970, he assembled his group to carry out a coup d’etat. [This means one can think of coup during the
meetings of the CC. Perhaps it is the right place to hatch plots!] At the time,
the Soviets committed the provocation on the Ussuri
and brought 300,000 soldiers into
When the plot was
discovered, on the morning of
Hence according
to the Chinese comrades, immediately after the plot was discovered, Lin Piao wanted to go to the
‘This means,’
said the Chinese comrades, ‘that with the exposure of Liu Shao-chi,
Lin Piao and other conspirators by the Cultural
Revolution, the party has been purged, has emerged stronger, and with a higher
level of consciousness in the struggle between the two lines and in the class
struggle.’
Huang Yung-sheng, Li Huo-geng, Wu Fan-hsien, Tsin Hui-tec,
who have been arrested, took part in Lin Piao’s group
of trusted followers. The Chinese told us: “We have said nothing publicly on
this matter; as to other matters, we are waiting to see what the Soviets will
say’. … ‘Meanwhile, every body in our country knows about this and is clear on
it’, said the Chinese comrades. ‘We have not said anything outside. Dangerous
situations in the struggles between the two lines have occurred on ten
occasions in our Party, but this was the most dangerous and most serious. Now
the ultra-left trend has been thoroughly exposed. The Cultural Revolution was
protracted, because of the sabotage of Lin Piao,’
they continue and then add: ‘Nr. 516 Organization was described as
counterrevolutionary because on
The Chinese
comrades said that Lin Piao was exposed little by
little, that he worked behind the scenes. [Do people who hatch conspiracy do
things behind scenes or publicly? Do they call others and say, ‘Come on, we are
hatching a conspiracy, come and watch!’, just as people invite others and say,
‘Come on, we are holding a religious function (‘vratam’), come and see’? ] ‘We
have had a great deal of sabotage in our external relations, and in the Foreign
Ministry there were groups which were guided by the ideas of Nr. 516 Organization.
Both we and Mao Tse-tung,’ said the Chinese comrades,
‘had understood Lin Piao’s aims, but we did not think
that he would engage in an open plot. Lin did not say much, but worked in
secret.’
‘The Report to
the 9th Congress was only read by Lin Piao.’
(Astonishing! The Vice-Chairman of the party was
allegedly a gramophone record!)
This was the
whole history of the Lin Piao plot, which the Chinese
comrades reluctantly told us of, nearly a year later.”
After narrating
the Chinese report, Hoxha raised some good questions.
‘Chinese comrades
say that Mao’s directives were not implemented. Who was to implement them? The conspirators? It is evident that they do not implement.
They say that such events occurred ten times. However, the Chinese comrades
have not drawn the real lessons from all these bad things. Groups in the
leadership were quarrelling, attacking each other, being overthrown, one after the other. As soon as one is overthrown, a second
one rises, this falls and another rises. All of them fight under the banner of
Mao, but that this banner of his is not identified with that of the party….The
Chinese comrades present Lin Piao as ‘very cunning’
but he did not show himself at all cunning in his plot and his treachery. Would
a cunning person get into the flight without checking the fuel? If Lin Piao was committing mistakes, how was it possible that he
became the Vice-Chairman of the party and the minister of Defence? These things
are hard to swallow!’
Hoxha mentions another version. That Lin Piao did
not agree with other groups in the party on the question of foreign policy and
hence other groups wanted to eliminate him. ‘He was summoned urgently to
Hoxha concludes that day’s diary as follows: “All these version
are suppositions dictated by the unclarity of the facts
which the Chinese themselves provide. Officially we accept
all that the Chinese say, but time will explain everything” (p. 744).
Hoxha compromises with his questions and leaves the responsibility of exposing
positive and negative aspects of human history to the goddess of time. Thus
because of his concluding comments the entire discussion of Hoxha,
to borrow a Telugu saying, ‘turned into a
scent poured into ashes.’
If critics, who
initially made deep, extensive, serious and wonderful critical comments,
compromise with the wrong doings of others, the wrong-doers are not at all
affected. They look at the critic with a smile and say, ‘Make any number of
critical comments. As much as your stamina permits.
Any way, you are going to compromise with us.”
What is the use
of such criticism? When you cannot stand on your criticism for whose sake you
are making that criticism? When you have so many doubts on this issue why
should you accept the version of the Chinese? What is ‘official’ and what is
unofficial for a communist? Who are you to decide, ‘let us accept this official report’.
