[caocao74]

I've just been reading a short biography about Mao Zedong, but I have some questions I hope you may be able to elaborate on.

1. He was married to Yang Kaihui from 1921-27. Why did they become divorced?

2. In 1942 the Cheng Feng (Rectification) campaign was launched, allegedly against Wang Ming, Wang Shiwei and Ding Ling. Why?

3. Who was Lin Biao who died in 1971 during a coup?

Thanks in advance.

[Koolasuchus]

caocao74, on Feb 3 2005, 10:38 AM, said:

I've just been reading a short biography about Mao Zedong, but I have some questions I hope you may be able to elaborate on.

1.  He was married to Yang Kaihui from 1921-27.  Why did they become divorced?

2. In 1942 the Cheng Feng (Rectification) campaign was launched, allegedly against Wang Ming, Wang Shiwei and Ding Ling.  Why?

3.  Who was Lin Biao who died in 1971 during a coup?

Thanks in advance.

2.) Wang Ming was Stalin's man in Yana, and Mao did not want CCP to be any foreigner's puppet, even if that foreigner is the "big brother."

3.) Lin Biao was one of the PRC's best general. He fought the Liao-Shen campign and smashed the crack troop of KMT. Whether or not he was actually involved in a coup is questionable, as is the circumstance of his death.

[Wú Fēi]

Caocao's questions are all hard to answer.
1.
Yang Kaihui=杨开慧 (1901-1930.11.14), the daughter of Mao's teacher, Yang Changji (杨昌济). The official explanation is they never divorced in law, but Yang was arrested and finally killed by KMT in Oct., 1930. The last meeting of Mao and Yang was in 1927.
However, my personal opinion is Yang was a pitiful woman, because of her disloyal husband Mao. Before her death, Mao married a 18-year girl, He Zizhen (贺子珍) in 1928. Though Mao is said by someone as a soulful husband loving Yang deeply, I think he was just a tough in the marriage and kind of selfish feudalist. My evidences are the latter He Zizhen's pitiful end of desertion by Mao as in the same way as Yang, and the Great Culture Revolution launched by him which brought the nation a fatal destruct.
Yang and her sons, Mao Anying (毛岸英) and Mao Anqing (毛岸青), in Changsha, Hunan Province, 1924:

He Zizhen in Yan'an, 1937:

2.
In the spring of 1942 (Feb.), Zheng Feng Movement was launched after Mao's lectures of "Rectify the party's behaviour" (《整顿党的作风》) and "Against stereotyped behaviour of the party" (《反对党八股》). (Note: I'm not sure the official translation for the two lectures. I just post mine.) The target said by Mao were against subjectivism for the study, against sectarianism for the party, and against stereotyped words for the article writting. The movement lasted till 1945's spring, with 3 phases: (1) improving consciousness with reading the official documents on the movement; (2) going along with criticism and self-criticism, by following the requirement of the movement; (3) based on the former phases, starting to censor officials. IMO, the only target of the movement was centralizing both the political administration and military power.
3.
Lin Biao=林彪 (1907.12.5-1971.9.13), was born in Huang Gang, Hubei Province. His original name was Lin Yurong (林育蓉).
In the September of 1937, Lin's troop of Division 115 defeated Japan's "flower of land forces" of Brigade 21. This battle ended the legend that Japanese could never be defeated.
Jan. 1, 1938, Lin wore the Japanese suit he captured passing by Yan Xishan's (阎锡山) area. He was mistaked for the Japanese and given a shot. The bullet hurt his nerve of spondyle; from then on Lin got the illness of fearing wind, water and light.
After the war breaking out between USSR and Nazi Germany, Lin wrote Stalin to suggest a whole tactics of defeating Germans. He was interviewed by Stalin at once, and invited to work for the general staff of USSR.
In the civil war (1945-1949), Lin played a very important role as we all know, so that I'd like to pass this period.
In the Great Culture Revolution, Lin was considered as the successor of Mao in public. During 1966-1971 Lin was the only vice-chairman of the government.
As the official voice, because of Lin's opposite idea against Mao for the discussion on the instauration of chairman, in the Lushan (庐山) Plenary Meeting, 1970, Mao doubted his loyalty. Lin had to escape with his son and wife by a "trident"; as a result, the plane pranged in Mongolia. Another version is that Lin's opinion on the Great Culture Revolution dissatisfied Mao; after the Lushan Meeting Lin's son and wife considered Mao would take action on them, so that they deluded him into getting on the plane and finally escaped.

[ming]

I have one point add to Q2.

Only after this so called Cheng Feng, Mao's thought became the mainstream ideology in CCP. One major contributor was Liu, Shaoqi, who was a Presedent of China, and was beaten by Mao later and died around 1968.

[caocao74]

I've hjust got around to checking the replies for this one. Thanks to Wu Fei and Ming.

[Merchant]

What I worte here, I heard from a taxi driver in Xi-An.

