Arrest of the Gang of Four
Less than a month after Mao's death, Hua Guofeng and Ye Jianying orchestrated the arrest of Jiang Qing, Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan, and Wang Hongwen, ending the radical phase of the Cultural Revolution.
Who Were the Gang of Four
The Gang of Four comprised Jiang Qing (Mao's wife), Zhang Chunqiao (Shanghai party chief and propaganda theorist), Yao Wenyuan (literary critic turned ideological enforcer), and Wang Hongwen (a young Shanghai factory worker who rose rapidly during the Cultural Revolution). They had dominated radical politics during the later Cultural Revolution years and controlled much of China's propaganda apparatus and Shanghai's political networks.
Arrest and Trial
Arrested on October 6, 1976, the four were held for four years before being formally tried in a televised proceeding in 1980–1981. The trial was carefully stage-managed by the Party as a way to draw a definitive line under the Cultural Revolution without indicting Mao himself. Jiang Qing was defiant throughout, famously declaring "I was Chairman Mao's dog — whoever he told me to bite, I bit." She and Zhang Chunqiao were initially sentenced to death, later commuted to life imprisonment. Jiang Qing died in prison in 1991.
Political Function
The arrest of the Gang of Four served a dual political purpose: it provided a scapegoat for the Cultural Revolution's excesses, deflecting responsibility from Mao and the broader Party leadership, while legitimizing the pragmatist faction around Deng Xiaoping that would go on to lead China's reform era. By attributing the catastrophes of 1966–1976 primarily to this small clique, the Party preserved the Maoist framework while enabling a policy reversal.
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