Prepare a report,
circulate it among your people and tell them, ‘this is what Chinese are
saying’. Your people will it discuss in as many ways as possible: in the
meetings, newspapers and the like. Collect all their views through your party
committees. Based on that, prepare a reply, send it to the Chinese and tell
them, “This is what our people and the party think about your report on Lin Piao.” Publish it in your newspapers. Convey it to world
news agencies. The world will judge whether the Chinese report is correct or
Albanian reply is correct. When so much has to be done, is it proper if His
Excellency the First Secretary takes a pen and paper and scribble, “Officially
we accept” ? Will it be party’s view or country’s
views?
Let us leave Hoxha aside and examine once again what the Chinese party
told about Lin Piao’s episode.
What conspiracy
did Lin Piao hatch, according to the CPC? That he
attempted to organize an armed revolt? Are there details in that report
regarding the day on which he attempted, the kind of attempts he made and how
the Chinese came to know about those attempts? ‘He hatched a conspiracy’; ‘he
had a scheme’; ‘he wanted to establish capitalism’ — these were the
accusations. On the one hand they say they exposed his scheme and on the other
hand they say they don’t have the facts to frame charges!
“When the plot
was discovered….” Say the Chinese. What did they discover? If they had
discovered on September 12 & 13, 1971 why did they start negative campaign
against him since 1970? If they knew about his fleeing five hours before the
plane took off, why did they let that ‘traitor’ leave? Was five-hour time not
enough to cancel all the flights? Did they not feel the need of keeping watch
on the airports that were available to Lin? Did they want the fun of imposing
war on people?
“…the party has
been purged, has emerged stronger, and with a higher level of consciousness in
the struggle between the two lines and in the class struggle,” said the
Chinese. Who waged this class struggle? Who raised the level of consciousness
of the party? This means, two gangs butt each other, one gang knocks down
another gang and the gang that gains upper hand starts campaigning that it won
the class struggle!
Chinese comrades,
it cannot be class struggle. It is merely gang war. The world witnessed this
gang war for a thousand generations. The only difference is that you are waging
that war in the name of Communism. But the world looked at you with wonder that
you were waging class struggle. How long would it watch unless it finds something. All it found were this sort of ‘wonderful
things’.
Your report gave
a wonderful clue for discouraging Mao’s cult from 1970. Since you started
anti-Lin Piao campaign since 1970, you needed a list
of blunders, which Lin Piao committed. You wanted to
put the blame of cult entirely on Lin’s group. If you want to say, ‘Lin Piao did all this, Mao didn’t like it at all’, first you need to
start saying, ‘cult is not necessary’. No doubt Lin was also responsible for
Mao’s cult and he must be criticized for that. But why didn’t they criticize
him at that time? Why are they criticizing him only now? What is the secret
behind this? This is an important question for us.
They started to
sing a new song: that all the praises showered on Mao were anti-Marxist, that all those actions connected with cult were
idealism and Mao criticized Lin Piao in the past
itself.
Is there any
document that proves the claim that Mao criticized Lin in the past? If they say
that Mao scolded Lin Piao at the personal level [My
dear Lin, don’t commit mistakes!], this issue is not something akin to, to
borrow a Telugu expression, ‘scolding
wife’s brother’.
Why didn’t we
hear in the past comments like ‘cult is idealism and anti-Marxism’? If Mao did
not like his cult, what would this report say about Mao’s interview with Edgar
Snow? Is it enough if you put the entire blame on Lin and criticize him
singularly? Did Mao make a self-criticism thus, ‘I too committed mistake in
this issue’. The first mistake was Mao’s. Did Mao ever write an article
criticizing those who carried his pictures around their necks,
worshipped those pictures and who resorted to many more wrong practices? Did he
ever teach his countrymen or the outside world through news papers or Radio
thus, ‘to exhibit your love for me in this manner is a terrible insult to me.
This means you are treating me as some body who yields
to superstitious forms. Oppose every one who encourages cult of individual. We
do not want Personality Cult. What we want is collective spirit and action. Socialist practice.”
Mao felt happy
and kept quiet while his personality cult has been undertaken on such a large
scale for so many years. But the CPC puts the entire blame of Personality cult
on Lin Piao since Mao had ‘some’ problems with Lin Piao. True, that there are millions of people who blindly
believe what the party says but it is stupidity to think that those millions of
people will remain so blind forever.
