The Lady Is a Tramp

Malevolent as a demon. Treacherous as a serpent. Savage as a mad dog. These were only a few of the epithets that have been hurled at the 62-year-old widow of Mao Tse-tung since her arrest early last month. By last week the official campaign of vilification had turned into a formidable bill of indictment. The increasing gravity of the accusations may be a grim prelude to a secret purge trial of the "Gang of Four" --Chiang Ch'ing and the discredited leaders of Shanghai's radicals.

Radio broadcasts, the ubiquitous wall posters and rumors whispered to foreign diplomats offered new allegations in the unfolding tale of Chiang Ch'ing's evildoing. After an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Premier Chou En-lai in 1971, Mao's fiercely ambitious wife joined with radical Politburo Members Wang Hung-wen, Chang Ch'un-ch'iao and Yao Wenyuan to organize a second parallel government competing with the existing administration, while they plotted to usurp power. The gang is said to have tried to persuade China's armed militia to take over the army.

The ailing Mao grew increasingly helpless to halt his wife's machinations. When summoned to Mao's sickbed, the hardhearted Chiang Ch'ing at first refused to interrupt a poker game with her cronies. Later she tried to murder him and following Mao's death, she then plotted the assassination of China's new Party Chairman Hua Kuo-feng.

Other less political charges against Chiang Ch'ing were calculated to shock the puritanical and egalitarian People's Republic. Madame Mao's personal life was said to be like that of the 7th century Empress Wu, notorious for her extravagance and lubricity. Accordingly, Chiang Ch'ing ordered every insect killed and every leaf dusted by her minions before she would venture to visit a Canton botanical garden. During bouts of insomnia, the imperious lady issued orders that work at a nearby noisy shipbuilding factory be stopped. So sensitive was she to noise that she once ordered her waiters to deliver her food while walking on tiptoe.

There were also disclosures of Chiang Ch'ing's hedonistic tastes. Although as culture boss of China in the 1960s she had imposed uplifting revolutionary themes on China's arts, she preferred sexy movies and Kung Fu flicks imported from the decadent West and from Hong Kong. For the millions of Chinese who have endured countless showings of Chiang Ch'ing's ballet, The Detachment of Red Women, on stage, screen and television, this might be the gravest of the charges against her.

China watchers believe the stories of Chiang Ch'ing's sybaritic way of life are plausible. But no independent confirmation exists of the capital crimes she is said to have committed. Still, her claim to be Mao's ideological heiress, combined with her backing of the Shanghai radicals' bid for power, was amply sufficient to bring about her downfall. She had to be discredited before Hua could put forward his own claim. Indeed, Hua's legitimacy as party leader rests in large part on official stories that Mao had given him a deathbed benediction.

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