Five Man Group

Throughout the 1960s, Chairman Mao Zedong had become increasingly concerned with the prevailing bourgeois culture and attitudes of Communist China. Mao viewed these attitudes as symptomatic of fundamental problems in Chinese society – problems which needed to be resolved. At a meeting of the Politburo in January 1965, Mao called on his Party colleagues to initiate a revolution in China's culture, and the meeting established the Five Man Group under Peng Zhen (the fifth most senior member of the Politburo) to oversee and co-ordinate this planned revolution. Of the five members of the group, only Kang Sheng could be considered to be a firm supporter of Mao. The other members were Lu Dingyi, the head of the Central Committee's Propaganda Department, Wu Lengxi, the editor of the People's Daily, and Zhou Yang. ==Role in the build-up to the Cultural Revolution==

From January to November 1965, the Five Man Group was essentially dormant, playing little part in the events that were to precede 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. 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 the subsequent months, Peng and his supporters were dismissed from their offices, with the mayor of Beijing becoming the first major casualty of the movement. Lu Dingyi, the head of the party's propaganda department, was also purged. ==Notes==