Word: mao
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...final week and a half of the trial had been devoted exclusively to the star defendant, Jiang Qing, 67, the fearsome Mme. Mao. Proud, defiant, nearly regal in her contempt when the trial opened almost seven weeks ago, the onetime actress turned its final hours into a dramatic shouting match. Presiding Judge Zeng Hanzhou interrupted her concluding remarks on the grounds that she was using her right to speak to "smear and vilify party and state leaders," which, he said, was a "counterrevolutionary" offense...
...next day Jiang Qing began the so-called debate phase of the trial-already completed for all the other nine defendants-in which the unrepentant Madame Mao began to defend herself. According to Chinese observers at the trial, Jiang Qing delivered an impassioned defense of the Cultural Revolution as a correct policy, approved by both Mao and Chou. Jiang claimed that Chou even sanctioned the attack on former Head of State Liu Shaoqi, which is held now to be one of the Gang of Four's gravest crimes. Then she defiantly challenged the court to execute her publicly...
Perhaps stymied by her spirited defense, the court went into an unexplained recess, leaving the debate phase to be finished later, possibly this week. Meanwhile, speculation swirled around a particular question: Why would Peking's current leaders have decided to step up the level of attacks on Mao even before the trial of his widow was finished? One possible explanation is that the ascendant faction led by Senior Vice Chairman Deng Ziaoping may not be opposed to an unofficial linking of the "mistakes" of Mao with the "crimes" of the Gang of Four. The pragmatic Deng seems to have...
From 1978 on, with Mao dead and the Gang of Four arrested, Schell returned repeatedly to find many of those streets transformed. There were more spontaneous introductions, ogling of Western clothing and transactions for profit. At the Peace Café, Benefit-the-People Wang had quick eyes for American cigarettes, Inca-bloc watches and hard currencies. He and his friends drank orange soda mixed with beer and discussed which foreign visitor might like to get it on with Golden Thunder Chen...
...dreams of becoming a fashion designer: "Of course I want what is best for myself during my life. I think that is only human nature." Schell finds such sentiments to be radical departures from the orthodoxy of the founding father. It is as if people who were raised clutching Mao's Little Red Book had suddenly embraced an est training manual...