GREAT PURGE IN THE FORBIDDEN CITY

It was a drama that had been played out countless times during the dynastic changes of bygone eras. First there were rumblings of earthquakes. Then came the death of the aged Emperor, followed by quarrels among his heirs about how to dispose of his body. Rival factions plotted within the towering walls of the Forbidden City--one of them led by the dead Emperor's shrewd Chief Minister, the other by his scheming, ambitious and hated widow. There were rumors of a forged will, secret meetings and, finally, a series of arrests in a great purge.

Shanghai Mafia. What it all added up to was one of the most climactic episodes in China's recent history. Almost overnight, Premier Hua Kuo-feng, only last year a relatively unknown official, succeeded Mao Tse-tung as Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party. Mao's widow, Chiang Ch'ing, leader of the party's radical faction, was arrested, along with three of her closest allies. With Hua in power and the radicals in disgrace, China's moderate faction, backed by the army, seemed to have scored an astonishing triumph, one that may set China's basic new course for the immediate post-Mao era.

The long-expected struggle for power--or at least one momentous phase of it--was waged so quickly that it was over before any outsiders even knew it had begun. Indeed, the first rumors of Mme. Mao's arrest seemed so implausible that Peking-based foreign reporters were afraid to cable them out. There was no open violence during the upheaval, no street fighting or troop movements, only a series of enigmatic wall posters praising Hua and appealing for unity. Day after day, fleets of limousines converged on the Great Hall of the People for what was believed to be a Central Committee meeting devoted to the confirmation of Hua's accession to the position of supreme power.

The most striking fact about that accession was the downfall of Chiang Ch'ing, 61, onetime movie actress and for a decade the fanatical empress of China's art and culture. Arrested with her, by Mao's own bodyguard, Unit 8341 of the People's Liberation Army, were:

-- Wang Hung-wen, fortyish, the youthful ex-textile worker and Vice Chairman of the party who only recently had been made No. 2 man in the Politburo.

-- Yao Wenyuan, the brilliant, acerbic essayist and literary critic who, while a Politburo member and a party secretary in Shanghai, had been running the country's propaganda machinery.

-Chang Ch'un Ch'iao, a Vice Premier and onetime candidate to succeed Mao, a man who many foreign observers mistakenly believed had become a kind of bridge between the rival factions.

Known collectively outside China as the "Shanghai Mafia," they had all come to political power as a result of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution of 1966-69; the four had enjoyed close access to Chairman Mao and promoted the most radical of the Great Helmsman's policies. Using their control over China's propaganda machinery, the radicals had constantly heated up the political atmosphere, unsparingly urging the masses to attack the "revisionists," the "capitalist readers," and other "ghosts and monsters" who, they said, were hiding in the very nooks and crannies of the Communist Party itself (and who often were the radicals' personal enemies).

Many Dragons. For the past three years, the radicals had carried out an incessant campaign against the moderate, pragmatic policies formulated by the late Premier Chou Enlai: his willingness to negotiate with the West, his insistence on efficient and economic production, and particularly his policy of restoring to positions of power the hundreds of bureaucrats and technicians who had been purged by the radicals during the Cultural Revolution. Their attacks on Chou, customarily veiled in allegorical references, could be held in check as long as the Premier was alive. Then, when Chou died last January, the radicals seemed to gain new influence. Chou had rehabilitated the diminutive but assertive and talented Teng Hsiao-ping from his abject Cultural Revolutionary disgrace and anointed him his successor as Premier. But the radicals quickly succeeded in deposing Teng, beginning in the process an intense new campaign to expose the "unrepentant capitalist readers" in the party. With Teng out of the way, they agreed to compromise with Peking's moderate faction in making Security Minister Hua Kuo-feng the new Premier.

It is possible that the radicals may try to make a comeback. Though the arrests extended to several dozen radical leaders, most analysts feel that the dissidents retain considerable support in the party's 189-member Central Committee--some estimates run as high as 40%--and they probably have large pockets of strength in old strongholds like Shanghai and a few provincial regions. The fact that as of week's end the Central Committee, meeting in Peking's Great Hall of the People, had still not formally endorsed Hua Kuo-feng's appointment as Chairman may be an indication that the radical-moderate power struggle has not yet been resolved. Still, most analysts believed that the moderates, with crucial military support, had gained the upper hand; the radical faction had become, in the Chinese phrase, like many dragons without a head, and it seemed doubtful that it could muster the strength or support for a credible counterattack. Already the wall posters were crying out for punishment: CRUSH THE HEADS OF THE FOUR DOGS and CRUSH AND STRANGLE THE GANG OF FOUR.