After giving a
haphazard report on Lin to the Communist Parties of other countries (not to all
countries), the Chinese government published a news report for the consumption
of its people on
1.
Lin Piao attempted to
usurp the party leadership. He placed individuals above the party and insisted
that his name must be mentioned as the heir apparent of Mao in the party
constitution (in April 1969).
2.
From 1966 to 197l, he implemented his opportunistic
line opposing the correct line of Chairman Mao.
3.
Between 1969 and 1970, he undermined Democratic
Centralism and argued that army should lead the party.
4.
Right from the beginning of the Cultural Revolution,
Lin made several attempts to kill Mao especially between 1966 and 1971.
5.
When the party criticized anti-party clique of Peng and Huang, he took advantage of it and tried to usurp
the military leadership before and after Lushan
conference in 1958-59.
6.
He disregarded party discipline. Formed cliques. He
relied only on his followers and recruited traitors into the military.
7.
To oppose the red flag, he raised the red flag of
‘study of Mao’s writings’ to a disproportionate height. He has been resorting
to political tricks since 1969 for his selfish ends.
8.
During the period of Cultural Revolution especially
between 1967 and 68, he organized indiscriminate attacks on the party cadres
and dismissed many leading cadres and other comrades who should not be removed.
He organized ill-motivated attacks on our cadres.
9.
Between 1970-71, he opposed the
correct foreign policy of Chairman Mao.
10.
He maintained illicit relations with foreign
countries in 1971.
These accusations
indicate that Lin Piao has been following
conspiratorial methods since 1958. Why did they ignore such a person until
1971? If he had apologized in the past, why do they raise them again today?
No one has any
right to consider it a crime if a person argued that army must lead the party.
A person would argue like that in accordance with his understanding. Or he
would argue as per his class nature. An argument of a single member can not be
the decision of the entire party. If that argument was wrong, others should
make efforts to enable the members grasp the correct argument and defeat the
wrong one. But, you have no right to accuse him for that argument. If you do
so, it will close the doors for discussions.
Inclusion of his name in the party constitution as
the heir apparent of Mao is a clear proof to say that Lin Piao
made a mistake. Based on this, we can conclude Lin Piao
lacked communist outlook. But lack of communist outlook itself does not amount
to a crime if it does not harm others. But declaration of heirship
did harm. Though the party is meant to defend the collective interests of the
people, Lin Piao misused it for his selfish-end.
Thus, he committed an act that harmed millions of people. But, party members
other than Lin Piao had also given their consent for
the heirship [It happened since the majority accepted
it]. Therefore, members other than Lin Piao were also
responsible for that mistake. We cannot say, ‘Majority was at fault, minority
was not at fault because they opposed it.”
We have to
respect majority-minority principle as long as the party does not distract from
the fundamental objectives. The majority-minority principle becomes meaningless
if the fundamental objectives are subverted. If a party member proposes thus,
‘Let us re-establish bourgeois society. Let us give back the property to the
private individuals who owned it in the past. Or let us bring back royal
dynasty and start the rule of emperors.’ – Will the party conduct voting and
follow the majority-minority principle? Will the principle of voting be
relevant? Principle of voting is irrelevant to such issues which have already
been concluded as reactionary. Heirship of state
power is a phenomenon related to the period of emperors. [This is not
inheritance of property. Inheritance of official position.
This is not even bourgeois in nature. It relates to the remote past.]
The fact — that a
person, who was the Vice-Chairman of a communist party, wanted a right relevant
to the age of emperors and got it — indicates that it was beyond imagination
that the communist party was full of feudal stink. When a leader asked for a
right relevant to the age of emperors, the party members can not justify
themselves by saying, ‘we fought against it. But we were in minority. What can
we do?’ Thus the argument that minority was not at fault is also not tenable.
It was the fault
of the majority which was in favour of heirship. Also
it was the fault of the minority who obeyed the majority. Thus the entire party
was at fault. The whole party resorted to an awfully anti-people action.
