January 25 - Death Sentence of Jiang Qing

This Day in History: 25 January 2020

 

25 January 1981

 

39 years ago, today, Jiang Qing, the widow of Chairman Mao, was sentenced to death, accused for her counter-revolutionary crimes, during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s. Beginning as an actress in a Communist theatre and in film, her marriage to the feared Chairman Mao was widely criticised, as Mao had divorced his previous wife, Ho Zizhen, while she lay on a bed in a Moscow hospital, after the Long March. His wife before that, Yang Kaihui, was killed by nationalists during the Chinese Civil War.

 

While married to Mao, Jiang was ordered to stay out of politics, so she did until the Cultural Revolution, criticising traditional Chinese opera, and Chinese art and literature's influence from the bourgeoise. She was made the first deputy head of the Cultural Revolution, which was an attempt from Mao to revolutionise the Chinese society, and Jiang proved successful in manipulating the media, and the Red Guard, the student radicals. The revolution was carried out through the use of terror and purges, which resulted in the deaths of thousands. Jiang faded from the public eye at the end of the revolution, but after her husband's death, she and three other radicals became known as the 'Gang of Four'. She was arrested, and faced trial, along with the three other members of the gang, being held responsible for provoking the bloodshed of the revolution. Jiang was found guilty and was sentenced to die, but the Chinese government later changed her sentence to a life imprisonment. In 1991, she was found in prison having died from suicide.

 

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