Jiang Qing (江青) was the fourth and last wife of Mao Zedong. She played a major political role during the Cultural revolution.

Beginnings

Jiang Jing (or Jiang Qing according to the transcription), from its true name Luan Shumeng ( alias Li Yunhe, alias Li Jin, alias Lan Ping), was born between 1912 and 1914 with Zhucheng from the province from Shandong from a family of humble origin. His/her father, Li Dewen, are one manufacturing of wheels of carts and owner of an inn. Its childhood in this borough of 30  000 inhabitants is hardly opening out. His/her father, alcoholic and brutal, beat his mother (who is not the wife but only one concubine) which beats Jiang Qing in his turn. At the five years age, his/her mother flees and takes it along in his/her grandfather to Jinan. It is there that Yun He (“Grue in the clouds”, its new name) will attend the elementary school. But in 1928, his/her mother, probably remariée, leaves the city and disappears. The teenager is alone. They joint with a troop of Jinan where it begins the training of the trade of actor. The young girl, already very beautiful, opens out in this artistic world. She succeeds in integrating the academy of the dramatic arts of Jinan into spring 1929, but the difficulties start again as of 1930 when this one closes its doors brutally. Yun He marries then Feïn, the son of a tradesman of Jinan, which is enthusiast of it. Marriage of convenience for this ambitious woman who ends a few months later to a divorce. It leaves then for Qingdao, the large port of the Shandong, where the former director of the artistic academy of Jinan became senior of the university. She sympathizes with the wife of this last, Yu Shan, which obtains a small work at the college library to him. Especially, it introduces to him her brother Yu Qiwei who less occupies a very important station within the Chinese Communist party - nothing than responsible for propaganda clandestine party for Qingdao.

Then in 1933, it leaves to Shanghai to begin a career of Actrice under the name of Lan Ping (蓝苹) “blue Pomme”; and marries a cinematographic critic called Tang Na (pseudonym of My Jiliang).

During a few years, it takes down under the name of Lan Ping of the very modest roles in films of second plan. This poor career of actress brings it nevertheless to côtoyer the mediums of left, without being really accepted by them - that from which it drew a great rancour that it could appease during the Cultural revolution. Woman considered light, it ties in particular bonds with members of the Chinese Communist party, whose Kang Sheng celebrates it, which was perhaps his/her lover. She becomes also the mistress of ( alias ) Huang Jing, a clandestine communist framework. Stopped by the police force for these frequentations, it is slackened at once, undoubtedly by denouncing some of the comrades of which it knew the identity, as it was reproached to him thereafter in a persistent way (Jiang Qing got busy to make disappear all the documents which could compromise it at the time when she had any latitude to do it, during the Cultural revolution - guarantee however that it remains about it enough to know all the details when the political situation in Popular republic of China allows it).

Waiting

In 1937, it separates from her husband Tang Na and, in company of his/her former lover Yu Qiwei, joined Yan' year, the base of the communist forces established at the conclusion of the Long walk. It is at this time that it takes the more known name of Jiang Qing. Very ambitious, it will get busy to allure Mao, which repudiates his third wife then, He Zizhen. The Political office is however very unfavourable with this union, being wary of this starlet to the sulfurous reputation. It fears moreover that this connection harms the authority of Mao, of which the ex-wife, militant exemplary, had taken part in all the fights of the Party, and in particular endured the tests of the Long walk at the sides of Mao. A condition is thus posed which is accepted by Mao: that Jiang Qing abstains from taking part in any public policy activity. In spite of the very sharp disappointment of Jiang Qing, this one is inclined and the marriage takes place in November 1938. It becomes thus the fourth and last wife of Mao, after Yang Kaihui (married in 1920) and He Zizhen (married in 1928).

