* This article is based mainly on Part II of my forthcoming book, The Origins of the Cultural Revolution, I: Contradictions among the People, 1956–57, to be published for the Royal Institute of International Affairs and Columbia's East Asian Institute by Oxford and Columbia University Presses early in 1974, (hereafter Origins).lsqb;Part II was completed before the re-emergence of Teng Hsiaop'ing in April this year.—Editor.]

1. People's Daily, 5 April, 1956. For the detailed analysis underlying this brief background section, see Origins, part 1, particularly chaps. 3 and 4.

2. Tse-tung, Maosui, ssu-hsiang wan (Long live Mao Tse-tung's Thought (No place; no publisher, August 1969) (hereafter Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui) (1969))Google Scholar;

3. Origins, pp. 110–12.

4. In art 2 of the 1945 constitution's general programme, Mao's Thought was described as the guide for the work of the OCP; in art. 2a of the section on membership, understanding the Thought of Mao, along with Marxism-Leninism, was ranked among the prime duties of a Party member. For a side-by-side comparison of the 1945 and 1956 constitutions see Current Background (CB), No. 417, pp. 32–76.

5. The Case of Peng Teh-huai, 1959–1968 (Hong Kong: Union Research Institute, 1968), p. 445Google Scholar;

6. See a compilation of dossiers in Selections from China Mainland Magazines (Supplement), (SCMM(S)) No. 27, p. 35.

7. Seechuan-chi, Tzu-liao in Survey of the China Mainland Press (Supplement) (SCMP(S)) No. 240, p. 13Google Scholar;

8. P'eng's indication as to timing is ambiguous. His phrasing k'ai pa ta shih could mean “at the opening of the eighth Congress“ which could mean that the decision was taken on the eve of the first session at which Liu delivered the political report. So late a decision seems unlikely, however.

9. See “Three trials of pickpocket Wang Kuang-mei,” CB, No. 848, p. 17.

10. See the report of Seki, Kenzaburo, Yomiuri, 14 04, 1967Google Scholar; The report is based on a wall newspaper which quoted Premier Chou as referring to the report and resolution of the 1958 session of the eighth Congress. There seem to me to be two strong arguments for believing that the paper misquoted Chou and that the premier was actually referring to the 1956 session. When Chou was speaking, in April 1967, the 1956 report was repeatedly being denounced for the omission of Mao's thought and these condemnations remained unchanged throughout the Cultural Revolution. Chou described the report and resolution to which he was referring as anti-Mao's thought To the best of my knowledge the 1958 report and resolution have not been denounced in those terms: by 1958, the dropping of Mao's thought was no longer a live issue. The second argument is that the resolution on the 1958 report was extremely brief, only seven-and-a-half lines in Jen-min shou-ts'e (People's Handbook), 1959, p. 17; even in a rushed situation it would not have taken more than a few minutes to have got Mao's opinion on it, whereas the 1956 document was far weightier, over three pages in Jen-min shou-ts'e, 1957. Nor was there anything in the 1958 resolution to which Mao would have been likely to object.

11. Collected Works of Liu Shao-chi, 1958–67 (Hong Kong: Union Research Institute, 1968), p. 367Google Scholar;

12. For a discussion of the preparations see CB, No. 411 (1956), pp. i–iiGoogle Scholar;

13. Versions of this quotation cropped up in a number of the attacks on Ch'en Yi. This one comes from the pamphletWen-ko feng yün, (Cultural Revolution Storm), No. 4 (1967), in SCMM, No. 635, p. 14Google Scholar;

14. Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan suit, CB, No. 891, p. 46. It is clear that Iiu is one of the “two” referred to by Mao; that Teng is the other is suggested by earlier passages of this speech and interventions made by Mao's supporters (ibid. pp. 44–46). However, it is just possible that in this instance Mao was referring not to Teng, but to P'eng Chen as he drafted the political section of Liu's report.

