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The Rise and Fall of Lin Piao
English (translation)Original Dutch
- GenresChina
Paperback
Published January 1, 1976
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November 12, 2021
This was published way back in 1976 and seems to have lain unread in a box recently uncovered in a dusty cupboard. Feeling rather sorry for it I decided to give it a read to see how how an analysis of an event which was given prominent coverage back at the time continues to stand up in the light of all that has happened since.
Lin Piao (or Bao after the reform of Chinese names in Roman script in 1978) had been a prominent commander of the People's Liberation Army prior to the revolutionary victory and had assumed a leadership role in the CCP closely aligned with Mao. In the late 1960s he had seemed to be in a good position to succeed the Chairman as the time for change drew closer. All of these calculations were upset when, in September 1971, a plain crashed in Mongolia causing the death on board, among whom were Lin and a number of his associates. It seemed that the group was in the process of defecting, probably to Moscow, at the time of the crash.
Van Ginneken provides an account as to what was going on to produce this outcome which seems to be very well informed given that it is the work of a Dutch journalist. The state of politics in the PRC, then heaving under the impact of the Cultural Revolution, recounted in detail with numerous references to key individuals and the people in their vari0us entourages. We learn that the president, Liu Shao-chi, was considered to be on the right of the party and suspected of favouring a capitalist restoration. Somewhere between him and the Maoist action stood the premier, Chou En-lai, a leftist but wary of the excesses of the Mao camp.
Much of the the confrontation between the factions was allegorical and worked out in episodes which included the interpretation of the character of Hai Jui who was featured in a drama by the playwright Wu Han. In this version it seemed that Hai - a sixteenth century Mandarin - bore a resemblance to the contemporary Peng Te-huai, a former minister of defence who had lost his position because of his criticism of Mao's policy on collectivisation.
As the factions form and align themselves either for or against groups which have a different interpretation of developments Mao emerges as an elderly sage anxious to be insulated from the immediate hurly-burly but always in a position to have the final say on who was right or wrong. Lin comes across as an individual constantly considering his position against the tides ripping across politics, and whilst always keen to appear as a Maoist, was never confident enough to map out a clear road that would continue the Chairman's line. Finally it seems that precipitate action on the part of his son in mobilising army units in his cause led to an ouster for the Lin faction and the attempt to flee the country.
The book is fascinating when read as an account of the way politics is done in a society which is institutionally over-politicised and the debates, conducted with murderous intensity, seem to have few reference points in terms of the confront problems confronting the revolution. If there are better books on the way policy issues were argued out I'd been keen to see them. Is there a Chinese equivalent, for example, to the debates over economic policy in the Soviet Union in the 1920s of the incredibly high standard marked in the disputes between Bukharin and Preobrazhensky? If there was I suppose there is the danger it was buried under the detritus of the Cultural Revolution.
In the end the influence of the factions fell by the wayside and the arch pragmatist Deng Xiaoping emerged at the top, favouring a strategy that involved 'crossing the river by feeling for the stones'. This is not covered in van Ginneken's book, which comes to a close in 1976, after the death of Chou and the ascendency of Hua Kuo-feng and the beginning of a less ideological epoch.
Lin Piao (or Bao after the reform of Chinese names in Roman script in 1978) had been a prominent commander of the People's Liberation Army prior to the revolutionary victory and had assumed a leadership role in the CCP closely aligned with Mao. In the late 1960s he had seemed to be in a good position to succeed the Chairman as the time for change drew closer. All of these calculations were upset when, in September 1971, a plain crashed in Mongolia causing the death on board, among whom were Lin and a number of his associates. It seemed that the group was in the process of defecting, probably to Moscow, at the time of the crash.
Van Ginneken provides an account as to what was going on to produce this outcome which seems to be very well informed given that it is the work of a Dutch journalist. The state of politics in the PRC, then heaving under the impact of the Cultural Revolution, recounted in detail with numerous references to key individuals and the people in their vari0us entourages. We learn that the president, Liu Shao-chi, was considered to be on the right of the party and suspected of favouring a capitalist restoration. Somewhere between him and the Maoist action stood the premier, Chou En-lai, a leftist but wary of the excesses of the Mao camp.
Much of the the confrontation between the factions was allegorical and worked out in episodes which included the interpretation of the character of Hai Jui who was featured in a drama by the playwright Wu Han. In this version it seemed that Hai - a sixteenth century Mandarin - bore a resemblance to the contemporary Peng Te-huai, a former minister of defence who had lost his position because of his criticism of Mao's policy on collectivisation.
As the factions form and align themselves either for or against groups which have a different interpretation of developments Mao emerges as an elderly sage anxious to be insulated from the immediate hurly-burly but always in a position to have the final say on who was right or wrong. Lin comes across as an individual constantly considering his position against the tides ripping across politics, and whilst always keen to appear as a Maoist, was never confident enough to map out a clear road that would continue the Chairman's line. Finally it seems that precipitate action on the part of his son in mobilising army units in his cause led to an ouster for the Lin faction and the attempt to flee the country.
The book is fascinating when read as an account of the way politics is done in a society which is institutionally over-politicised and the debates, conducted with murderous intensity, seem to have few reference points in terms of the confront problems confronting the revolution. If there are better books on the way policy issues were argued out I'd been keen to see them. Is there a Chinese equivalent, for example, to the debates over economic policy in the Soviet Union in the 1920s of the incredibly high standard marked in the disputes between Bukharin and Preobrazhensky? If there was I suppose there is the danger it was buried under the detritus of the Cultural Revolution.
In the end the influence of the factions fell by the wayside and the arch pragmatist Deng Xiaoping emerged at the top, favouring a strategy that involved 'crossing the river by feeling for the stones'. This is not covered in van Ginneken's book, which comes to a close in 1976, after the death of Chou and the ascendency of Hua Kuo-feng and the beginning of a less ideological epoch.
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