Before Mao went to Beijing to celebrate his new "republic", he stoped by WuTaiShan and asked the old monk there to read his fortune. To be specific,as Mao always had been, he asked if it was wise to move into "Emperor's Palace". The old monk told him frankly :"You, sir, are not a heavenly dragon, you are a dirt dragon. If you move into the palace you will be cursed. You must live to the west of the palace and not to claim the throne. But you must have a TaiJian to take care of you"
Mao noded and did just that. He lived happily ever after, and he did not live down the title of the "dirt dragon", he did have many many many unofficial you know what. As for the TaiJian, he (can you really call it a he?), helped to get rid of Lin Biao and others. Who was the TaiJian? The one who did not have any children.

[yehzhaofeng]

Would it be possible Lin's plane was shot down? My grandfather always had doubts of it being a crash, since rumours had it, they were behind closed doors when discussing about the Death of Lin. It could be just a way to keep the populous from going crazy over what happened.

[Enkidu]

Merchant, on Mar 18 2005, 12:09 PM, said:

What I worte here, I heard from a taxi driver in Xi-An.   

I was in Beijing mid last year, and we were driving past a potrait of Mao at TianAnMen. The taxi driver says Mao's decendants are now happily in the US with either green cards or citizenships. Same goes for Deng Xiaoping's decendants and Jiang Zemin's. I guess the proletarian revolutions all came to a happy ending to all these veterans and their families, now able to enjoy the fruit of their labour. I guess it is always fancier to eat Big Macs than Dandan noodles and to live in some neighbourhood in Pasadena which is unpronouncable to most Chinese.

[Grigori]

Andrew Yip, on Mar 18 2005, 03:06 PM, said:

Would it be possible Lin's plane was shot down?

A story emerged a few years ago which was quite popular in China.

It's said Mao invited Lin to a meeting at one of the parks. Mao never went, instead Lin was trapped by Mao's guards and strangled on the spot. His body was then put on the plane and arranged to crash.

[Merchant]

I heard that Li Biao was a Huang Pu Military Academy grad. Does anyone know what year he graduated?

Lin Biao was rumored to have been the smartest general under Mao (not the most wise one, though). I learned that fact from a children's song during the anti-Lin and anti-Confucius movements.
He worked his way up from a captain during the long march, to number 3 in the Mashall ranking after the fall of the Nationalist goverment in the Mainland.
He liked to burn matches when he was thinking hard. During his recovery in the USSR from a gun shot wound, he thoroughly impressed Stalin. And rumor has it, Stalin proposed to trade 3 Red Army tank divisions for Lin. But Mao declined.

Lin masterminded 2 out of 3 of the communist's major victories: the battle of Liaoshen and the battle of Pingjing. My dad was in Beijing at the time of the Pingjing battle. The war did not touch the city or the civilians. In fact, my dad told me that one morning, he woke up, and just like that, the solders were in the streets. They were quiet and did not disturb residents at all. Impressive.

Rumor also has it, he was offered the C-in-C for the Korean war before PengDeHai. But Mao's propaganda machine said he was too scared of death to go to Korea.

Lin's death was the most fascinating mystery in PRC history. I don't think we will ever know how it happened. Kind of like who killed JFK in the states. I heard a version similar to the previous post. But the actual cause of death was different. I heard Zhou Enlia (Mao's TaiJian) ambushed Lin Biao's Jeep. He told a poor little soldier to shot a RPG at Lin's jeep and killed him instantly. Zhou then smiled and told the soldier who it was he had just killed. The poor kid went into a state of shock.

[Xiaogang]

I think the most likely reason for the plane crash was that in Lin's haste to leave they took on insufficient fuel to make it to Russia.
We will never know for sure.

[AhMan]

Merchant, on Mar 17 2005, 10:09 PM, said:

What I worte here, I heard from a taxi driver in Xi-An.   

Before Mao went to Beijing to celebrate his new "republic", he stoped by WuTaiShan and asked the old monk there to read his fortune.  To be specific,as Mao always had been, he asked if it was wise to move into "Emperor's Palace".  The old monk told him frankly :"You, sir,  are not a heavenly dragon, you are a dirt dragon.  If you move into the palace you will be cursed.  You must live to the west of the palace and not to claim the throne. But you must have a TaiJian to take care of you"
Mao noded and did just that.  He lived happily ever after, and he did not live down the title of the "dirt dragon", he did have many many many unofficial you know what.    As for the TaiJian, he (can you really call it a he?), helped to get rid of Lin Biao and others. Who was the TaiJian?    The one who did not have any children.

Wow, this is surely typical of Chinese omens. But why was Zhou En Lai was libelled? I thought Chinese like him and respect him.

[cniht]

Merchant, on Mar 19 2005, 09:18 AM, said:

Rumor also has it, he was offered the C-in-C for the Korean war before PengDeHai.  But Mao's propaganda machine said he was too scared of death to go to Korea.  

It was confirmed in this bookThe explanation for Lin's refusal was the official one as well.

[cniht]

AhMan, on Apr 20 2005, 03:09 AM, said:

Wow, this is surely typical of Chinese omens. But why was Zhou En Lai was libelled? I thought Chinese like him and respect him.

It was only eisegesis to link the fact Zhou had no children to that omen.

[Merchant]

cniht, on Apr 21 2005, 09:40 PM, said:

It was only eisegesis to link the fact Zhou had no children to that omen.

cniht: I am impressed by the word choice of "eisegesis". That was great!
For those of you who also don't know what it means:

eisegesis
noun : personal interpretation of a text (especially of the Bible) using your own ideas