Trying the Gang of Four

Peking sets out to put the Cultural Revolution in the dock

It was a sudden, precise blow (hat was to change the course of Chinese history. Four powerful members of China's ruling Politburo were lured into the Chungnanhai compound of Peking's Forbidden City on the pretext that an urgent meeting was about to be convened. There, they were abruptly arrested and jailed. Quickly, newspapers and radio stations were seized; key universities, where the four had influence, were surrounded by troops. With one stroke, the four leaders who had dragged China through the horrors of the Cultural Revolution had been disposed of and the way had been cleared for others to assume power. That episode, the arrest of the radical "Gang of Four," took place four years ago. Last week the Chinese leadership announced that the gang is going on trial, and thus it appeared that the final act of the drama would soon unfold. TIME Peking Bureau Chief Richard Bernstein reports:

The trial promised to be a meticulously staged affair, by means of which Peking's leaders will provide touches of both finality and legality to the elimination of their once dreaded enemies. The gang will be brought before a specially appointed 35-member tribunal, probably within the next month, according to the official announcement. At the same time the Chinese will dispose of another, even older bit of unfinished business: the 1971 plot in which then Defense Minister Lin Biao allegedly tried to assassinate Chairman Mao Tse-tung. Lin reportedly died in a plane crash after his attempt failed. But now his six coconspirators, who have been jailed for the past nine years, will stand formally accused before a military court.

The charges against all ten defendants are serious. Lin Biao's allies will be charged with sedition and plotting to kill Mao. The Gang of Four will be on the block for "conspiracy to overthrow the proletarian dictatorship, persecution of cadres and the practice of a fascist dictatorship," and for trying to "engineer a counterrevolutionary armed rebellion."

There is little question about the verdict. Both Party Chairman Hua Guofeng and former Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping have publicly declared the group of four to be guilty. In the past, Hua has given assurance that the four would not be executed. But last week official Chinese Spokesman Zeng Tao claimed that reports of Hua's remarks "were not entirely accurate" and did not rule out the death penalty.

Execution of the Gang of Four would cause little uproar in China. Few would rue the demise of the group's leader, Jiang Qing, 66, a once sexy, grade-B movie actress from Shanghai, who in 1937 crossed the country to the Communist revolutionary base in northwest China and promptly captured the heart of the young guerrilla leader Mao Tse-tung. Mao's live-in arrangement with her--which apparently ended a few years before his death in 1976 --was tolerated by his comrades on the condition that he keep his new commonlaw wife away from politics. But when Mao launched China on the chaotic Cultural Revolution in the mid-'60s, Jiang Qing rose to become the shrill tyrant of the movement. "Sex," she once confided to American Sinologist Roxane Witke, "is engaging in the first rounds. What sustains interest in the long run is power."

Jiang Qing assumed power with the assistance of her three fellow gang members: Yao Wenyuan, 56, a literary critic whose extremist articles in the Shanghai daily Wen Hui inaugurated the Cultural Revolution; Wang Hongwen, 43, a party secretary in a Shanghai cotton mill, who in 1973 was elevated by Mao to the third highest post in the Communist hierarchy; and Zhang Chunqiao, 69, who helped Jiang Qing purge almost the entire cultural establishment of China. The four instituted a reign of terror during which thousands of writers, artists and scientists were so relentlessly persecuted that many died or committed suicide. Though the Chinese press has exaggerated the gang's alleged crimes and blamed nearly all of the country's ills on the quartet, there are few schools, institutes or factories where at least some people did not lose their lives during the Cultural Revolution.

After her arrest, Jiang Qing became the object of one of the most sustained and virulent attacks in China's history. She was described by some journals as "malevolent as a demon, treacherous as a serpent, savage as a mad dog." Despite official claims that the trial is "open," it will be tightly controlled; no foreign observers will be permitted, on the grounds that the case involves "state secrets."

Peking is probably fearful that a truly open trial would produce a rash of potentially embarrassing disclosures. Mao had nurtured the group's members and played them off against other factions. Even venerated Premier Chou En-lai at times cooperated with them. Indeed, the excessive length of time needed to prepare for the case was probably due to internal party disagreements over just how much the trial should be allowed to reveal. Those who want to limit the possible effects on the reputations of Mao and Hua are said to have won out. Nonetheless, as one skeptical Chinese intellectual put it last week, "No matter how secret they keep the trial, everybody knows that without Mao there would have been no Gang of Four."

Even so, the fact that the trial can be held at all is an important milestone for Chinese leaders eager to distance themselves from the country's unpleasant recent past. It also indicates that despite some continuing disputes among top leaders, Peking has become sufficiently stable to allow such a delicate matter as the sins of the Gang of Four to be aired. Certainly, the trial will generate considerable excitement among the millions of Chinese for whom the Cultural Revolution remains a vivid memory. -sb

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