15. This would presumably apply also to the men who prepared the reports.

16. See Origins, p. 53.

17. Formally, Mao re-entered the Politburo, joined its Standing Committee, and took over the chairmanship of the Central Committee's Military Affaire Committee from Chou En-lai; seeKuo, Warren, Analytical History of the Chinese Communist Party (Taipei: Institute of International Relations, 1970), vol. iii, pp. 23–24Google Scholar; and the biography of Chou En-lai inKlein, Donald W. and Clark, Anne B., Biographic Dictionary of Chinese Communism, 1921–63 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971)Google Scholar;

18. Ch'iao-mu, Hu, Thirty Years of the Communist Party of China (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1951), p. 39Google Scholar;

19. See Shao-ch'i, Liu, On the Party, (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1954), pp. 8–10Google Scholar;

20. Eighth National Congress of the Communist Party of China (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1956), vol. i, p. 98Google Scholar;

21. This was the “ Resolution on certain questions in the history of our party “ passed in 1945; see Mao, , Selected Works (henceforward SW), vol. 3 (1965), p. 193Google Scholar;

22. Eighth National Congress, vol. i, p. 98. Michel Oksenberg has suggested to me that in this passage Liu may in addition have been pleading for himself on the collectivization issue; he has also suggested that the first sentence may have been an attempt to justify Party “ renegades “ who now occupied high offices.

23. That the implications of this passage did not escape Mao is seen by attacks on it during the Cultural Revolution; see the pamphlets inliu, , Selected Edition, SCMM, No. 651 (1969), p. 18Google Scholar; and “Liu Shao-ch'i's reactionary Speeches,” SCMM (S), No. 25, pp. 2–3.

24. On the Party, p. 9.

25. Eighth National Congress, vol. i, pp. 104–105.

26. On the Party, pp. 8–10.

27. Stung Jen-ch'iung, then a deputy secretary-general of the CCP, made a speech to the eighth Congress on collective leadership. During the Cultural Revolution he was attacked for contrasting, in this speech, collective leadership with “paternalistic individual leadership” (chia-chang-shih ti ke-jen ling-tao). It is conceivable that this was a veiled attack on Mao, but it seems unlikely since Sung was concerned exclusively with the functioning of lower-level Party Committees. His speech is translated in CB No. 419, pp. 10–15. The attack on this particular passage is contained in a six-page account of Sung's sins entitled Chien-chueh ta-tao tung-pei ti-ch'ü tang-nei tou-hao tsou tzu-pen-chu-i tao-lu ti tang-ch'iian-p'ai — Sung Jen-ch'iung (Resolutely topple the number one power-holder going the capitalist road within the party in the North-East region – Sung Jen-ch'iung)(no date, apparently published by the Iiaoning Proletarian Revolutionary Group Liaison Station “Unseat Sung Corps”), p. 1, col. 1. Sung may have presided at a group session at the eighth Congress at which the excision of Mao's thought from the Party constitution was formally agreed upon; see the attack on him inHung ch'i tung-hsun (Red Flag Bulletin), 26 05 1968 (SCMP, No. 4201, p. 10)Google Scholar;

28. See above, p. 618.

29. SeeSW, vol. 4 (1961), pp. 267–68Google ScholarPubMed; A footnote quotes Teng's comment in his eighth Congress report on this decision with evident approval. Fraternal delegates may have been ignorant of the authorship of the 1948 Central Committee decision because the relevant volume of Mao's Selected Works had not yet been published.

30. Eighth National Congress, vol. i, pp. 192–94.

31. Ibid. p. 200.

32. Interestingly enough, a very similar device was used by the Soviet ideologist L. F. Ilyichev at the CPSU's 22nd Congress to defend his patron Khrushchev against charges of encouraging a cult for himself. His words were: “It would be incorrect and harmful to confuse the authority of our leaders with the cult of personality.” Quoting this sentence, the French specialist on Soviet affairs Michel Tatu comments: “This meant that praise and whatever else enhanced Khrushchev's prestige and authority was not a bad thing in itself” ( Tatu, , Power in the Kremlin, p. 203.)Google Scholar;Hsiao-p'ing's, Teng remark was used against him during the Cultural Revolution, unjustifiably I believe. For instance, in SCMP (S), No. 208, p. 1Google Scholar; the passage is rendered: “To care for the leader is expressed in essence in caring for the interests of the Party, the class, and the people, and not in mysticising the individual.” This version suggests that Teng was telling CCP members that they could best express their affection for Mao by caring for the Party and not by direct praise of the chairman.