Yet, there is a
difference between Lin Piao and other party members
in this issue. Lin Piao did it for his personal,
selfish end. Other party members did not do it for selfish ends. They
surrendered to the external conditions. Individually they were not in a
position to resist the proposal of heirship. It was
in the hands of Lin Piao in the sense that such a
declaration would not have been made if Lin Piao
opposed it. Thus, in view of the specific nature of this issue, we cannot treat
both Lin Piao and others in the same manner. But the
question is whether those other members of the party showed any sign of
opposition or tried to resist the proposal. The answer to this question is
readily available: ‘They yielded because of the strength and weakness of
classes involved’. There were some accounts which say that Mao – in view of the
consolidation of revisionist forces in the party – wanted once again to go back
underground, mobilize people to fight against the revisionists. But he thought
it would be better if remained in the party and made some efforts instead of
leaving the party in the hands of the revisionists. With this view, he yielded
to Lin Piao temporarily. If this was true, there
should not have been any problem to reveal the whole episode after the
disappearance of Lin Piao. Did the party do so after
Lin Piao left the scene? Did the party bring out any
document to the notice of the people giving all the details thus, ‘amidst the
strength and weaknesses of the classes, the party took a step backwards and
accepted the heirship. It had to do so under
unavoidable circumstances.’ If the party had yielded to the unavoidable pressures,
should it not reveal the truth as soon as it got an opportunity, if it was
really anxious to reveal the truth to the world? The party criticized Lin Piao for the inclusion of heirship
but did not make a single self-critical examination except vague, subtle and
stray words. Once Chou En-lai, while talking to some
foreign ambassadors in
Should we assume
that decisions were made among individuals and declarations are made in the
party?
On another
occasion, Chou En-lai told that the fraternal
communist parties ridiculed us because of Lin Piao’s heirship. The constitution of the CPC has feudal colour.
Writing about the heirship in the party constitution
means giving lot of scope for anti-communists, they said (Van Ginnekan 1976: 255).
In Chou En-lai’s statements, we do not find the self-critical
attitude. They simply tell us that others found fault with the party. Nowhere
do we find Mao’s views on this heirship. Except stray
comments of this sort, there is no explanation by the party. If they had
included the declaration of heirship unwillingly,
would they keep quite without revealing the truth when they got an opportunity?
Based on this, what should be our understanding of the role of the party in
this mistake? If other members had waged struggle on this issue, there would be
difference between Lin Piao and other members.
Otherwise, all were alike. There was no struggle on the issue of heirship. Then, other party members were culprits as much
as Lin Piao. If it was so, how could others accuse
Lin Piao? Since all of them were tolerant of the heirship, they incorporated it in the party constitution.
The fact that the
party constitution mentions that a particular person is the
closest comrade in arms to the chairman indicates the character of the
CPC. It is not merely the word ‘heir’ that must be objectionable to the
Revolutionaries.
What does the
statement ‘Lin Piao is the closest comrade in arms’
mean? Who else will occupy the position of the chairman other than the closest
comrade in arms? Was there only one person in the entire party who was closest a
comrade of Chairman? [If that person and Mao had individual friendship, it
ought to be at individual level. Mao could write in his personal letters that
‘I like such and such person more than others!’ What right does the chairman
have to state in the party document that ‘such and such a person is my closest
comrade in arms’? Mentioning the name of a person as the closest comrade in the
party constitution implies violation of collective rules and assigning
privileged positions to that person as well as the Chairman. In the past, they
referred to Liu Sho-chi as the closest comrade in
arms to Mao (Rice 1974: 167). As wrong practice of assigning privileged
position to a single individual has been there in the Chinese party, it led to
the announcement of heir apparent.
There is an
argument that the Chinese term for heir is ‘chih penjen’ which means one ‘who carries out responsibilities’;
and the party constitution used the term ‘heir’ in this sense. Even if some one
says that, ‘this person will discharge my duties after me,” what does it mean?
Is it not wrong to assign privileged position to one individual in the party
documents? Those who argue that it was not wrong to mention so will be in a fix
when they recall the fact that Lin Piao got his name
mentioned in the party constitution as a heir of Mao.
If there was no
objection to refer to a person as ‘the closest comrade in arms’ of the
chairman, there should be no objection to refer to a person as a heir apparent. Both are same. The party which was
revolutionary in certain aspects was very backward in its consciousness. Can we
say that the CPC did not do revolutionary acts? When it removed Teng for the second time (in April 1976), it was a
revolutionary political act. It meant defeating revisionist forces once again.
Could such a party not prevent the declaration of heirship?
