Part 07: January 4, 1967 (Shanghai Rebels Seize Liberation Daily) to January 21, 1967
By: Cultural Revolution, Otd
Tags: China, Cultural Revolution, Communism

4/1/67 Beijing Normal University’s Jinggangshan group stages a protest inside the Zhongnanhai, targeting Tao Zhu in his office there.

4/1/67 Chen Boda and Kang Sheng address the Jinggangshan rally, accusing Tao Zhu of being a “faithful follower of the Liu-Deng line”.

4/1/67 Jiang Qing tells a set of provincial Red Guards in Beijing that Tao Zhu is “China’s biggest protector of the imperialist clique”.

4/1/67 Long into the rally, Zhou Enlai appears. He persuades the Red Guards not to drag Tao Zhu out (despite Chen Boda’s encouragement).

4/1/67 Enlivened by the Zhongnanhai rally, anti-Tao Zhu groups spin Zhou Enlai’s appearance as endorsement, and start planning to seize Tao.

4/1/67 Mao asks Zhou Enlai what Jiang Qing’s problem with Tao Zhu is. Is he really suppressing the masses? He ought to be redeemable if not.

4/1/67 A Red Guard group wants permission to drag Wang Renzhong to Beijing. However, Mao says that Wang (a CCRG member) can remain in Wuhan.

4/1/67 In Beijing, members of the workforce from Shanghai’s Liberation Daily seek permission to take over the editorship. They don’t get it.

4/1/67 Zhang Chunqiao and Yao Wenyuan arrive back in Shanghai. Neither holds PLA rank, but they wear army overcoats and fly in a PLA plane.

4/1/67 Rebels forcibly take editorial control of Shanghai’s top newspaper — Wenhui Daily — and other follow suite in the main broadcasters.

4/1/67 PLA commander Liu Zhijian is forced to resign from the PLA Political Department, criticised for attempting to maintain law and order.

4/1/67 Jiang Qing tells rebels from amongst military academic and cultural staff that Liu Zhijian follows the bourgeois reactionary line.

4/1/67 In February, Liu Zhijian worked with Jiang Qing on PLA culture. He is nevertheless replaced by Guan Feng, an extremist from the CCRG.

4/1/67 At a debate in the Beijing Exhibition Hall, Red Guards from United Action take stinging criticism, but remain unbowed and defiant.

4/1/67 Purged General Luo Ruiqing undergoes a huge Red Guard struggle. He is carried in a basket, after his crippling 18/3/66 suicide bid.

4/1/67 Zhang Chunqiao tells the Shanghai Rebel Workers’ HQ to stage — urgently — a “Down with the Shanghai Party Committee mass rally”.

5/1/67 Zhou Enlai reads some of the speeches from yesterday’s anti-Tao Zhu rally. He phones Tao to say he shouldn’t leave his home for now.

5/1/67 Protests against Tao Zhu grow near the Zhongnanhai. An exhausted Tao repeatedly meets with protesters, but can’t placate their anger.

5/1/67 The anti-Tao Zhu protest continues. At 6AM, still not having slept, Zhou Enlai speaks to rebels and manages to mollify them somewhat.

5/1/67 Wenhui Daily publishes the “Message to the People of Shanghai” written by rebels on 3/1/67, telling Scarlet Guards to return to work.

5/1/67 Wenhui Daily’s front page attacks its own hitherto “bourgeois orientation” and calls its rebel takeover yesterday a “power seizure”.

5/1/67 The Shanghai Rebel Workers’ HQ stage a rally against local officials and the abuse of temporary contracts: a “remnant of capitalism”.

5/1/67 Zhang Chunqiao and Yao Wenyuan are shown today’s Wenhui Daily. Zhang asks why he was not informed about the “message” in advance.

5/1/67 The East China Power Authority pays out ¥1.3million in back-dated wages and bonuses, unwilling to resist workers’ demands any longer.

5/1/67 With his smashed leg dangling, purged General Luo Ruiqing is carried by basket to a second day of struggle at the Workers’ Stadium.

6/1/67 Workers at the offices of Liberation Daily, the Shanghai Party Committee’s official newspaper, “rebel” and take editorial control.

6/1/67 At Beijing 1st Normal High School, Qinghua Jinggangshan Red Guards abduct Liu Pingping, the daughter of Liu Shaoqi and Wang Guangmei.

6/1/67 Qinghua Jinggangshan take Liu Pingping to the local hospital and force the staff to call her mother and say she’s had a bad accident.