In fact, Jiang Qing will wait its hour and will keep away from the public life during more than one decade. It gives to Mao a girl in 1940, Li Na. In 1950, one gives up to him with reserve the station of member of the management committee of the Cinema industry depend on the ministry for the culture. One treats it nevertheless with ease, not hiding to him that it is accommodated at this station by private favor of the President Mao (that whose heads of this committee like Xia Yan, Tian Han, etc had with repentance: they all were eliminated during the Cultural revolution, like all the influential personalities of the Théâtre and the Cinéma). This withdrawal is all the more accentuated that it maintains in the Fifty at the very least tumultuous relations with Mao, which did not testify an exemplary fidelity to him (Philip Short and its others Biographe S does of them even one dépravé fond of delicacies of very young girls), and could not support its Hypocondrie either: it is accommodated for long stays in Soviet Union between 1949 with 1959 to look after a Cancer, without it being known if it is about a measurement of distance of Mao, of a quite real evil or of a nervous breakdown. At the conclusion of the Large Step ahead which, between 1957 and 1962 because death of more than 30 Mao, person million, isolated the capacity by the Left, approaches then to Jiang Qing. She endeavors to develop a certain influence in the field of Article She puts forward great extremely radical theories on what must be art in the popular companies, and is interested particularly in the reform of the opera of Beijing. Its desire to put a term at the obliteration which it undergoes moreover is exacerbated by public successes of Wang Guangmei, woman of Liu Shaoqi, the number one of the mode. The latter will undergo also thereafter the heinous vindication of Jiang Qing: publicly vilified and tortured, one reproached him inter alia “crimes” the elegance of his toilet - betraying the quite female signature of the charge - range at the time of an official trip in Indonesia at the sides of Liu Shaoqi.

While waiting, like modest measurement of compensation, Jiang Qing is elected with the National People's Assembly. Its first opportunity to express a political activism arises during the summer 1964, when she proposes a reform of the opera. This attempt made nevertheless failure vis-a-vis the wall of indifference, if it is not contempt, presented by the authorities of the Parti.

The Cultural revolution

The Cultural revolution, attempt orchestrated by Mao from 1965 to take again the capacity by starting again the revolution on a radical way, makes it possible Jiang Qing to rise in the center the scene. It is thrown in the political fray, then benefitting from the bloody chaos which follows, it is placed - with the approval of Mao - at the first rank of the dignitaries of the mode by taking with Chen Boda the head of the Groupe of the Cultural revolution.

She undertakes “a purification” campaign of arts starting from 1967, excluding all that did not raise of a true popular art “antiféodal” and “antibourgeois”. She strictly limits the number of authorized operas. Flax Biao assistance also at that time to spread its ideology within the popular Armed with release by the means of companies of dance and theater. In a general way, she plays a crucial role during the various bounces from this mad expedition which carried out China at the edge of the pit.

Sign of “the state of decline in which the capacity Maoist sank” (Simon Leys), this role of red Impératrice does not owe anything with its action passed, its personality or its competences, but all with its relation deprived with Mao. Besides in spite of the deployment of propaganda which it had set up for exalter its person, it remained universally hedge and scorned by the Chinese people.

The fall

Since 1971, Simon Leys mrédit that “once missing Mao, the capacity of Jiang Qing will be the very first one to be in danger. ” The analysis was right, because it is of its marriage with Mao that it draws the essence of its capacity.

One month after the death of Great helmsman, his adversaries, decided to finish some with excesses of the radical faction, and gathered around Hooted Guofeng, make it stop with its accomplices of “the Bande of the Four” (Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan and Wang Hongwen), in the night from October 6th to 7th 1976. She is shown of plot (a charge undoubtedly not completely imaginary), and, in July of the year following, excluded from the Chinese Communist party.

Not being able to eliminate it in an expeditious way because of its notoriety, the new Chinese authorities set up a special court between November 1980 and January 1981 in order to judge it for the innumerable crimes committed during the Cultural revolution. It compared in front of thirty-six magistrates (and a public of six hundred people) for a lawsuit-spectacle whose sentence was already decided by Deng Xiaoping (which managed meanwhile to draw aside Hua Guofeng capacity). She is finally condemned to died the January 25th 1981 at the conclusion of a parody of lawsuit, with a two years deferment allowing him “repentance”. Considered to be responsible - directly or indirectly - hundreds for thousands of deaths, it did not express the least regret during its lawsuit, but on the contrary defying and insulting its indicters, and being prevailed to be the “dog of Mao” ( When he said to me to bite, I bit. ). To 1983, its sorrow is commuted to detention with life.

It is finally released for medical reason (probably a cancer of the throat) and is placed under house arrest with Beijing. the red empress would have committed suicide on May 14th 1991, according to the information given by the Chinese authorities which announced its death only in 1993.

Sources

• Simon Leys, new clothes of the President Mao (see the bibliographic records).

• Marie-Claire Bergère, China of 1949 to our days, 3rd edition, Armand Colin, Paris, 1999.
• Qiao Tang, Jiang Qing, the red Empress. Theater with the policy, tumultuous life of the wife of Mao Zedong , Albin Michel.

See too

• Lucien Bodard, the dog of Mao , (biographical novel of the life of Jiang Qing).