Gang of Four Arrested: Cultural Revolution Ends

Less than a month after Mao Zedong's death, the radical faction that had driven China's Cultural Revolution was finished. On October 6, 1976, Premier Hua Guofeng ordered the arrest of the Gang of Four — Jiang Qing (Mao's widow), Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan, and Wang Hongwen — ending a decade of ideological terror that had killed an estimated 500,000 to two million people and shattered Chinese society from its universities to its villages. The coup was executed with the efficiency of a military operation because, in essence, it was one. Hua Guofeng, whom Mao had designated as successor shortly before his death on September 9, conspired with veteran military leaders Marshal Ye Jianying and Wang Dongxing, commander of Mao's personal security unit. The four targets were lured to separate locations in Beijing's Zhongnanhai government compound under the pretense of an emergency Politburo meeting and arrested simultaneously. Jiang Qing, reportedly, went screaming. The Gang of Four had wielded enormous power during the Cultural Revolution, controlling propaganda, the arts, and significant portions of the party apparatus. Jiang Qing had orchestrated the persecution of intellectuals, artists, and party moderates. Zhang Chunqiao oversaw purges in Shanghai. Together, they had pushed Mao's revolutionary radicalism to extremes that even other party hardliners found destabilizing. When Mao's failing health weakened his protection, their enemies within the party moved. The arrests were announced publicly on October 24 and triggered celebrations across China. In Beijing and Shanghai, millions of people took to the streets in spontaneous demonstrations of relief. Citizens who had spent ten years denouncing each other in struggle sessions, watching colleagues sent to labor camps, and hiding forbidden books now openly wept with joy. The political consequences were transformative. With the radical faction eliminated, Deng Xiaoping — twice purged during the Cultural Revolution — returned to power by 1978 and launched the economic reforms that turned China into the world's second-largest economy. The Gang of Four stood trial in 1980-81. Jiang Qing was sentenced to death, later commuted to life imprisonment. She committed suicide in 1991.