In practical terms, the elimination of the radical quartet could begin a major reevaluation, not only of China's policies and priorities but also of its often erratic political style. There will probably be a slow retreat from some of the late Mao's favorite goals, in the first instance from the constant campaigns for ideological purity and class struggle that he encouraged--and the radicals carried out--all his life. Power is likely to fall more firmly into the hands of the reliable, steady, old-time pragmatists. Chief among them: Finance Minister Li Hsien-nien, the country's chief economic planner and a possible choice to take over Hua's current job as Premier; Peking Regional Commander Ch'en Hsi-lien, the general whose support must have been necessary for the success of the anti-radical coup; and Vice Premier Chi Teng-k'uei, first political commissar of the Peking military region.

Strange Omission. The radicals' downfall was the climax to a complex sequence of events going back to the death of Chairman Mao on Sept. 9. Starting at that time, the Central Committee's 16-man Politburo began a series of apparently inconclusive meetings to decide such matters as the disposal of the Great Helmsman's body and, more important, the control of his legacy--meaning who would be authorized to interpret his ideas in the future. One sign that there was trouble brewing--the Chinese press published a posthumous instruction from Mao: "Act according to the principles laid down." But Hua Kuo-feng did not cite this phrase while speaking at Mao's memorial service in the presence of his rivals. Radical Leader Wang, standing near by, glanced over Hua's shoulder at his text, then looked surprised. Some China watchers noted but could not explain the strange omission.

It turned out to be intentional, for the radicals were soon to be accused of fabricating the entire instruction. But even at the time of Hua's memorial speech, the power struggle had already begun in earnest. The Yugoslav news agency Tanjug reported last week that Chiang Ch'ing told the Politburo that Hua was incapable of leading the party. Hua, according to this account, retorted that he was quite capable of handling any problems, that the dying Mao himself had told him, "If you become Chairman, I can die peacefully." Still, the Shanghai group insisted on nominating one of its own members, Vice Chairman Wang, as chief, a choice clearly unacceptable to the moderates.

On the eve of Oct. 1, China's National Day, both sides showed up at a meeting in a display of unity. It was to be the last such display and the last time that any of the four principal radicals appeared in public at all.

Later, as foreign analysts pieced together the story, it seemed likely that the radicals were arrested within the Chung Nan Hai compound of Peking's Forbidden City on Thursday, Oct. 7, though rumors of the arrests did not begin to circulate until later. In the early morning hours of Oct. 9, two important announcements were made: 1) Mao's body would be preserved and put on view in a crystal tomb and, 2) "The task of publishing Mao's works would be carried out by the Politburo directly under the leadership of Hua Kuo-feng." The implication of the decree was that Hua had been chosen party Chairman. Wall posters welcoming the announcements soon blossomed on the walls in Peking, Shanghai and Canton. As more slogans appeared on the streets of Peking, groups of demonstrators converged on T'ien An Men Square, some of them with gongs and tambourines, to celebrate the elevation of a successor to Mao. Strangely, however, there was no official confirmation that Hua was indeed party Chairman.

Two days later, the confirmation had still not come. But by then, stories that Chiang Ch'ing and her radical allies had been put under house arrest began to circulate in Peking. The four, went the rumors, had been caught plotting a coup to seize power. On Monday, the Daily Telegraph correspondent, Nigel Wade, felt confident enough of his sources to file the story of the arrests to his paper in London.

Wade's account brought a wave of queries from the outside world. Instead of issuing the customary denials. Foreign Office spokesmen replied smoothly with "No comment." Foreigners in Peking soon discovered that photographs of the four radicals were no longer available in bookstores--a common sign of a purge. None of the radicals appeared at Peking's airport when visiting Papua New Guinea Prime Minister Michael Somare arrived, giving further credence to the tale of their arrest. None of the four were at Somare's welcoming banquet next day, but neither was Chairman Hua. His ally Li Hsien-nien did the honors and said blandly (or perhaps ironically), "The situation in China is excellent." At this dinner, however, a Foreign Ministry spokesman confirmed that Hua was the new Chairman.

