Word: heir
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Just before China's Defense Minister, Lin Piao, staged an abortive coup d'etat last fall, Chairman Mao Tse-tung made a month-long tour of the provinces, informally telling party leaders about his continuing political troubles with his subordinates and his clashes with Heir Apparent Lin. A transcript of Mao's rambling remarks, circulated by Peking's Central Committee last spring, was smuggled to Taiwan, where it was released last week. Excerpts...
...lesser intensity, since 1966, when Mao launched the convulsive Cultural Revolution in an effort to shake out the "revisionists" and strengthen his own slipping grip on the party machinery. The whole shebang very nearly came apart last September when an abortive barracks coup by his own Defense Minister and heir apparent, Lin Piao, forced Mao to ground the entire Chinese air force for weeks, and subsequently to cashier several Politburo members and carry out a sweeping purge of top-rank military...
...worry of Western governments that are anxious to expand their contacts with Peking-there are no indications of who might succeed Mao, who is 78, and Chou, whom visitors have recently found looking every bit of his 74 years. Though Mao will not necessarily want to name an heir again-Lin was the third person whom the Chairman had groomed for the succession, only to have to purge him later on*-the fact is that no likely candidates have emerged. Chou is known to favor a collective post-Mao leadership, but unanimity, too, is proving elusive...
...Neither Peng Teh-huai, Lin's predecessor as Defense Minister until his ouster in 1959, nor Head of State Liu Shao-chi, who was purged in 1966 but has still not been replaced, was ever officially designated heir apparent, as Lin was, but each had worn the mantle of succession for several years preceding his political demise...
...surprise decree did seem to leave him with little choice but to renounce his candidacy, or else name a political heir-something he has always declined...