6/1/67 Despite Zhou Enlai’s warning never to leave the Zhongnanhai, Wang Guangmei rushes to hospital as requested. Liu Shaoqi goes with her.

6/1/67 The Jinggangshan wait for Wang Guangmei to arrive, poised to kidnap her. But when Liu Shaoqi appears too, they lose their nerve.

6/1/67 Wang Guangmei tells Liu Shaoqi and their daughter to leave the hospital, which they do. Wang goes with Red Guards back to Qinghua.

6/1/67 Televised live, 100 000 people rally in Shanghai’s People’s Square to depose Mayor Cao Diqiu and denounce Party Chief Chen Pixian.

6/1/67 The rebel rally proclaims that, as of today, the people of Shanghai no longer recognise “counter-revolutionary” Cao Diqiu as mayor.

6/1/67 Cao Diqiu and Chen Pixian accept the rally’s “orders” and self-criticise. The Shanghai PLA garrison back the committee’s overthrow.

6/1/67 Yao Wenyuan telegraphs Mao, saying Cao Diqiu’s Shanghai government has totally collapsed. “The revolutionary situation is excellent”.

7/1/67 Zhou Enlai convinces the Qinghua Jinggangshan to release Wang Guangmei. Wang returns home while Red Guards boast about her “capture”.

7/1/67 Yan Hongyan, the Yunnan Party Chief, kills himself. He leaves a note, accusing Chen Boda and the CCRG of driving him to suicide.

7/1/67 A United Action member writes home. She says that, as cadres’ children, United Action are all too brainy for the CCRG to manipulate.

7/1/67 The Red Guard says United Action’s real intent is to fight the CCRG and defend Zhou Enlai from Jiang Qing (“I really hate her guts”).

7/1/67 At Qinghua University, Kuai Dafu’s Jinggangshan and Tang Wei’s Mao Zedong Thought Column groups face off in a mass student debate.

7/1/67 Tang Wei calls Jinggangshan conservative. Kuai Dafu attacks the Column for causing splits and resembling the old “majority” faction.

8/1/67 “Ousted” Chen Pixian accepts an invitation from rebels to confer on ending Shanghai’s chaos. Wang Hongwen and Zhang Chunqiao decline.

8/1/67 The Shanghai Rebel Workers’ HQ delegate wants more top officials sacked. Instead, the meeting agrees to draft an “Urgent Notice”.

8/1/67 Despite Wang Hongwen’s telephoned warnings that the Urgent Notice would spell doom for the group, the Rebel Workers’ HQ endorses it.

8/1/67 Mao appoints CCRG radical Wang Li to run a central group intended to replace the (nominally) Tao Zhu-led CCP Propaganda Department.

8/1/67 Zhou Enlai tells Red Guards he forbids them to drag out four Vice Premiers: Li Fuchun, Li Xiannian, Tan Zhenlin and Marshal Chen Yi.

8/1/67 Mao holds a CCRG meeting and praises the Wenhui Daily and Liberation Daily power seizures in Shanghai: “This is the right direction”.

8/1/67 Classifying it as a “power seizure”, Mao offers conditional praise for the 1/6/66 takeover of the People’s Daily (by a work team).

8/1/67 The Message to the People of Shanghai is a “rare example of a good article”, says Mao. The official media is “utterly lifeless”.

8/1/67 Mao reiterates the need to “grasp revolution; promote production”, and says the “conservative faction” fail to grasp the latter part.

8/1/67 Sales at Shanghai’s top department store are up 40% year-on-year: workers are rushing to spend a slew of recent salary back-payments.

8/1/67 A Shanghai Harbour Bureau worker boasts of a 50% salary increase and getting ¥300 of back-pay — “Now I buy things like they’re free”.

8/1/67 A message from Mao on “the Tao Zhu question” says he never knew Tao well enough to trust him. Deng Xiaoping promoted him anyway.

8/1/67 Mao says that Tao controls several ministries, but “you don’t need ministries to make revolution”. Let the Red Guards take them over.

8/1/67 For a third day running, Zhou Enlai meets Nanjing University rebels who have travelled to Beijing to protest about Nanjing’s leaders.

9/1/67 The People’s Daily prints the Message to the People of Shanghai, alongside some of Mao’s praise for it from yesterday’s CCRG meeting.

9/1/67 The Message is followed by a call for a counter-attack against the bourgeois reactionary line: “This does not just concern Shanghai”.