Bank Robberies. Meanwhile, the troops of the People's Liberation Army apparently surrounded Peking and Tsinghua universities, both bastions of radical support. Some 30 radicals were reported arrested for allegedly fabricating a will of Mao's; one of them was Mao's nephew Mao Yuan-hsin, vice chairman of the Liaoning provincial revolutionary committee; another was Yu Hui-yung, Minister of Culture and another Chiang Ch'ing protege. There were even rumors that one or more of the top four radicals had been executed, but that seemed extremely unlikely.

At week's end new details of the incident began to circulate. According to informed East European sources, Chiang Ch'ing had tried, even before the death of Mao, to persuade Peking Regional Military Commander Ch'en Hsi-lien to help her organize a coup d'etat, but Ch'en went and informed Hua of the danger. Another story from Peking claimed that Mao's scheming widow had even launched an abortive attempt to assassinate Hua. Whether these rumors are true, or simply lies leaked by the moderates to justify a pre-emptive move, it is not hard to find reasons for the moderates' desire to get rid of their radical antagonists.

For one thing, there has been an enormous reserve of anger and bitterness against the radicals ever since the Cultural Revolution. Zealots like Chiang Ch'ing and her ideological allies led the campaigns to discredit thousands of veteran party officials and technicians, humiliating even prominent companions of Mao on the historic Long March by parading them with dunce caps pulled over their heads in front of crowds of howling young Red Guards.

For another, there are signs that the public at large has tired of the radicals' wearisome attempts to politicize every aspect of life in endless meetings and parades. Chiang Ch'ing was so unpopular, reported one Japanese correspondent from Peking last week, that "contemptuous laughter used to break out in the darkness of movie theaters whenever she appeared on the screen." For the past few months, there have been growing signs of a low morale in the country, of a yearning for stability and a better standard of living. Worse, there have been numerous reports of widespread lawlessness in such cities as Canton, Wuhan and Sian, of bank robberies, fighting among gangs of youths and even overt acts of sabotage. Then came the great earthquakes that hit China this summer, probably killing or injuring more than 1 million people and giving an urgency to the need for firm, united leadership. Indeed, it was very possible that Hua and his allies might have decided that the country could no longer tolerate the general erosion of political authority.

There have even been strong signs of active political dissent. The most dramatic came in April, when about 100,000 people, angered by the removal of memorial wreaths to Chou Enlai, demonstrated in Peking's vast T'ien An Men Square against radical policies. The T'ien An Men rioters bloodied several radical university students and waved placards that allegorically assailed Chiang Ch'ing. They also carried slogans reading, GONE FOR GOOD is CH'IN SHIH HUANG'S FEUDAL SOCIETY, an allusion to the first Chinese Emperor (3rd century B.C.), a great but ruthless dynasty builder with whom Mao has been commonly identified.

Throughout the country, as Mao became ever more feeble and close to death, the authority of his government seemed to weaken. As early as the end of 1974, an extraordinary 77-page wall poster put up in Canton set forth a comprehensive indictment of the way China was being run at that time. Written by a group of young intellectuals who used the pseudonym Li I-che, the wall poster condemned China as a place where "no one is allowed to think, no one is allowed to do research, and no one is allowed to ask a single why on any question." Instead of a true democracy, the wall poster charged, a dictatorship by a "privileged stratum" of party cadres maintained its own power by demanding unquestioned loyalty. "We cannot forget," the document said, "the grotesque dance of loyalty, the uninterrupted rituals of loyalty--the morning prayers, the evening confessionals, the meetings, the assemblies ... all of it lacquered over with a thick religious sauce giving off a strong smell of God."

Religious Zeal. That outcry against the radicals' campaigns has been echoed in other wall posters witnessed by travelers to China. One apparently authentic article that surfaced in Taiwan, reportedly from a high-ranking officer in the Tientsin garrison command, complains that "the result of incessant campaigns has already been mutual distrust among the people, the cadres and the leaders, which affects unity and obstructs progress."

Beyond the problem of popular discontent lay deep and until now unresolvable policy differences that have divided China's two main factions for at least a decade. To be accurate, however, the commonly used terms radical and moderate are somewhat misleading. There is actually a good deal of common ground between the two groups --both are dedicated to Communism --and there are wide differences within each main camp. In general, the moderates could just as well be called pragmatists; they tend to be more flexible than the radicals, more concerned with practical results than the way the results are achieved. The radicals, in contrast, believe with a religious zeal in the need for ideological purity. They think that China can be transformed only if its people are imbued with the Maoist doctrines of self-sacrifice.

