Gang Of Four

Gang Of Four

Many references were made to Gang of Four activities, which I am afraid, as a heedless foreigner, I discounted as political propaganda that didn’t concern me. After more thought and learning a little more, I believe it is important to try to understand its meaning for the Chinese because it affects what they will be doing in the future and what they are trying to do now. The Gang of Four is a consequence of the of the Cultural Revolution, which has not yet been officially repudiated. My understanding of the Cultural Revolution is that it began late in 1965 as a reaction on the part of some authorities, chief among whom were Mao Tse-tung and his wife, to what they saw as an increasingly bureaucratic government, one dominated by persons who had gained power at the time the Peoples Republic of China was set up, and who were unwilling to give up that power to younger people; and a developing situation where city dwellers were nourishing elite groups which were losing touch with the needs and welfare of the peasants, 80 percent of the people. Yet it was the peasants as much as the workers in the cities who had made the revolution successful and it was and is the peasants who are subject to the most difficult living conditions, drab lives and unrelieved work. China’s first need is food and it is the peasants who produce it.

The political process which Mao and others undertook to restructure the power and decision-making apparatus got out of hand—as it was J bound to do, given the

I methods employed—and many innocent people were put out of their jobs, jailed (some for 9 and 10 years) and

] sometimes killed. A kind of civil war ensued which ’ allowed unscrupulous people to achieve high party and administrative positions and to pursue policies seemingly disadvantageous to society in