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have never thought that the pamphlets I have written had such magic power. Now that he has taken to inflating them, the whole country will follow suit. It seems exactly like the scene of the marrow-monger wife Wang who boasts of the quality of her goods". "They flatter me by praising me to the stars, things turn to their contrary: the higher one is driven, the harder his fall. I am prepared to fall, shattering all my flesh and bones. It does not matter; matter is not destroyed, it only falls to pieces". Mao agreed to the
Central Committee circulating Lin's speech as an official document and commented in his July 1966 letter, "This is the first time in my life that, on an important point, I have given way to another against my better judgment; let us say independently of my will". Mao's assent to the circulation of Lin's speech would ultimately help result in his 1970–71 political battle against Lin.
224:"does its best to lead the movement toward the right". The February Outline had adopted "a confused, contradictory, and hypocritical language obfuscating the bitter class struggle that is being waged in culture and ideology". It also criticized Peng Zhen's promotion of the bourgeois standard of creating art for art's sake, rather than art in service to politics: "The objective of this great struggle is to criticize and repudiate Wu Han and numerous other representatives of the anti-Party and anti-Socialist bourgeoise [
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Immediately following the notification, Lin Biao gave a speech in which communicated his view that the 16 May
Notification was intended to "forestall a counterrevolutionary plot" and to establish the absolute authority of Mao's "thought". Academic Alessandro Russo interprets Lin's speech as prompted
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This implied that there were enemies of the
Communist cause within the Party itself: class enemies who "wave the red flag to oppose the red flag". Although relatively few details are known about the meeting where the notification was issued, this paragraph made an enormous impression particularly on
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The representatives of the bourgeois who have infiltrated the Party, the government, the army, and various cultural sectors are a group of counterrevolutionary revisionists. Once the conditions are ripe, they will seize power and transform the proletarian dictatorship into a bourgeois dictatorship.
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to restrict the terms of the debate over the play to censor any argument of contemporary political implications. At his direction, the Group of Five drafted a formal disciplinary code, the "Outline Report on the
Current Academic Discussion", also known as the "February Outline"—intended to restrict
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In a July letter to Jiang Qing, circulated publicly only after Lin's death, Mao described Lin's speech as containing "deeply disturbing" ideas. Mao's emphasis on a "struggle against revisionism" did not refer to the risk of a coup, but rather the "peaceful restoration" of capitalism. Mao wrote, "I
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and Mao made major revisions to it, including the addition of the "sleep by our side" paragraph. Mao also wrote the sentence stating, "The objective of this great struggle is to criticize and repudiate Wu Han and numerous other representatives of the anti-Party and anti-Socialist bourgeoisie" Mao
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Mao opposed the
February Outline, describing those who "prevent the publication of left-wing essays" as "great scholar-tyrants": a series of top-level party meetings from mid-March to mid-May addressed the controversy following the Outline and Mao response . In late April, the Central Committee
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By voiding the
February Outline and dissolving the Group of Five, The 16 May Notification removed the leadership of the party's cultural apparatus and reversed its last political machination. It discussed Peng Zhen's political errors in detail, stating that he had defended Wu Han and prevented
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the terms of the argument and thereby stop further articles comparing the play to contemporary political issues. The
February Outline openly threatened the "obstinate Left" with discipline, urging that it bear in mind its "long-term behavior".
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by the institutional uncertainty raised by Mao's warning of secret rightists in the party who are "like
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The notification formalized the decisions that had been reached in late April. It was the first major political declaration of the
Cultural Revolution and summarized Mao's justifications for the Cultural Revolution.
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by dissolving the top level of the party's cultural apparatus and encouraging mass political movement to oppose rightists within the party. The result was a political victory for
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attempted to protect the author of the play, his subordinate and
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decided to revoke the February Outline, disband the Group of Five, disband the Beijing Party Committee which Peng Zhen led, and disavow his handling of the
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meant it was no longer politically feasible to prevent its publication, Peng Zhen used his leading role in the party's cultural apparatus via the
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had distorted the historical record and that the aspect of reversing unjust land verdicts provided a focal point for "
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when he wrote an article critical of it at the request of close Mao allies
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Mao Zedong and China in the twentieth-century world: a concise history
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and to restore the criminal rule of the landlords and rich peasants".
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Counterattack the Right-Deviationist Reversal-of-Verdicts Trend
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chose the deliberately understated name for the document.
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Mao's China and after: a history of the People's Republic
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692:Project 571
516:. Durham :
138:Peng Dehuai
1367:1966 works
1361:Categories
1281:Mango cult
1153:Red Guards
946:Kang Sheng
931:Qiu Huizuo
911:Ji Dengkui
855:Jiang Qing
836:Zhou Enlai
831:Liu Shaoqi
826:Mao Zedong
753:Red August
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312:References
184:Zhou Enlai
157:Jiang Qing
114:See also:
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420:link
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