33. Eighth National Congress, vol. i, pp. 200–201.

34. Ibid. p. 171.

35. Ibid. p. 15.

36. Ibid. p. 227; emphasis added.

37. Ibid. p. 216.

38. See “The black relationship between P'eng Chen's counter-revolutionary clique and Liu and Teng,” Hsin Pei-ta (New Peking University), 10 06 1967, p. 4, col. 2Google Scholar;

39. Teng Hsiao-p'ing tzu-pai shu, (Teng Hsiao-p'ing's confession) (reproduced in Group X, Roll 1, Part I of the microfilm material distributed by the Center for Chinese Research Materials, Washington), pp. 5–6.

40. See above, p. 621.

41. Snow, Edgar, The Other Side of the River (New York: Random House, 1961), p. 335Google Scholar;

42. Eighth National Congress, vol. i, p. 192. All the quotations in Teng's confession differ slightly from the passages in the original report, but not so as to change the meaning. I have used the official translation of the passages as they appeared in the 1956 report.

43. Communist China 1955–9;Policy Documents with Analysis (hereafter Policy Documents). (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1962) pp 148–49Google ScholarPubMed;

44. Eighth National Congress, vol. i, p. 200.

45. Policy Documents, p. 145.

46. Eighth National Congress, vol. i, p. 201.

47. Policy Documents, p. 148.

48. The passages mentioned byTeng, were included in attacks on his report in the pamphlet How vicious they are, (SCMP (S), No. 208, p. 1Google Scholar). See also “Teng Hsiao-p'ing is a fellow-traveller of the Soviet Revisionists,” Fan hsiu chan pao (Anti-Revisionist Combat News) 8 July 1967, p. 3, col. 1. In this latter source the quotations from Teng's report are attributed to a speech made by him at a “ central conference” (chung-yang hui-yi) and two separate passages are run together as one quotation. Conceivably the source is not mistaken and Teng gave a preview of his report to a top-level meeting before the Congress.

49. See “Premier Chou talks about why firepower must be concentrated on criticizing the party's top person taking the capitalist road.” Hung chan pao, 29 November 1967. Joint Publications Research Service (JPRS), No. 44574, p. 30.

50. See above, p. 626.

51. “How vicious they are,” (SCMP(S), p. 7).

52. Ibid.

53. Eighth National Congress, vol. i, p. 171.

54. Ibid. p. 175.

55. Ibid. p. 176.

56. Chung-nan tin tung-fang-hung (Central-South Forestry Institute East is Red), 1 July 1967, p. 4, col. 3.

57. Jen-min shou-ts'e, 1957, p. 26.

58. SeeMao's, speech to a Central Committee work conference on 25 October 1966, included in Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui! (CB, No. 891, p. 75)Google Scholar;

59. From a speech to a “report meeting” on 24 October 1966 (ibid. p. 71).

60. SeeConquest, Robert, Power and Policy in the U.S.S.R. (London: Macmillan 1961Google Scholar), Chap. 10 andLeonhard, Wolfgang, The Kremlin after Stalin (London: Oxford University Press, 1962), pp. 63–94Google Scholar; It is not impossible that members of the Chinese leadership played some role in the fall of Malenkov.Teh-huai, P'eng has been accused of fawning on Khrushchev in September 1954 and it is further alleged that: “Due to P'eng Teh-huai's collaboration with bald-headed Khrushchev, the Soviet Union which originally planned to send a delegation headed by Malenkov to China (for the fifth anniversary celebration) sent a delegation headed by Khrushchev instead.” (Case of Peng Teh-huai, pp. 199–200Google Scholar;)

61. Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui! (CB, No. 891, p. 71).

