Mao Zedong’s Critique against "The Gang of Four"

Mao Zedong's various critiques against the “Gang of Four” during 1974-1975. After the Tenth Party Congress of the CPC, the “Gang of Four” led by Jiang Qing alluded and attacked Zhou Enlai under the guise of “Criticize Lin Biao and Criticize Confucius" and “Criticize Legalism and Confucianism" and "Warring Against Empiricism" in an attempt to overthrow a large number of leading cadres of the Party, government and army, in order to seize supreme state power at the forthcoming Fourth National People's Congress.

Mao Zedong intended to maintain the unity of the Party and recover social stability on the premise of affirming the “Cultural Revolution”, but repeatedly criticized and warned the “Gang of Four” led by Jiang Qing.

On July 17, 1974, Mao Zedong called a meeting for the Politburo of the Central Committee and criticized Jiang Qing by name for the first time at the meeting, mentioning the phrase of "Gang of Four" among the top leadership ranks of the Party: “Stop running those two factories, one the iron and steel factory and the other the hat factory. Stop slapping big hats on others at will. You’d better be careful. Don’t you turn into a small gang of four!” “She (meaning Jiang Qing) doesn’t speak for me, she speaks only for herself.” At the end of 1974, when the candidates of the Fourth National People’s Congress were under consideration, Mao Zedong repeatedly criticized the “Gang of Four” for clique type of conduct and aim of seizing power, and asked Jiang Qing for self-criticism and urged Wang Hongwen to write an explanation about his attack against Zhou Enlai wherein Wang Hongwen had defined this attack as the "eleventh two-line struggle".

On May 3, 1975, at the meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee, Mao Zedong once again criticized the “Gang of Four”: "Be open and above board, and don’t intrigue and conspire.” "Don’t act as a Gang of Four. Stop doing that any more. Why do you keep on doing so?" In September 1975, at the First National Work Conference titled as “Learning From Dazhai in Agriculture” , Jiang Qing made verbal attack against Zhou Enlai, but again Mao Zedong interfered and instructed her: "Don’t distribute your draft texts, don’t make tape recording, don’t print and distribute your talks." Mao Zedong's criticism of the “Gang of Four” for more than a year frustrated the attempts of the “Gang of Four” to seize the supreme power of the Party and the state, strongly supported the struggle of the veteran revolutionaries against the “Gang of Four”, and prepared favorable conditions for the subsequent crushing of the “Gang of Four”.