9/1/67 Without fanfare, Shanghai rebels publish their Urgent Notice, blaming the city’s fiscal strife on “arbitrary” wage and welfare rises.

9/1/67 The Urgent Notice calls for freezing state funds, ending free travel for Red Guards and deferring wage appeals until a “later stage”.

9/1/67 Eighteen Shanghai Communications Bureau workers protest a severe wage cut imposed in 1956. They receive ¥23 000 in back-dated wages.

9/1/67 Spurred on by the People Daily’s editorial, Shanghai’s Rebel Workers seize the Rail Bureau HQ and put their own members in charge.

9/1/67 In his first speech to journalists as the de facto head of Party propaganda, Wang Li says dealing with Tao Zhu is his major concern.

10/1/67 Nie Yuanzi’s Peking University newspaper labels her allies-turned-critics “representatives of the bourgeois reactionary line”.

10/1/67 Chen Boda makes a speech to Red Guards, attacking Tao Zhu. He turns to Zhou Enlai and acidly accuses him of protecting “bad people”.

10/1/67 Beijing’s Xinhua bookshop burns its stock of Liu and Deng posters in Tiananmen Square, and instructs other branches to follow suit.

10/1/67 The United Action Committee stages a rally in the Beijing Exhibition Hall to “bombard” the Public Security Ministry with criticism.

11/1/67 Armed PLA men are posted to banks. Conventional security forces are too discredited to resist the rebels’ attempts to extort funds.

11/1/67 Zhang Chunqiao and Yao Wenyuan excuse their anaemic assistance during the power seizures — their job is to investigate, not “nanny”.

11/1/67 Zhang tells rebels he hasn’t appeared at public events yet “not because we are scared of the masses, but because we need more time”.

11/1/67 Zhou Enlai chairs a Politburo meeting. Mao tells attendees not to criticise Marshal He Long by name or let Red Guards drag him out.

11/1/67 The Politburo adopts a resolution to bar Liu Shaoqi, Deng Xiaoping and oft-absent Chen Yun from attending future Politburo meetings.

11/1/67 The PLA’s Cultural Revolution Group is reorganised. Marshal Xu Xiangqian is made its nominal leader, with Jiang Qing a “consultant”.

11/1/67 Mao reviews a message to the Shanghai rebels, saying China should emulate their power seizure — a “brilliant” and correct action.

12/1/67 A telegram congratulates Shanghai rebels in the name of the Party Centre, Government, Army and (on Mao’s unprecedented orders) CCRG.

12/1/67 The People’s Daily reprints and endorses the Shanghai Rebel Workers’ 9/1/67 “Urgent Notice” and its measures against economism.

12/1/67 With the People’s Daily confirming the Centre’s backing, the Shanghai Rebel Workers take control of the entire Shanghai Rail Bureau.

12/1/67 Shanxi Party Chief Wei Heng is toppled by the “General Command of Revolutionary Rebels” (led by Deputy Party Chief Liu Geping).

12/1/67 CCRG radical Qi Benyu makes a speech to rebels from the Central Committee General Office, attacking Deng Xiaoping and Tao Zhu.

12/1/67 Accompanied by a film crew, 200 rebel Zhongnanhai staffers stage a mass denunciation of Liu Shaoqi in the President’s own courtyard.

12/1/67 At a Shanghai rally celebrating Mao’s backing for the power seizures, Zhang Chunqiao insinuates himself into accounts of the action.

12/1/67 Zhang Chunqiao boasts of “the victories we have accomplished” and invents, for Mao and himself, a role in writing the Urgent Notice.

12/1/67 The PLA is given responsibility for guarding critical national infrastructure: broadcast stations, granaries and major bridges.

13/1/67 The Party Centre lays out regulations for public security organs: uphold the dictatorship of the proletariat and “protect the left”.

13/1/67 Over the Straits of Taiwan, twelve PLA Air Force J-6s engage four Taiwanese F-104s. Both sides suffer the loss of a single aircraft.

13/1/67 Mao’s daughter by Jiang Qing, Liberation Army Daily journalist Li Na, writes a poster attacking recently-purged editor Liu Zhijian.

13/1/67 Mao sends for Liu Shaoqi. He asks after Liu’s daughter Pingping, who Red Guards used as bait to lure out Liu and his wife on 6/1/67.

13/1/67 Liu Shaoqi apologises to Mao for his mistakes, and offers to resign as President and leave politics altogether to become a farmer.

13/1/67 Mao ignores Liu’s offer of resignation, instead recommending some reading material. He sees Liu out, saying “Study well. Take care”.