62. It is possible that during the Korean war (i.e. during the “many groups” period) some contingency arrangements were made for splitting the leadership, as during the civil war. This may have been what Mao meant by his reference to “ state security “ (see above, p. 629).

63. Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan suit p. 40. I give the Chinese reference because the translation of this passage in CB, No. 891, p. 75 is inaccurate. The Chinese original of the second sentence reads: “Ti-i, ch'ang wei fen i, erh hsien, kao shu-chi-ch'u shih wo fi-ti…”

64. See below, p. 641, for the importance of the reorganization of the Secretariat.

65. Lin Piao was promoted to a vice-chairmanship of the Central Committee and membership of the Politburo Standing Committee after the second session of the eighth Congress in 05 1958.

66. The speech was altered before publication in June 1957; see Origins, partIV.

67. Loh, Robert and Evans, Humphrey, Escape from Red China (London: Michael Joseph, 1963), pp. 221–22Google Scholar; Loh's, report is corroborated in Mu Fu-sheng, The Wilting of the Hundred Flowers (London: Heinemann, 1962), p. 166, n. 1Google Scholar;

68. Trans, in CB, No. 892, p. 13.

69. Policy Documents, pp. 487–88.

70. In his speech of 24 October 1966; see Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui! (CB, No. 891, p. 71).

71. ”Down with Liu Shao-ch'i – life of counter-revolutionary Liu Shao-ch'i,” in CB, No. 834, p. 18.

72. See “Big political struggle on the news front – bow the former oentral Propaganda Department sought to blow the trumpet for ‘Emperor Iiu’,”Hsin-wen chan-hsien (News Front) 30 06 1967 (SCMP(S), No. 203, p. 32)Google Scholar;

73. See SCMM, No. 51, p. 6. There is another, briefer, version of the same quotation inKo-ming kung-jen pao, 12 01 1967 (SCMP(S), No. 167, p. 2)Google Scholar;

74. See my “On photographs,” The China Quarterly, No. 46, pp. 300–01.

75. See Policy Documents, p. 291.

76. See “On the historical experience,” ibid. p. 148.

77. See Hsiao-ch'u, Ch'iang, “Foster the party's experience of the study of rectification,” Jen-min jih-pao, 17 02 1957Google Scholar;

78. See the editorial discussing this decision in Chieh-fang-chiin pao (Liberation Army News), 24 July 1956.

79. See NCNA report from Tsinan, SCMP, No. 1382, p. 38Google Scholar;

80. Discussed further in Origins, pp. 75–83.

81. Eighth National Congress, vol. i, pp. 100–101.

82. Ibid. pp. 52–53.

83. Ibid. p. 173.

84. Ibid. p. 101.

86. Ibid. p. 174.

85. Ibid. p. 102.

87. Ibid. p. 103.

88. Ibid. pp. 73–77.

90. Ibid. p. 132.

89. Ibid. p. 126.

91. Ibid. pp. 181–82.

92. Ibid. pp. 186–87.

93. Ibid. pp. 166–67.

94. Mao, , SW, vol. iii, pp. 117–22Google Scholar;

95. Eighth National Congress, vol. i, p. 177.

96. Ibid. p. 178.

97. Ibid. p. 176.

98. Shao-ch'i, Liu, On the Party, p. 53Google Scholar;

99. Ibid. pp. 53–62.

100. The phrase “mass line” does not in fact appear anywhere in the 1945 constitution.

101. CB, No. 417, p. 35. The 1956 version is printed opposite on p. 37.

102. Eighth National Congress, vol. i, p. 176.

103. CB, No. 417, p. 37.

104. This question is particularly important since a number of western analysts have assumed that Liu and Teng were cast from the same mould. See, for instance, Lewis, John Wilson “Leader, commissar, and bureaucrat: the Chinese political system in the last days of the Revolution” in Ho, Ping-ti and Tsou, Tang (eds.), China in Crisis (University of Chicago Press, 1968), vol. i, bk. 2, p. 465Google Scholar; where he describes 1956 as “ the undisputed year of the Yenan political commissars, notably Liu Shao-ch'i and Teng Hsiao-p'ing.”