It did not have that outlook. As it was at such a level of assimilating feudal
aspects, such a declaration was possible. Hence, it did not find the question
of heirship (in 1969) objectionable. The question of heirship served as a pretext because of subsequent problems
with Lin Piao. From this point of view, we need not
justify the accusation of heirship against Lin Piao. Thus, 8 out of ten charges leveled
against Lin Piao will not stand. Now, the last two
will remain. Perhaps these charges must have created the whole confusion.
It is clear that
Lin Piao and others in the party had differences
(were they differences of opinion or class struggles?), with reference to
Chinese foreign policy. This was the 9th charges leveled
against Lin Piao. In the report which Hoxha narrated, the Chinese lamented that a great betrayal
was done to our foreign policy during the Cultural Revolution. But they did not
explain what that betrayal was. Who can console those who lament without
telling reasons? Do we say, ‘Yes, Lin Piao was
wrong’, just because
he had passed away and he would not question us and just because
the CPC is lamenting?
We have already
noted that Lin Piao’s group was opposed to other
groups on the question of Sino-American relations. Nixon visited
The Chinese did
not explicitly say that Lin Piao opposed Chinese
relations with
The tenth charge
was also exactly the same as the ninth one. That Lin Piao
had illicit relations with foreign countries in 1971. which
countries were they? What do illicit relations mean? What did Lin do? Even if
they were illicit acts, should we accept just because the accusation was made
by CPC, whose chairman was Mao? If we accept it, will it not amount to Mao’s
cult? [The intention of the Chinese leaders was to tell that Lin Piao had clandestine relations with
Is there a single
charge that we can admit out of ten charges leveled
against Lin Piao? On the one hand, they said, ‘Lin Piao was able to include his heirship
because he had huge majority in the Ninth Congress’ and on the other hand they said, ‘Lin Piao had no role to play in the Ninth Congress. He simply
and reluctantly read the political report drafted by Mao.’ [One can have any
number of tongues! To borrow a Telugu expression , ‘Are they tongues or pieces of
During 1974 and
75, the CPC, under the auspices of Chou En-lai and Teng hsiao-ping brought out two
volumes containing 20 articles criticizing Lin Piao (Roy
1982: 69).
The charges leveled against Lin Piao in these
articles were very vulgar. One charge was that Lin Piao
wanted to sit on the throne under the Soviet umbrella. [Anyway, there was a
throne in
Another charge leveled against Lin was that he did not use to read books
or documents! [Did the party people think that a person who does not read books
and documents would shine as the vice-chairman of the party? Or did he become
ineligible for that post after he began to read?]
Daubier (1974: 227), a French scholar who worked in China as a teacher and a
translator in ‘Peking Review’
commented that the Chinese leaders did not give details while leveling charges against Lin Piao.
What details did
they give to their own countrymen, let alone foreigners? The leaders felt that
their people knew everything about Lin. They had clarity and they need not be
told explicitly. But the Chinese people were far away from the quarrels of
their leaders. For them, the question, ‘who is on the throne’, is immaterial.
Had Lin Piao’s group succeeded and sat on the throne,
they would look at the throne once, and say, ‘Oh, I see’ and then immerse in
their routine. To what extent the people have now reacted when Teng’s group had grown stronger and pushed Mao’s group
aside?
In case, a tide
of a mass movement rises, the people gather around it enthusiastically for a
while, just as kids gather near the circus tent. With half-baked political
knowledge, they try to make some noise. Based on their empirical knowledge,
they try to rearrange things. Meanwhile, leaders chase the people away just as
the circus manager comes out of the tent and chases away the kids thus, ‘Why
are you making noise. Get out from here.’ Some enthusiastic people initially
rebel, raise few slogans, get tired and return homes. Later, they would not
bother as to who sat on the throne or who got down from the throne. This
continues until they get political anger again. As there is no scope for people
to participate constantly in political practices, they remain, to borrow a
Telugu simile, ‘lie down like snakes
which ate mud’.
Bettelheim emphasized this point in his essay. He observed
that some mass movements in
Those who examine
the question of Lin Piao must examine a letter which
Mao wrote to his wife. Let us see Mao’s letter (dated
“After I left
The circumstances
compelled me to fulfill the request of certain
people…This is the first time that I have agreed with others against my own
desire, to act against my will. Now I have the features of both the tiger and
the monkey, but mostly those of the tiger. This is the main and most important
thing. I instruct you not to become conceited from this fame, to be cautious,
and listen to the advice of comrades…and Chen. Now I am the monkey who became
king, because there is no tiger in the mountain. In our time when there are no
heroes, I, an unimportant person, have been raised so high. I am a hero because
there were no others. You must not tell anybody all these things because they
coincide with the evil sayings of the rightists. To the leftists they will be
like a cold shower poured on their heads, while they will assist the rightists.
