A Study On The Central Cultural Revolution Group

The Central Cultural Revolution Group was founded by Mao Zedong to launch Cultural Revolution.It was considered as the command authority and enforcer of the ten-year calamity.On May 28th,1966,the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee released A notice on the list of the Central Cultural Revolution Group,which symbolized the formal foundation of the Central Cultural Revolution Group.Cultural Revolution is unprecedented,so is the Central Cultural Revolution Group.This organization was brought out totally at Mao's personal will and its members were all faithful to Mao and his theories of Cultural Revolution.Since its establishment,the group had been devoting itself to promoting Mao's theories of Cultural Revolution and shaping public opinion.Mao also spared no efforts to enhance the group's position in order to make it the central authority and the leading organ of Cultural Revolution.On the occasion of Deng Xiaoping's downfall,Mao intended to raise the group's status by appointing Tao Zhu as the group's counselor and hoped to replace the Secretariat of the Communist Party of China with the group.However,when Tao Zhu failed to fulfill his mission,Mao put Tao down and broke the convention that central files should jointly be signed by the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee,the State Council,and the Central Military Commission.The Central Cultural Revolution Group was added as one of the signers of central files and thus acquired the same status as the nation's supreme administrative institutions,like the State Council and the Central Military Commission.Furthermore,Mao directly commanded Zhou Enlai to treat the Central Cultural Revolution Group as Secretariat of the Communist Party of China.From then on,the Central Cultural Revolution Group not only officially took the place of Secretariat of the Communist Party of China,but also became a Mao-centered agency for balancing the powers of CPC senior leaders and acted as one of important authorities.The Central Cultural Revolution Group set up its own offices,including archive office,literary and artistic office,theory office,propaganda office and action office,to which news bureau was attached.With these offices,the Central Cultural Revolution Group took control of the work on national ideology and propaganda.Though Jiang Qing was the vice leader of the group,it had been under Jiang's absolute leadership since its establishment.In order to transform the country from "thorough unrest" to "peace and prosperity",the group encouraged Red Guard to stir up troubles everywhere,and instigate local rebels to overthrow existing party and government organs,even usurp their power.Apart from that,the group dispatched reporters nationwide to collect information,and published Express News and Cultural Revolution Bulletin to update Mao on progress of Cultural Revolution.With the revolution rapidly escalating,senior leaders of the group were involved in power struggle and that brought three main personnel changes to the group.In the first one,the downfall of Deng Xiaoping led to Tao Zhu's promotion as the group's consultant and caused unflavored circumstances to Deng's followers;in the second one,Tao Zhu and Wang Renzhong,the vice leader of the group,was discharged from the group;and the third one was the"Wang Guan Qi Incident".As the principal left-wing writers,Wang Li,Guan Feng and Qi Benyu preached to bring a small part of soldiers down and thus became cat's paw(tools?)of Lin Biao's fraction.This further had them involved in the struggle among Mao Zedong,Lin Biao and Zhou Enlai.As a result,they were expelled as scapegoats and ended up as prisoners.After the Incident,there were only five members left in the Central Cultural Revolution Group,who were Chen Boda,Kang Sheng,Jiang Qing,Zhang Chunqiao and Yao Wenyuan.When Mao changed the strategy of Cultural Revolution,he was eager to terminate the rebels in Cultural Revolution,so the Central Cultural Revolution Group's importance on molding public opinion declined.Moreover,the group's role in balancing the powers of the other two authorities also weakened because of the strategic reactions of Lin Biao's and Zhou Enlai's faction.In March 1969,Mao had the remaining members of the group joined the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee Politburo during the ninth conference of the CPC,and then the mission of the notorious Central Cultural Revolution Group came to an end.Upon this preliminary investigation about the Central Cultural Revolution Group's actual role in Cultural Revolution,three points can be made.First,the group's main role was making public opinion for ultra-left ideology and promoting a positive image of "the left wing".Although Mao wanted to place the group in the command center and it was somehow deemed as the headquarters of Cultural Revolution by certain people,the group didn't succeed in seizing the senior leadership.That's exactly the reason for which Mao had to switch off its mission in Cultural Revolution.Second,the three personnel changes reveal that the so-called proletariat's command was replete with competition for power,and perpetrators were always in the danger of becoming victims.Third,the group's final dismissal made it impossible for Mao to balance the high authorities,which signifies Mao's losing control over Cultural Revolution during its late period.