Guns and Poses
By 1968, the Red Guards, which had spearheaded Mao's revolution, split into two fiercely opposed camps. Mao used this to order their demobilisation, and asked the People's Liberation Army to move in and take control of schools, factories and government offices to ensure a peaceful transition.
In April 1969, at the Communist Party's 9th Congress, Mao named army commander Lin Biao as his successor, and the military started becoming a political player.
The growing power struggle between Mao and Lin ended abruptly in 1971 with Lin's mysterious disappearance. The official explanation: Lin and his son had plotted a coup against Mao, and when it was uncovered, he tried to flee with his family and some aides to the Soviet Union. However, their aircraft ran out of fuel over the Mongolian mountains and crashed. There were no survivors.
In 1972, United States President Richard M Nixon visited China, and both sides agreed to try and normalise relations.
Mao and the Gang of Four stepped up their ruthless persecution of all opponents, and the top brass of the military was purged. But the movement had started losing steam.
The 10th Party Congress in 1973 exposed sharp divisions between the radicals led by Mao and the moderates, who managed to get several purged partymen reinstated. Among them was Deng Xiaoping.
A year later, Mao accepted Zhou Enlai and Deng's proposal to help the economy by adopting a slightly more tolerant party line and opening up the country for foreign investment.
But Zhou died in January 1976, and Mao brought in Hua Guafeng, a newcomer acceptable to both sides, as premier. In April, Deng was purged once again, and Mao ruled supreme.
Zhou Enlai (1898-1975), prime minister of China from its inception in 1949 until his death, surrounded by People's Liberation Army soldiers, addresses a meeting in support of the regime, probably in 1966.
Also See:
The day Chinese Glasnost died