The Gang of Four

On January 25, 1981, the Chinese Special Court ruled that two of the main members of the Gang of Four, Mao K'en-shek's wife Chiang Chin and Chiang Chun-shek, were sentenced to death with two years' imprisonment. Similarly, another member, Wang Hong-wen, was sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment by Azeeban Karabas and Yao Wei-yan. With this court ruling, the Cultural Revolution of China came to an abrupt end.

Why did Mao K'en-shek's wife Chiang Chin-shek be sentenced to death? How did the creation of the Gang of Four begin? After the court ruling, how did the lives of the main heroes of the Cultural Revolution come to an end? We will discuss this in today's program. I am sure you will like this program as well. On May 16, 1966, Mao K'en-shek started a movement to end the ancient social structure of China.

The movement itself was called the Cultural Revolution. According to many historians, Mao had started the Cultural Revolution to wipe out his opponents. Since the beginning of the day, this movement has been supported by Mao K'en-shek's wife Chiang Chin and some senior party leaders.

Mao K'en-shek said that this movement was created to end the four old pillars of the Chinese society, the old customs, customs, culture, and old ideas. He also announced that students could also participate in this movement, closing schools and colleges. Immediately, Mao called on students from all over the country to participate in this revolution.

Slowly, this movement became more and more intense. Many people with different views on personal receipts became victims of this movement. This movement began to destroy the social structure of China, and it began to destroy the anti-communists.

As a result of this, hundreds of thousands of people were killed and thousands of people were tortured. According to some writers and historians, the situation was becoming a civil war at that time. In order to prevent the situation from becoming unfavorable and controlled, Mao announced the abolition of the Red Guard in 1968.

However, Mao's K'en-shek's wife Chiang Chin, Chiang Chun-hsiao, Yao Wei-yuan, and Wang Hong-wen's group continued to destroy their opponents. They also got Mao in their grasp. Gradually, Mao's K'en-shek's wife Chiang Chin became a very important K'en-shek, and their group killed and tortured thousands of people for no reason.

On July 17, 1974, Mao warned his wife's group not to do so and to take serious action. However, Mao's K'en-shek's health deteriorated, and he began to do whatever he wanted again. Until then, Mao's K'en-shek's group became even more powerful.

This power, which was at the forefront of the cultural revolution, became famous under the name of the Gang of Four. These four, i.e. the Gang of Four, abused Mao, who had become old, sick, and weak, and killed their opponents. They committed many crimes of death penalty, jail, labor camps, and mass incarceration.

On January 8, 1976, Prime Minister Chao Wenlai died. After his death, Mao's K'en-shek, who was old and weak, was in great trouble. Chao Wenlai promoted Deng Xiaoping as the political successor.

But the Gang of Four did not want to give power to Deng Xiaoping under any circumstances. This is why the Gang of Four began to put a lot of pressure on Mao. Finally, Mao Zedong appointed Hua Guofeng to the prime minister's office on February 4, 1976, Mao was very impressed with Hua's work.

Mao sent a message saying, I am a little relieved to have you as the prime minister. After this, the Gang of Four began to fill Mao's ears against Deng Xiaoping. Finally, they succeeded, and on April 6, 1976, Deng Xiaoping was deprived of all high positions other than party membership.

After his departure, Mao appointed Hua Guofeng as the prime minister. Five months later, on September 9, 1976, Mao passed away. With Mao's death, there was a big political upheaval in China.

The Gang of Four began to create various conspiracies to take power. They presented Hua Guofeng as a person without political education and did not consider him to be a big threat. But Hua Guofeng, a weak-willed prime minister, stood in their way.

He was ready to go to the extreme to stop the Gang of Four. Meanwhile, he also established relations with Deng Xiaoping. Gradually, Hua Guofeng began to strengthen his position.

Wang Tung-Sing, the chief commander of Mao's special security force, also supported him. Meanwhile, Chiang Ching-lei, the chief personality of the Gang of Four, made a plan. He made a plan to take the military commanders of cities such as Shanghai, Beijing, Shenyang and Canton together and take power.

While advancing this plan, some senior leaders of the party and some opponents of the Gang of Four immediately called on Defense Minister Yeh Chiang-ying to support the prime minister. Immediately, some members of the Prime Minister, Defense Minister and Politburo became a secret group. In the process, the Gang of Four made a plan to take power.

For this purpose, they discussed with the military commanders of various cities. Meanwhile, the Gang of Four made a plan to kill some members of the Politburo, including the interim prime minister, Defense Minister Yeh Chiang-ying. After receiving this news, Hua Guofeng ordered the military general of Beijing to be alert.

