Hai Rui
From January to November 1965, the Five Man Group was essentially dormant, playing little part in the events that were to proceed the Cultural Revolution. However, the publication of Yao Wenyuan's criticism of Wu Han's play "Hai Rui Dismissed From Office" spurred the group into action. Technically, the Five Man Group had to be consulted before attacks on senior figures like Wu Han were made, and Yao's failure to do this displeased Peng. He was not prepared to allow the academic criticism of Wu Han's play to develop into a political debate, and so he moved to block the distribution of Yao Wenyuan's politically motivated article. In February 1966, Peng attacked Yao and other Maoist writers for "treating a purely academic question in political terms", and by the Spring of 1966 the group had successfully managed to keep the debate over "Hai Rui Dismissed From Office" as purely an academic one.