14/1/67 Rebel cadres, supported by students from the Light Industrial Institute, “seize power” over the First Light Industry Ministry.

14/1/67 Petroleum Institute “Daqing Commune” rebels throw their weight behind one side in a two-way power seizure at the Petroleum Ministry.

14/1/67 Zhou Enlai declares that Yan Hongyan, Yunnan’s Party Chief who committed suicide on 7/1/67, is a “shameless renegade” for doing so.

14/1/67 Mao edits Red Flag’s upcoming editorial. He writes that seizing power from capitalist roaders is “one class overthrowing another”.

15/1/67 In Shanxi province, Wei Heng (deposed as Party Chief on 12/1/67) is captured by Red Guards and placed in solitary confinement.

15/1/67 A take-over committee of rebel cadres at the Forestry Ministry seize the seals of office. A student-backed faction’s attempt fails.

15/1/67 Zhou Enlai tries to pressure a Nanjing rebel leader into staging a takeover of the chaotic Jiangsu government, for stability’s sake.

15/1/67 At the Party’s United Front Work Department in Beijing, rebels declare a power seizure and take over an archive of Party secrets.

16/1/67 Red Flag and People Daily carry Mao’s editorial endorsing the overthrow of a “small handful of capitalist roaders within the Party”.

16/1/67 The first photos of a struggle session are released, showing the humiliation of Peng Zhen, Luo Ruiqing, Yang Shangkun and Lu Dingyi.

16/1/67 Coal Ministry cadres and Mining Institute students each back rival power seizures, but it’s the cadres who take the seals of office.

16/1/67 Steel Institute Red Guards declare a power seizure at the Metallurgy Ministry, but rebels from metallurgy enterprises challenge it.

16/1/67 At the Chemical Engineering Ministry, a student-led, a worker-led, and a rebel cadre-led group all declare rival power seizures.

16/1/67 The “Revolutionary Alliance” group take over the reins of political supervision at the First Machine Building Ministry unopposed.

16/1/67 Mao tells the Politburo Standing Committee he supports power seizures by the left wing masses (although certainly not by the right).

16/1/67 Once power holders have been toppled, the masses should choose new Party Secretaries and Directors by holding elections, says Mao.

16/1/67 Mao wants power seizures to supplant the Party’s political supervision, with original staff continuing to manage “regular business”.

16/1/67 Mao ratifies the Shanghai rebels’ deposition of the Shanghai government and Party committee. A new government is not yet in place.

16/1/67 Nanjing rebels are afraid to carry out a power seizure without approval from Beijing first. Zhou Enlai tells them to submit a plan.

16/1/67 Vice Premiers Li Xiannian and Tan Zhenlin instruct Party leaders in Ministries and state organs to “give power to whoever wants it”.

17/1/67 The Zhongnanhai Insurrectionists enter Liu Shaoqi’s home to remove his official telephone, but lacking Mao’s assent they back down.

17/1/67 Two Nanjing University lecturers form a “Revolutionary Rebel Alliance” and start planning to take over the government of Jiangsu.

17/1/67 Red Guards from the Electric Power Institute back a takeover in the Electric Power Ministry. No other faction stands in their way.

17/1/67 The Public Health Ministry is taken over by a coalition of 14 rebel cadre groups. Meanwhile, another faction’s attempt falls flat.

17/1/67 Public Security Minister Xie Fuzhi labels United Action “reactionary”. The Ministry must “protect leftists against conservatives”.

17/1/67 The CCRG’s Qi Benyu encourages rebels from state organs and universities to emulate Shanghai by staging a power seizure in Beijing.

17/1/67 The veteran Red Guard leader Nie Yuanzi forms a committee of students and teachers to plan a power seizure at Peking University.

18/1/67 Nie Yuanzi sets up a “Beijing Commune” group with rebel students and workers, calling for a power seizure in the Beijing Government.

18/1/67 Kuai Dafu’s allies put up at poster at Qinghua University attacking Kang Sheng for his links to a “revisionist” cadre at the school.

18/1/67 Beijing Normal University’s Jinggangshan group set up a “power seizure committee” with rebels from the Beijing Daily newspaper.

18/1/67 The Geology Institute East is Red group assist rebels taking over the Textiles Ministry. Qinghua Jinggangshan’s rival attempt fails.

18/1/67 A faction led by rebel teachers declares a takeover of the Beijing Party Committee and sets up a base in the City Government office.

