
Mao placed his wife Jiang Qing, a former film actress who before 1966 had not taken a public political role, in charge of the country's cultural apparatus. The removal of this group from power is sometimes considered to have marked the end of the Cultural Revolution, which had been launched by Mao in 1966 as part of his power struggle with leaders such as Liu Shaoqi, Deng Xiaoping and Peng Zhen. Jiang Qing staged revolutionary operas during the Cultural Revolution and met with the Red Guards. The article is cited as the spark that launched the Cultural Revolution. The article argued that the opera was actually a sympathetic portrayal of the reformist efforts of the military hero Peng Dehuai and thus an attack on Chairman Mao's Great Leap Forward. "Decisively Throw Out the Wang-Zhang-Jiang-Yao Anti-Party Clique!"Īt the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, on November 10, 1965, Yao Wenyuan in one of his most famous pieces of writing published an article in Wenhuibao criticizing the play Hai Rui Dismissed from Office. Significant repudiation of the entire process of change came later, with the return of Deng Xiaoping at the 11th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party and Hua's gradual loss of authority. Their fall did not amount to a rejection of the Cultural Revolution as such, but it was organized by the new leader, Premier Hua Guofeng, and others who had risen during that period. Their downfall on October 6, 1976, a mere month after Mao's death, brought about major celebrations on the streets of Beijing and marked the end of a turbulent political era in China. The Gang of Four, together with general Lin Biao who died in 1971, were labeled the two major " counter-revolutionary forces" of the Cultural Revolution and officially blamed by the Chinese government for the worst excesses of the societal chaos that ensued during the ten years of turmoil. The Gang of Four controlled the power organs of the CCP through the later stages of the Cultural Revolution, although it remains unclear which major decisions were made by Mao Zedong and carried out by the Gang, and which were the result of the Gang of Four's own planning.

The other members were Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan, and Wang Hongwen. The gang's leading figure was Jiang Qing ( Mao Zedong's last wife).
#Reddit smashing four series#
They came to prominence during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) and were later charged with a series of treasonous crimes. The Gang of Four ( simplified Chinese: 四人帮 traditional Chinese: 四人幫 pinyin: Sì rén bāng) was a Maoist political faction composed of four Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials.