Rude Comments. The argument involved virtually every area of Chinese life. In education, for example, the radicals' approach prompted them to admit students to universities on the basis of proletarian origins and "correct" political views rather than academic attainments and test scores. One of their favorite policies has been the rustification program, in which city-educated youths have had to spend indefinite periods working on agricultural communes to "learn from the peasants." Only a small number of the most radical ones would then be chosen to go to a university. The result of this, complained moderate Education Minister Chou Jung-hsin, since purged, was that students would be leaving the university "without being able to read if the present system continues much longer." The deposed Deputy Premier, Teng Hsiao-p'ing, declared before being purged himself that "university students are below the standard of technical middle-school students of earlier times, in both politics and knowledge."

In the field of science, Teng and the other moderates were scornful of the radicals' insistence that all research be related to immediate agricultural or industrial needs. "The Academy of Science," Teng said, "is an academy of science; it is not an academy of cabbage." To all such rude comments, the radicals replied with a statement of pure faith. "Revolution," argued one of them, "can change everything, modernize the economy and develop science and technology."

On the vital problem of increasing production to feed and support China's ever growing population (around 850 million), the moderates stressed practical approaches, including such "revisionist" devices as higher wages for more work and the notion that each state enterprise should be run efficiently enough to produce a profit. Recognizing the need for high technology in areas like oil production, computers and aircraft, the moderates have not hesitated to buy some goods from foreign countries--a policy the radicals derided as the "worship of things foreign." "In our Socialist state," said one article, "the development of production does not rely on profit and material incentives but on the proletarian revolutionary line of Chairman Mao, on proletarian politics, on class struggle." In place of bonuses and wage increases, the radicals offered voluntary days of unpaid work by revolutionary workers.

How soon or how far China will move away from leftist policies is hard to say. Certainly the immediate tasks will be to choose a new Politburo and Standing Committee, both of which have been depleted through the deaths of old leaders and the new purges. Some of the radicals' rhetoric is likely to be retained indefinitely, partly to avoid the appearance of an abrupt departure from policies once sanctioned by Mao, but also to satisfy the Central Committee members who retain some sympathy for the radicals' views. Still, the more Utopian of the leftist policies will probably be quietly dropped in favor of greater pragmatism. This will presumably mean financial incentives in industry, mechanization in agriculture, an emphasis on technical knowledge rather than "Redness" and an attempt to strengthen the armed forces with more technologically sophisticated weapons--all moves the radicals have resisted.

The indications are that such domestic issues will be dealt with first. But in the long run, the purge of the left could also affect foreign policy. In Moscow, there was some satisfaction over the events of the past two weeks. A move toward pragmatism in Peking could lessen the importance of the ideological disagreements between the two countries. Moreover, the Chinese military understands full well its weakness on the Russian frontier, and it may push for at least a limited rapprochement with Moscow.

As for China's relations with the U.S., most analysts feel that the slow process of normalization will probably continue, even if there is some lessening of tensions between Peking and Moscow. The moderates, after all, were in the forefront of the drive to open up relations with Washington in the first place. The chances are that China's need for Western technology will grow as its economy expands, and though Peking now seems to have enough food, it will surely want to keep open its access to the world's best grain markets.

Self-Criticism. Will the much-abused Teng be rehabilitated? It is entirely possible. Indeed, one of the unconfirmed rumors that sifted out of Peking last week named the former Vice Premier as one of the chief engineers of the anti-radical coup. Teng would probably have to go through new rituals of selfcriticism, but if he is in fact rehabilitated, it would be a sure sign that the post-Mao leadership now in place intends to move steadily in the direction of pragmatism and an easing of Mao-style revolutionary fervor.

For now, however, it is impossible to say with certainty whether the events of the past few weeks represent a true climax to the power struggle or only the beginning of a new phase. The fact that the Central Committee had not, as of week's end, confirmed Hua's appointment as party Chairman was in itself ominous. It could simply mean that the party leaders wanted to take the time to work out the entire lineup of the new hierarchy, but it could also mean that the committee was still divided over the country's future leadership.

In either case, Hua remains very much an enigma. So little is known of his background and capabilities--his age and education and family background are all mysteries--that it is hard to judge his chances of remaining in power. He is evidently a man of great administrative ability, but he lacks the kind of charisma that the Chinese have long associated with their party Chairman. And though he seems to have the support of other key elements, especially the army and the party bureaucracy, he may not have a strong enough power base to survive a major challenge to his leadership. Thus Mao, just before he died, may have told Hua, "If you become Chairman, I can die peacefully," but whether or not the Chinese millions will live peacefully remains to be seen.

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