18/1/67 Downstairs from the teachers, a coalition of rebel students and workers declares its own takeover of the Beijing Party Committee.

18/1/67 With the rebel teachers trapped by the student-worker faction, a third group now activates its members inside Beijing’s Government.

18/1/67 Zhongnanhai Insurrectionists return to Liu Shaoqi’s office and take the President’s official telephone, leaving him incommunicado.

19/1/67 Zhou Enlai endorses the student-worker coalition’s takeover of Beijing’s Government, declared amid inter-factional chaos yesterday.

19/1/67 Geology East is Red, Aeronautics Red Flag and a third rebel faction each declare their own power seizure at the Ministry of Culture.

19/1/67 The “Revolutionary Rebel United Committee” declare a power seizure at the Geology Ministry and promote favoured cadres to run it.

19/1/67 The Ministry of Higher Education is taken over by a faction of rebel staffers, backed by Nie Yuanzi’s Peking University Red Guards.

19/1/67 Rebel cadres from the Ministry of Labour see off an attempt by Economics Institute Red Guards to take control, doing so themselves.

19/1/67 Red Guards from the Economic Institute support rebels inside the Ministry of Material Allocation. They declare a power seizure.

19/1/67 Together, the “Red Rebel Regiment” and “Red Rebel Army” take the Ministry of Commerce’s seals of office and declare a power seizure.

19/1/67 Public Security Ministry men raid the Petrolium Institute High School and arrest United Action members, carting them off in a truck.

19/1/67 The Public Security Ministry closes down United Action’s HQ at the Peking University High School, arresting its leadership group.

19/1/67 Wang Hongwen chairs a meeting of Shanghai students. They decide that a new city government should be called the “Shanghai Commune”.

19/1/67 Zhou Enlai has a long meeting with Vice Premier Li Fuchun. Zhou says that both he and Mao will try to protect Li from being toppled.

19/1/67 The Central Military Commission meets to discuss the GPCR in the PLA. Radicals call for it to be subjected to “extensive democracy”.

20/1/67 The Central Military Commission meeting resumes in Beijing. Officers warn that more disruption to the PLA will bring about “chaos”.

20/1/67 Marshal Ye Jianying castigates Jiang Qing for inciting rebellion against the PLA itself, banging the table so hard he breaks a bone.

20/1/67 Tao Zhu has his official telephone taken away. He stops getting official documents. The electricity supply to his home is reduced.

20/1/67 At the Ministry of Finance, the “Revolutionary Rebel Command” take control. Most Government Ministries are now in rebel hands.

20/1/67 The Railway Ministry’s East is Red Commune conduct a power seizure, against challenges from 50 other factions in the rail industry.

20/1/67 Cadres from the Building Construction Ministry seize power over the Ministry, besting construction workers’ attempt to do the same.

20/1/67 The “East is Red Group of the Post Institute” and “Revolutionary Rebel Corps” workers seize power at the Post and Telecoms Ministry.

20/1/67 The Higher Education Ministry undergoes its second power seizure in two days, this one backed by Normal University Jinggangshan.

20/1/67 In Shanxi, the PLA commander who helped topple Party Chief Wei Heng on 12/1/67 asks Lin Biao to support Liu Geping in taking power.

20/1/67 Harbin rebels, inspired by national media praise for Shanghai’s Urgent Notice, call for Heilongjiang’s peasantry to smash economism.

21/1/67 Mao reads a report from Anhui province. Red Guards plan a gigantic rally and want to seize power, but PLA support is unforthcoming.

21/1/67 Mao writes to Lin Biao. Instead of observing bogus neutrality, the Anhui PLA “must be sent to support the broad masses of the left”.

21/1/67 The Peking University Jinggangshan, a group set up in opposition to Nie Yuanzi, is expelled from the Red Guard 3rd HQ and denounced.

21/1/67 A “Joint Command” organisation seizes control of the Ministry of State Farms and Land Reclamation; the only group to attempt this.

21/1/67 The power seizure committee at Beijing Daily, filled with rebel staff members and Normal University students, declares a takeover.

21/1/67 The Aeronautics Red Flag group condemns the takeover of Beijing Daily and declare their own (long-planned) “second power seizure”.

21/1/67 Accusations of “serious error of line” and “fake power seizure” fly at Beijing Daily. Neither rebel faction is willing to back down.

21/1/67 Zhou Enlai’s secretary rings Zhou’s contact in the Nanjing rebels to tell them they need to accelerate their planned power seizure.