105. Kuo, , History of the CCP, vol. iii, pp. 23–26Google Scholar;Ch'en, Jerome, “Resolutions of the Tsunyi Conference,” CQ, No. 40 (1969), p. 20Google Scholar;

106. Kuo, , History of the CCP, vol. iii, pp. 23–26Google Scholar; Jerome Ch'en has suggested that the chairmanship Mao assumed at the Tsunyi Conference was that of the Central Committee, the post he held after the seventh Congress in 1945. As far as I know there is no evidence to back this view (seeCh'en, , “Resolutions of the Tsunyi Conference,” p. 36)Google Scholar;

107. Kuo, , History of the CCP, vol. iii, pp. 326–28Google Scholar;

108. Ibid. p. 340.

109. It is unclear whether or not Teng took this post over from someone else or whether it was recreated at this time. One source states that the post existed from the 1920s but disappeared in the 1940s; see the biography of Teng Hsiao-p'ing inClark, Klein and, Biographic Dictionary, vol. ii, p. 823Google Scholar;

110. According toKlein, and Clark, (Biographic Dictionary, vol. ii, pp. 715–716Google Scholar), P'eng Chen was director of the CCP's Organization Department in the early 1940s and again from 1949 to 1952. A Cultural Revolution source states that P'eng Chen became head of the Organization Department (again?) in 1950; see“Chronology of big events concerning the counter-revolutionary revisionist line of Party building formulated and pushed by Liu Shao-ch'i,” Tzu-liao chuan chi (Special Collection of Material), 11 1968 (SCMP(S), No. 24, p. 12)Google Scholar;

111. “Thoroughly expose, criticize and eradicate the flowing poison spread by Liu, Teng P'eng, Po and their black lackeys in the industrial and communications front in Liaoning,” Uao-lien chart pao (Liaoning Alliance Combat News) 21 07 1967, p. 1, cols. 2–3Google Scholar; The admiring official was Hung Huo-ch'ing, successively first secretary in Tientsin and Liaoning.

112. See SCMM, No. 651, p. 5.

113. Ibid.

114. Croft, Michael, Red Carpet to China (London: Longman, 1958), p. 251Google Scholar;

115. Ibid. p. 250.

116. SCMM, No. 651, p. 5. A slightly different translation of the same remark, which makes Premier Chou seem even more subservient toTeng, , is to be found in “Strike down Liu Shao-ch'i and Teng Hsiao-p'ing, drag out Ta o Chu, loyal salesman pushing the sale of Liu and Teng's bourgeois reactionary line,” Revolutionary Workers? News, 12 01 1967 (SCMP(S), No. 167, p. 2Google Scholar).

117. See, for instance, Kuo, , History of the CCP, vol. ii, pp. 435 and 489–508Google Scholar;Rue, John, Mao Tse-tung in Opposition: 1927–1935 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1966), pp. 249 and 258–59Google Scholar; Hsiao, pp. 240, 242 and 245–46;Ch'en, , Mao and the Chinese Revolution (London: Oxford University Press, 1965), p. 178Google Scholar;

118. See Kuo, , History of the CCP, vol. ii, pp. 493–97; Rue, pp. 258–59Google Scholar;

119. See, e.g. “Lifting the lid from Teng Hsiao-p'ing's counter-revolutionary activities,” Hsin Pei-ta, 18 –04 1967 (SCMP(S), No. 232, p. 6Google Scholar); and “The odious history of Teng Hsiao-p'ing's counter-revolutionary crimes (1),” Jen-ta san hung, 10 August 1967, p. 4, col. 2.