The military general of Beijing had a good relationship with the prime minister. Similarly, Hua Guofeng appealed to the commanders of other cities to support him. During this discussion, the Politburo met at the end of September 1976.

At the meeting, Chiang Ching-lai, who was the prime minister, indicated that he was successful in leading the party in the government and asked Hua Guofeng to make him the chairman of the Central Committee. But there was not much discussion about this. A few days later, on the morning of October 5, 1976, Wang Tung, the head of the Special Security Division of the Defense Minister Yeh Chiang, Chen Shilin, the general commander of Beijing, and Li Xie'nin, the deputy prime minister, held a secret meeting.

In this secret meeting, they tried to rebuild the Communist Party. They removed the old leaders and tried to form a new organization. Instead, they tried to arrest all the members of the Gang of Four at once and punish them.

Immediately, Hua Guofeng gave the responsibility to General Commander Chen Shilin to protect the capital Beijing, Wang Tung gave the responsibility to arrest the senior members of the Gang of Four. In the midst of this, two divisions of the Canton City Police Force were ordered to be ready for airlift. Then, on the night of October 5, 1976, Hua Guofeng invited the four members of the Gang of Four to attend the emergency meeting of the Political Bureau.

Under Wang Tung's instructions, the two soldiers went to their residence to call the four members of the Gang of Four. Before everyone else, Wang Hongwen arrived at the main hall of the party to participate in the meeting. Before entering the meeting room, he told his personal security guards to sit outside.

Then, as he was going towards the meeting room, the security guards tried to catch him. The operation failed, but the soldiers caught him and took him to the meeting room. At that time, he managed to escape from the hands of the soldiers, tried to run outside, and began to call his security guards.

But the soldiers managed to catch him again. According to some historians, two soldiers died in the procession. Wang himself was also badly injured.

Then he was imprisoned. After a while, Chang Sun Xiao and Yao Wei Yan also arrived. Unknowingly, the soldiers trapped them and caught them.

At that time, Mao Kikang's wife, Chiang Ching, was about to sleep. She had an argument with the soldiers who had taken her. The soldiers went straight to the room, caught her, and took her to the main hall of the party.

In this way, after catching the four main members of the Gang of Four, Prime Minister Hua ordered the army to catch all their supporters. On the morning of October 6, 1976, they were kept in a solitary prison far away from Peking. In this way, the Gang of Four caught them by surprise while surrendering.

After that, their mission could not be successful. Immediately after this, Prime Minister Hua dismissed the party leaders of 13 areas from the 29 administrative areas of China. In the meantime, he also abolished all the rights of the four main members of the Gang of Four.

In this way, the cultural revolution with their arrest came to an end. On November 20, 1980, a debate began in the Supreme Court of China against these four people. In the course of the debate, Chiang Ching said that all these incidents were under the direction of Mao, and it was clear that they were not the main culprits.

Two months later, that is, on January 25, 1981, Chiang Ching and Chiang Soon-siao were sentenced to two years in prison. In fact, according to Chinese law, two years in prison is a two-year sentence, in which a criminal is sentenced to death only if he commits a crime within a limited period of time. After completing a certain period of time, the criminal is sentenced to a certain period of time on the basis of the sentence of life imprisonment and appropriate behavior.

Similarly, Wang Hongwen was sentenced to 20 years in prison for life imprisonment and Yao Weiyan for 20 years. After that, he was taken to Peking State Prison. In 1983, Chiang Soon-siao was sentenced to two years in prison for life imprisonment.

But he was released 18 years later, that is, on December 1997. When he was released, he was very unwell and then began to live in Shanghai. In April 2005, he died of cancer.

He was 88 years old at that time. Another member of the Gang of Four, Wang Hongwen, was sentenced to life imprisonment. On August 3, 1992, he died of cancer in a Beijing hospital.

He was 56 years old when he died. Another member of the Gang of Four, Yao Weiyan, was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Upon completion of the sentence, he was released on October 5, 1996.

After being released, he began to live in Shanghai. On December 23, 2005, he died of high blood pressure at the age of 74. Mao's concubine, Chiang Ching, was also sentenced to two years in prison for life imprisonment.

Two years later, that is, in 1983, Chiang Ching was sentenced to life imprisonment. He was taken out of jail after suffering from laryngeal cancer. He was treated in a local public hospital.

But on May 14, 1991, he committed suicide in the hospital. He was 77 years old at that time. Thus, the four people who were considered the main culprits of the Cultural Revolution were killed.

And China moved forward to a new future by completely changing its old political system.