The main thing now is the struggle to partly overthrow the rightists. The
things I say do not suit the taste of the leftists and the masses. After we
purge the rightists we shall have to do another purge, indeed several of them.
Once in seven or eight years there is a shake-up in the world, and during these
shake-ups the evil comes to the top. Perhaps, after my death these sayings of
mine will become known and the rightists will use them for their own ends, but
the leftists, too, will use other sayings of mine, organize themselves and
defeat the rightists, etc. The rightists will be defeated like Chiang
Kai-shek.” (as
cited in Hoxha 1979:II:46-7)
This letter was
in Mao’s handwriting. The CPC circulated this letter from the end of 1972.
Subsequently it distributed to foreign communist parties as well. Why? With the intention that the atrocities of Lin Piao
would be revealed through this letter. On
Chou En-lai gave this letter as ‘a party document’. The first
question is, ‘could this letter be a party document’. [He has not given them
other documents.]
We need to
consider expressions – like ‘the monkey became king because there is no tiger’,
‘I am a hero because there were no others’ — as humorous expressions.
Incoherent expressions like, ‘I have the features…mostly those of the tiger’
and ‘monkey became king’, ‘I am unimportant person, have been raised so high’—
all these are part of humor. We do not find coherence
between words while talking for fun or humour. There is no need for coherence.
No one would have objection to treat those expressions as humor.
But it is strange to note Mao saying, ‘You must not tell anybody all these
things because they….will be like a cold shower poured
on their heads, while they will assist the rightists.’ These words sound very
odd because he wrote them as if they were politically significant. Why should
Mao write such words, ‘which coincide with the evil sayings of the rightists?’
So, the rightists will use some of the sayings of Mao ‘for their own ends’ and
leftists, too, will use other sayings of Mao! Perhaps, Mao intentionally speaks
things which are useful to both rightists and leftists! Will the rightists use
words like ‘tiger’ and ‘monkey’? The main part of the letter is very confusing!
[It seems that the hermiticism of the revolutionary
leaders have creeped into the letters which they
wrote to their wives as well!]
Well what did the
CPC want to achieve with this letter? What is there in this letter to expose?
There are different interpretations of couple of points in this letter.
Some argue that
Mao referred to Lin Piao when he wrote, ‘This is the
first time that I have agreed with others against my own desire, to act against
my will.’ What was the issue that compelled him? Shall we assume that it was
the issue of heirship? But this letter was written in
1966. So, that is not the issue. The Chinese leaders do not give details about
the issue that compelled Mao. But they expect that all of us must feel that Lin
Piao compelled Mao.
Another point in
this letter: ‘My friend has delivered a report about the coup d’etat’. Here Mao was talking about Lin Piao.
Lin Piao spoke on some issue in the polit Bureau meeting on
The main issue in
sustaining revolution is to sustain political power. We should be cautious and
prevent counterrevolutionary coups. In the countries of
Seeing the papers
connected with that Polit Bureau meeting, Mao, in his
letter, wrote that his friend made a good analysis of coup and the analysis
made him think. Now, the Chinese leaders were using the letter against Lin Piao. Showing this letter, they were commenting that Lin Piao had an intention to organize a coup right from the
beginning. The main purpose of circulating this letter was to accuse Lin Piao. But, Lin Piao talked about
coup openly in the Polit Bureau meeting. Everybody
knew this at that time.
Another
point. In the sentence, ‘Listen to the advise of comrades…and Chen’, Mao
originally wrote, ‘Listen to the advice of Comrades Lin Piao
and Chen Po-ta’. As it would not be of any use if
those names were retained, the leaders deleted one name and reduced another
name to half. [Based on what they did, it is easy to understand that those
names included Lin Piao and Chen Po-ta. There was no need for the leaders to delete names of
people other than Lin and Chen.]