120. See “Premier Chou talks about why firepower must be concentrated on criticizing the Party's top person taking the capitalist road,” Hung chan pao {Red Combat News), 29 November 1967, (JPRS 44574, p. 28).

121. Discussed further in Origins, p. 18.

122. Ibid. p. 46.

123. SeeMao's, remarks about Teng in his speech of 24 October 1966 (CB, No. 892, p. 38)Google Scholar;

124. I make this assessment on the basis of the size of my own files on these men.

125. To this day, Liu's rise to the position of heir apparent to Mao in the early 1940s is still shrouded in obscurity. One possibility is that it was his reward in a bargain that committed him to building up Mao as a great theoretician who had accomplished the Sinification of Marxism (as he did in his speech to the Seventh Congress). What is clear is that prior to that time, Liu had not been a devoted adherent of Mao. (SeeSchram, Stuart R., “Mao Tse-tung and Iiu Shao-ch'i, 1939–69,” Asian Survey, 04 1972, pp. 278–81Google Scholar;) The chairman, we are told by Chou En-lai, did not finally decide that Iiu had to be replaced as number two until 1964–65. ( ”Premier Chou's criticism of Iiu Shao-ch'i,” Wen-ko fung-hsun (Cultural Revolution Report), 9 10 1967 (SCMP, No. 4060, pp. 9–10))Google Scholar; But in view of certain fundamental differences between the two men – over the mass line, for instance – and Iiu's opposition to Mao on certain crucial issues - most recently on the pace of collectivization – the chairman may have wanted to reinsure himself as early as 1956. This would certainly seem to be the background of the rise of Iin Piao – second-ranking deputy premier in September 1954, Politburo member in March 1955, senior Politburo member under the PSC in September 1956, member of the PSC in May 1958 – at a time when he played so little part in public life that it is generally assumed he was ilL Teng Hsiao-p'ing's rise might be accounted for in the same way, especially if Iin Piao's health was so poor that he could not be counted on as a credible successor.

126. See my “On photographs,” CQ, No. 46.

127. This comparison is based on the data in Teiwes, Provincial Party Personnel in Mainland China, 1956–66, appendix, p. 67.

128. Jao was purged with Kao Kang in 1954–55. Prior to his disgrace he had worked closely with Iiu Shao-ch'i on a number of occasions; see his biography in Klein and Clark, Biographic Dictionary.

129. An Tzu-wen was one of a group of Communists criticized as “renegades” during the Cultural Revolution, who in 1936 signed confessions to secure their release from prison. They did this on the orders of the secretary of the CCP's North China bureau, Iiu Shao-ch'i, who hoped by this device to replenish his bureau with experienced cadres. Iiu had secured the permission of the CCP's general secretary, Chang Wen-t'ien, for his order. See“Overthrow Iiu Shao-ch'i – boss of a big clique of renegades,” Hung ch'i (Red Flag), published by H'ung cKi Combat team of the Peking Aeronautical Institute, 8 March 1967 (SCMP(S), No. 182, pp. 25–38)Google Scholar; An Tzu-wen had worked in the Organization Department in a senior role from 1946 onwards; see Klein, and Clark, , Biographic Dictionary, vol. i, p. 4Google Scholar;

130. Eighth National Congress, vol. i, p. 95.

131. Ibid. p. 101.

132. Ibid. p. 215.

133. Ibid.

134. Ibid.

135. See SCMP(S), No. 246, p. 12.

136. Peking Review, no. 35 and 36 (1973) p. 17Google Scholar;

137. For a discussion of the concordance of the resolution with Stalinist orthodoxy, see Origins, pp. 119–20.

138. Mao's, explanation of his opposition to this formulation is in his speech to the eighth Central Committee's third plenum in Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui (1969), pp. 122–26Google Scholar; The issue was thrown in Liu Shao-ch'i's face during the Cultural Revolution and he discussed it in one of his confessions; see Collected Works of Liu Shao-ch'i, 1958–67, p. 367. For a fuller discussion of this, see Origins, pp. 119–121.

139. See Origins, part IV.