The 100th Anniversary of the Founding of the Communist Party of China: What Enlightenment from the Most Mysterious Political Event in Party History-BBC News

Yu Ruxin believes that Lin Biao’s flight was mainly due to the deep feeling that Mao Zedong’s southern tour talks had ended his political life and even his life was seriously threatened; the failure of his son Lin Liguo’s plan to assassinate Mao accelerated the flight of Lin Biao and others; Lin Biaoji’s escape was Lin Biaoji The unanimous choice of his wife and children; Lin Biao was sober when he left and so on.

Qin Hui, a well-known Chinese historian, believes that Yu Ruxin has made “the most reliable research that the author thinks so far” on the true process of the “September 13 Incident”. After continuous research by Yu Ruxin and other scholars, “the truth of this rock-shattering political earthquake during the Cultural Revolution has basically come to light.”

NewHistorical materialExpose the real reason for Lin Biao’s escape

For 50 years, the 913 Lin Biao’s escape in 1971 has always been the biggest political scandal in the history of the Communist Party of China, and the memoirs and writings based on it have been numerous. The causes and consequences of the incident are complicated, but for a long time, there have been only two sources of public historical materials: one is the documents of the party’s “crimination of forests” and the purge movement; the other is that some parties involved in the incident at least 25 years after the incident for various purposes. The content of the published memories. Many doubts about this period of history arise from this.

Yu Ruxin confirmed to the BBC Chinese that the historical material he used was the person involved in the September 13th Incident, Lin Biao’s daughter, Lin Liheng. At the request of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, especially Zhou Enlai, he wrote the handwritten material “Yes” from September to October 1971. Memories Before and After the September 13th Incident.” Bao Pu, the publisher of this book and New Century Press, told BBC Chinese that he does not doubt the authenticity of the material.

Yu Ruxin said, “Reminiscences Before and After the September 13th Incident” was completed by Lin Liheng in less than one and a half months after the “September 13 Incident”. The parties had not had time to react from a huge disaster to fabricate it. The false plot is the narrative closest to the facts.

He compared this material with Lin Liguo’s colleague Lin Liguo’s son and then deputy director of the Air Force Operations Department, who wrote a plan to overthrow Mao’s “Project 571” Minutes, and found that “it was completely consistent with Lin Liguo’s thoughts reflected in it. , So it best reflects the actual situation.”

Prior to this, many folk books on the “September 13” incident were based on a material on the course of the incident that Lin Liheng and his fiance Zhang Qinglin wrote to the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection in March 1980. Yu Ruxin believes that the description of the factual process in this material cannot be the same as “Reminiscences of the September 13th Incident”. According to his comparison, 30 years after the incident, Lin Liheng’s public stance changed, he deliberately concealed Lin Biao’s initiative to escape, and shifted responsibility for the incident to Lin’s wife Ye Qun and son Lin Liguo.

The most noteworthy point of this book is that it refutes the official accusations of the Chinese Communist Party against Lin Biao. In the official narrative, the cause of the “September 13 Incident” was that Lin Biao was eager to restore the post of President Liu Shaoqi, who was hindered by Mao Zedong, so he instructed his son Lin Liguo to murder Mao. After the incident was revealed, Lin Biao fleeed in a hurry with his wife and children and flew to the Soviet Union in a trident.

Over the past few decades, this narrative has been considered suspicious. One of the most puzzling is what kind of considerations did Lin Biao take in trying to murder Mao when the party constitution has made clear his successor status? If there is a real attempt, why did Lin Biao, the Minister of National Defense, choose not to use his military power to launch a coup, but instead send his bloody son to perform extreme acts?

Yu Ruxin said in the new book that Lin Biao fled mainly because he deeply felt that Mao Zedong’s southern tour talks had ended his political life, and even his wealth and life were seriously threatened. He also believed that the failure of Lin Liguo’s plan to assassinate Mao accelerated the flight of Lin Biao and others, and that it was the unanimous choice of Lin Biao and his wife and children to escape.

Regarding how the plane that Lin Biao and others were flying in fell in Mongolia, and how Lin Biao and the nine others died, there have been many speculations among the people in the past years. The most common one is that it was shot down by Soviet missiles. Yu Ruxin’s research completely presented the Chinese translation of the Mongolian official investigation report on the crash in November 1971, which proved that many rumors among the people were wrong.

This “Investigation Report on the Cause of the Crash of a People’s Republic of China Aircraft in the People’s Republic of Mongolia” was written by the investigation committee established by the Mongolian government, and a copy of it is currently kept in the Harvard University Fairbank Center for East Asian Studies Library.

The main body of the investigation report describes the details of the crash site; the origin, performance and purpose of the aircraft; and the documents and objects found at the crash site. The report also includes conclusions made based on the main text and relevant treatment suggestions.

Mongolia regards its relationship with the Soviet Union only as the relationship between consulting and being consulted. The Mongolian investigation report acknowledged that “in order to study this incident in detail, some members of the committee invited Soviet technical personnel to inspect the crash site on October 19.” However, there are rumors that Soviet personnel from the Chinese embassy arrived. Before the scene, someone was sent to inspect the scene and remove the rumor that the main engine of the tail was removed-this could not be confirmed in the investigation report.