When the leaders
showed these letters to foreigners, the foreigners asked our Chinese comrades,
‘who is this Chen? What is the name that is deleted?’ The reply of Chinese
comrades was, ‘We do not know.’ As if telling kids! How did they circulate that
letter without knowing the details? Would others not ask them, ‘why is this gap
in this sentence? Did Mao himself leave this gap? Why did he do so?’ Why did
the party comrades not try to find out the name that was not mentioned? Foreigners
were interested in knowing that name whereas the Chinese comrades were not
interested in getting information about their own party document! It became a
‘party document’ without knowing the information! Even if other leaders did not
know, what about Chou En-lai?
Did he also not know? Chiang Ching knew the comrades
about whom Mao was telling her. Why did the Chinese comrades find out those
names from her? Did she also not know? Then why did not you ask the actual
person (Mao)? Why didn’t you fill that gap after asking the person who left
that gap? [In fact, where was the question of filling the gap when they
themselves put the gap? Those who put gap must be ready with answers for the
possible questions, mustn’t they? Perhaps they were confident that they could
say, ‘we do not know.’]
When you were
revealing some information against a person, what value that information would
have if it does not clarify doubts? Moreover, it would be proved to be a false information. Having told that he would give a
document exposing Lin Piao, if Chou En-lai gave that headless
and tailless piece of paper, should people wonder, ‘what a conspiracy did
Lin Piao hatch?’
If people asked
Chou thus, ‘Why did you put this information before us when you could not
clarify our doubts? What conspiracy does the paper reveal?’,
what would be the answer? Was that single piece of letter necessary to prove
conspiracy in politics? If at all the crime was committed, would the party not
have means to prove that crime?
More important
question than other questions is: How did Mao agree to turn that letter against
Lin Piao? If they asked Mao, ‘You suggested to Chiang
Ching to listen to the advice of two comrades. Who
are they?’, whose names would Mao reveal? He was
obliged to mention the names of Lin and Chen Po-ta,
wasn’t he? How could Mao agree to use that letter – which had positive attitude
toward Lin Piao – against Lin Piao?
Should we assume that all this happened without his knowledge? If it was so, we
would have to raise questions accordingly.
They took out a
letter written about seven years ago. No word in that letter is clear. They do
not give details to any thing. But they circulated it claiming that it would
expose Lin Piao. In fact what would be exposed from
that letter was not Lin Piao. Firstly
Mao, then Chou En-lai and thereafter the entire
party. Why should Chiang Ching and other
leaders accept for the circulation of this letter? Since it was a personal
letter of Chiang Ching, nobody could circulate it if
she did not accept. Even very ordinary, uncivilized and stupid people do not
stoop down to this level.
If leaders of Mao
level behave without any ideals, it is no wonder that the world looks at
communism with contempt. Such incidents as these give more strength to
anti-communists. It scares away those people who watch communism from a
distance.
See what Chou En-lai, who campaigned orally that Lin Piao
hatched conspiracy, told a visiting delegation of American news editors on
It seems that
Chou En-lai’s heart
got enlarged and the truth came out of his heart as soon as he met
Americans. He had no fear that the party has to offer explanation as to why it
has been campaigning so negatively against Lin Piao
all these days and why he was now saying that Lin Piao
did not hatch a conspiracy. He was not bothered about possible criticism. Yes,
the Chinese leaders don’t care any thing. Hence, they defamed Lin Piao all these days but were now saying, ‘He did not hatch
a conspiracy but….!’ As, in fact, Lin did not
hatch a conspiracy, all these days they resorted to indirect and short
cut methods to prove some plot.
The Chinese
leaders expelled Lin Piao and Chen Po-ta from the party in the Tenth Party Conference held in
1973.
Expelling the
dead from the party! Do you call this materialism?
If a person, whom
people considered a revolutionary, had really harmed the revolution, it is
enough if we exposed him in detail. If all people form the view that the person
harmed the revolution, the people would naturally stop considering him a
revolutionary. Announcing the expulsion of a dead person from the party is
nothing but to take revenge in a primitive heinous form. It has nothing to do
with the nobility connected with class struggle.
