Gang of Four

The group was led by Jiang Qing, and consisted of three of her close associates, Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan, and Wang Hongwen. Two other men who were already dead in 1976, Kang Sheng and Xie Fuzhi, were named as having been part of the "Gang". Chen Boda and Mao Yuanxin, the latter being Mao's nephew, were also considered some of the Gang's closer associates. Most Western accounts consider that the actual leadership of the Cultural Revolution consisted of a wider group, referring predominantly to the members of the Central Cultural Revolution Group. Most prominent was Lin Biao, until his purported defection from China and death in a plane crash in 1971. Chen Boda is often classed as a member of Lin's faction rather than Jiang Qing's. ==Role==

At the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, on November 10, 1965, Yao Wenyuan, in one of his most famous pieces of writing, published an article in Wenhuibao criticizing the play Hai Rui Dismissed from Office. The article is cited as the spark that launched the Cultural Revolution. Jiang Qing staged revolutionary operas during the Cultural Revolution and met with the Red Guards. The removal of this group from power is sometimes considered to have marked the end of the Cultural Revolution, which had been launched by Mao in 1966 as part of his power struggle with leaders such as Liu Shaoqi, Deng Xiaoping and Peng Zhen. Mao placed his wife Jiang Qing, a former film actress who before 1966 had not taken a public political role, in charge of the country's cultural apparatus. Zhang, Yao and Wang were party leaders in Shanghai who had played leading roles in securing that city for Mao during the Cultural Revolution. Around the time of the death of Lin Biao in 1971, the Cultural Revolution began to lose momentum. The new commanders of the People's Liberation Army demanded that order be restored in light of the dangerous situation along the border with the Soviet Union (see Sino-Soviet split). Premier Zhou Enlai, who had accepted the Cultural Revolution, but never fully supported it, regained his authority, and used it to bring Deng Xiaoping back into the Party leadership at the 10th Party Congress in 1973. Former President Liu Shaoqi had meanwhile died in prison in 1969. Near the end of Mao's life, a power struggle occurred between the Gang of Four and the alliance of Deng Xiaoping, Zhou Enlai, and Ye Jianying. ==Downfall==

Zhou Enlai died in January 1976, and, in the subsequent months, a power struggle occurred in the top echelons of the party. The reformist Deng was named acting premier, while the Gang of Four began using their newspapers to criticize Deng and to mobilize their urban militia groups. Much of the military and party security remained under the control of the party elders of the Central Committee, who generally took a cautious role in mediating between Deng and the Gang of Four. They agreed to the removal of Deng from office after the April Tiananmen Incident but took steps to ensure that Deng and his allies would not be personally harmed in the process. On September 9, Chairman Mao died. For the next few weeks the Gang of Four retained control over the government media, and many articles appeared on the theme of "principles laid down" (or "established") by Mao near the end of his life. (The words "principles laid down" were themselves supposedly a quotation from Mao, but their canonical status was in dispute. Premier Hua Guofeng attacked the radicals' media line at a Politburo meeting in late September; The meeting ended inconclusively. Government media blamed the Gang of Four and Lin Biao for the excesses of the Cultural Revolution. According to both civilian and government accounts, celebrations were prominent and nationwide, not limited to the streets of Beijing and other major cities. During the nationwide "Movement of Exposition, Criticism and Uncovering (揭批查运动)" millions of formerly "rebel faction" red guards were publicly criticized as they were thought to be related to the Gang of Four. For many Chinese, the Gang, and its head Jiang Qing in particular, were a living symbol of everything that had gone wrong during the Cultural Revolution and their downfall was taken as a sign that China was on the brink of a new era. ==Aftermath==

Immediately after the arrests, Premier Hua Guofeng, Marshal Ye Jianying, and economic czars Chen Yun and Li Xiannian formed the core of the next party leadership. These four, together with the rehabilitated Deng Xiaoping and Wang Dongxing, were elected party Vice Chairmen at the August 1977 National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party. At the politburo level, the membership of all four living marshals, seven other generals and at least five others with close military ties reflected the deep concern for national stability. ==Trial==

The Gang of Four trials were part of the communist party's effort to establish an institutionalized justice system. The trials were highly visible to the Chinese public thanks to the daily television broadcasts of trial sessions and wide circulation of documentary films about the trials. The prosecution separated political errors from actual crimes. Among the latter were the usurpation of state power and party leadership; the persecution of some 750,000 people, 34,375 of whom died during the period 1966–1976. The official records of the trial have not yet been released. Audience members who attended the opening of the trial included selected people's representatives from each province and autonomous region, as well as victims' families including the widows of Liu Shaoqi, He Long, and Luo Ruiqing. == Use of the term as a historical analogy ==

"Little Gang of Four" In the struggle between Hua Guofeng's and Deng Xiaoping's followers, a new term emerged, pointing to Hua's four closest collaborators, Wang Dongxing, Wu De, Ji Dengkui and Chen Xilian. In 1980, they were charged with "grave errors" in the struggle against the Gang of Four and demoted from the Political Bureau to mere Central Committee membership. Hong Kong's "Gangs of Four" In 2013, mainland Chinese state media labelled Anson Chan, Martin Lee, Joseph Zen and Jimmy Lai as 'Hong Kong's "Gang of Four"' due to their alleged foreign connections. In 2016, the pro-Beijing newspaper Sing Pao Daily News started publishing editorials that criticized Tung Chee-hwa, Leung Chun-ying, Zhang Xiaoming and Jiang Zaizhong as another 'Hong Kong's Gang of Four'. The articles claim that although all of them appeared to be loyal to Beijing, they were actually betraying it and destabilizing Hong Kong for their personal interest, by igniting social and political conflicts, as well as through other mischievous means. In 2019, Chinese state media labelled Anson Chan, Martin Lee, Jimmy Lai and Albert Ho as yet another 'Gang of Four of Hong Kong' due to their alleged collusion with foreign forces in relation to the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests. The phrase has in turn been denounced by the four individuals. ==See also==