In addition, Chen Xiaoning, the author of “Questioning Lin Biao’s “9.13” Incident,” and others claimed that Lin Biao’s plane was shot down by Soviet missiles and forced to land after it caught fire in the air. Yu Ruxin believes that these rumors are not correct. The book quoted a Mongolian report saying that “the cause of the crash was due to errors made by the pilots” and that the Chinese official report stated that the plane “failed to make a forced landing.” However, because the report did not mention the black box of the aircraft, no further conclusions can be drawn on how the aircraft fell.

The mystery of the CCP’s supreme power struggle and the dramatic nature of the “September 13” incident have made this incident a hot spot in the field of curiosity and conspiracy theories for many years. Yu Ruxin explained the reasons for the disagreement between Mao Zedong and Lin Biao, and further explained that the system of selecting successors to inherit the highest power is unreliable.

The book believes that the “September 13” incident “was actually caused by two factors, Mao Zedong and Lin Biao. The Ninth National Congress was the culmination of Lin Biao’s political career and the starting point for his decline. The Lushan Conference more than a year after the Ninth National Congress ( The Second Plenary Session of the Ninth Central Committee) deepened the rift between Mao and Lin, and Mao and Lin have since parted ways.”

In the mid-1960s, there were disagreements within the CCP on how to carry out socialist transformation. Liu Shaoqi, Chen Yun, Zhou Enlai and other CCP “veterans” who had revolutionized with Mao Zedong and seized power seemed to be drifting away from Mao’s ideas. Mao always hoped to stimulate the revolutionary potential of the masses through constant struggle. But only Lin Biao still praised Mao’s prestige.

Lin Biao began to establish Mao’s position as a great leader in the People’s Liberation Army. He presided over the compilation of “The Quotations of Mao Zedong”, supervised military personnel to study, and launched a mass movement in the military, emphasizing the basic value of sacrificing service to the party. Lin Biao also expanded his power base to organizations outside the military system through ties with security agencies and cultural bureaucracy. Soon, the forces of the People’s Liberation Army penetrated into the structure of governments at all levels.

In 1967, the Central Military Commission of the Communist Party of China required the implementation of the five tasks of supporting the Left, supporting agriculture, supporting industry, military management and military training, namely “three armies and two armies”, which became the basic tasks of the military in the Cultural Revolution. Subsequently, the army used “three branches and two armies” to repair the collapsed power structure of local party and government leaders after being overthrown. Coupled with the objective situation formed in 1969 against the Soviet Union, most of the country’s power is concentrated in the army.

At the Eleventh Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee in 1966, Lin Biao was elected as the only Vice-Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. Three years later, at the Ninth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the party constitution confirmed his successor status. But Mao Zedong did not give him actual power. In 1970, Mao Zedong proposed to abolish the post of president of the country that had been vacant since Liu Shaoqi from the constitution. This meant that not only did Lin Biao fail to succeed the president, but also Zhou Enlai, the prime minister, had more power than his actual authority.

Yu Ruxin believes that the apparent reason for the disagreement between Mao and Lin is that Mao said he wanted to cool down his own propaganda. The actual meaning was not to use the opportunity of propagating Mao to promote himself, but Lin insisted not to cool down. The deeper reason is that Mao wanted to change his successor, but Lin insisted on maintaining his status as his successor.

“The army gained a lot of power during the Cultural Revolution through the’three branches and two armies.’ This means that the military clique replaced the role of the entire civil and bureaucratic system led by Liu Shaoqi and mastered the main power in China. Mao had doubts about the army, and felt that Lin’s Power is too high and threatens him.” Yu Ruxin said.

The rift between Mao and Lin widened after the Ninth National Congress of the Communist Party of China. Faced with Mao’s steadily pressing on, there was a precedent for the tragic death of Liu Shaoqi, the second in command of the party, and Lin had no choice but to flee. This seemingly mild “resistance” was the “September 13 Incident” that occurred two years later. According to the official Central Document Publishing House “The Biography of Mao Zedong (1949-1976)”, the incident “objectively declared the failure of the theory and practice of the’Cultural Revolution’.”

Looking back on the way of choosing successors in the Mao era, Yu Ruxin said, “This is a highly subjective, non-institutional, backward, and therefore a failure to inherit and replace rights. The successor was in a hurry in the September 13th Incident. Fleeing is the most typical example of failure.”

Andrew Nathan, a professor of political science at Columbia University in the United States, told the BBC Chinese that the lesson of the “September 13” incident for today is that “the position of the successor is dangerous because those in power regard the designated successor as a threat. ——Even if this is his own choice. If Xi Jinping also appoints a successor, this dynamic will also occur and cause instability.'”

“The September 13th Incident revealed how China’s power was concentrated in the hands of the emperor.” Jean-Pierre Cabestan, a professor of political science at Hong Kong Baptist University, told BBC Chinese, “The operation of the one-party authoritarian system is very opaque. It will not really follow any procedures that can be verified by outsiders and non-party people, so it is impossible to institutionalize the transfer of power.”