The CPC, under
the auspices of Teng Hsiao-ping conducted a trial on
Lin Piao group along with the trial on ‘Four’ leaders
and their followers in 1980. Chen Po-ta was still in
the prison at that time. According to the trial, Lin Piao
attempted to usurp the post of the president in 1970. He appointed his son in
the Air force. He formed a group of his own. In February 1971, Lin Piao, his wife and his son hatched a plot. On
Lin Piao received a secret report from his followers about what
Mao talked during that visit. Then, he immediately decided to kill Chairman Mao
during his tour. On
Mao returned to
Charles Bettleheim (1978:
104) observed: “In 1971 the danger that the PLA leaders, grouped around Lin Piao, presented to the revolutionary trend was so great
that Lin Piao, was brusquely eliminated.” Even after
reading what Bettelheim wrote on Lin Piao, we were unable to understand the ‘plot’ of Lin Piao. While translating his book ‘
In response to
our question, Bettelheim replied as follows: “ I want to say that Lin Piao and
the generals of PLA appeared to me conservative forces trying to block the
pursuit of the mass expression which the Cultural Revolution had brought forth.
Now, till the fall of Lin Piao, these forces were in
great numbers in the Revolutionary Committees. Moreover on the disappearance of
Lin Piao, the Cultural Revolution attains a new
development particularly in the form of an effort seeking (without succeeding)
to deepen the class analysis.
In so far as the
coup d’etat which Lin Piao
appears to have attempted, I do not know anything more than what is generally
said and published and which does not appear very convincing. On the other
hand, the information that we have seems to indicate that Lin and his wife fled
in an aero plane and this aero plane crashed. There is an article on the
subject in the French daily, Le Monde (The World) by the former correspondent of this
news paper in
You are right.
There is a great contradiction between the progressive elimination of Liu
(after long meetings devoted to criticism) and the sudden disappearance of Lin
without any explanation. I think that this contradiction arises precisely from
the fact that Lin fled. This is also the point of view developed by Alain Jacob
in the article to which I referred earlier. (Bettelheim’s
letter to Ranganayakamma, dated
This means
debates would have taken place had Lin Piao not
fled. But, even if we agree that Lin Piao himself fled, the main question is ‘why did such a
situation arise?’ The world must know in the subsequent period the issues on
which differences of opinion arose in the party. We need lot of clarity with
regard to ‘fleeing’ away of Lin Piao.
The revisionist
leaders in
At the end it is
pertinent to mention Daubier’s (1974) observations on
the Lin Piao’s affair.
”And it is harder to explain how it (the five people
who formed a directorate with Mao: Chou En-lai, Kang Sheng, Lin Piao, and Chen Po-ta, fell apart” (p.269).
“….there is still
a sad lack of information on a subject (Ultra-leftist movement) so important
and so full of international implications.” (p.269)
“How
can any commentator answer this question, about which the Chinese leaders
themselves have revealed but little?” (p.225)
“The Lin Piao affairs will continue to remain a mystery until such
time as
* This article
was originally published in October 1983 as a long foot note in the Telugu
translation of Charles Bettelheim’s ‘CHINA SINCE
MAO’. The second edition of the Telugu version came out in March 2003. The
quotations from different sources were translated from English to Telugu in
1983. While preparing this English version, we could not find some quotations
in one of the books (a book by Rice) cited in the text. It seems that there
occurred some mistake in noting down the author’s name while jotting down the
quotations. Hence, we wrote those quotations in indirect speech in this English
version. To indicate this mistake, we put question mark (?) after the name of
the author in the text (Rice?). The translator has benefited from the language
corrections made by his colleague Sachidananda Mohanty, Professor of English,
Bettleheim, Charles. 1978.
Burkhart, W. 1974. Lin Piao kutra
(Telugu translation of an English article). Janasakti, dated
Daubier,
Jean. 1974. A History of the Chinese Cultural Revolution.
Great Trial in Chinese
History. 1983.
Han Suyin. 1976. wind in the Tower.
Hoxha, Enver. 1979. Reflections on
Jain, J.P. 1976. After Mao What?
Lotta, R. (Ed.). 1976.
And Mao makes 5.
Milton, D., et al (Ed.). The
O’leary, G. 1974. Ultra-Leftism and Lin Piao.
Journal Contemporary
Rice, E.E. 1974. Mao’s Way.
Roy, Amit. 1982. Lin Piao: Long Yesterday. A study of class struggle in
Schram, S. (Ed.). Mao Ste-Tung Unrehearsed. Penguin.
Snow, Edgar. 1972. The Long
Revolution.
Van
Ginnekan, J. 1976. The Rise and Fall
of Lin Piao. Penguin.
[Translation
from Telugu: B. R. Bapuji]
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