Jiang Qing, also known as Madame Mao, was a Chinese Communist Revolutionary, Chinese actress, politician.
Background
She was born in Tsucheng (Zuzheng) in Shantung (Shandong) province, China, in March of 1914. At the time of her birth, her father Li Te-wen was 60 years old. A poor man who frequently drank, he beat Jiang's mother, a concubine who was almost 30 years younger and deserted the family when Jiang was about six years old; her mother may have been forced into prostitution by poverty during Jiang Qing's youth. The difficulty of her early years taught Jiang Qing to hate the traditional Chinese society in which men wielded absolute power over their wives and families. It also taught her the rules of survival. The China into which Jiang Qing was born was in turmoil.
Education
She entered school briefly in her home town, only to be looked down upon for her poverty and family background. She fought with other students, resisted her teachers, and was soon expelled. Jiang Qing later studied the careers of famous Chinese women, encouraging a reevaluation of their place in Chinese history.
At about age ten, she and her mother returned to her maternal grandparents' home, where Jiang Qing once again entered school and was this time more successful, avoiding the temptation to lash out.
She joined the provincial Experimental Arts Academy, where she was exposed to a variety of theatrical genre and a much wider range of role.
Career
In 1926 or 1927, she followed her mother to the large port city of Tientsin (Tianjin). Touring with a theatrical troupe in Shantung, Jiang Qing matured early and by the age of 14 was frequently taken as much older.
She then left for Qingdao (Tsingtao), the very Europeanized city of the province which had long been occupied by Germany. There she took a step that was very natural for a youth in her position and joined the Communist party, formed in 1921. One of the founding members was Jiang Qing's future husband Mao Zedong (Tse-tung). In 1933, her seconf husband Yu was arrested for radical activities and, upon his release, left Qingdao and Jiang Qing.
The same year, Jiang Qing moved to Shanghai, then the center of banking and trade as well as Western cultural influences. She again linked up with radical groups, working with them while playing a series of minor theatrical roles. Disturbed by the slow development of her career in theater, she traveled briefly to Peking (Beijing), the capital of China, where she was detained as a suspected leftist. Though quickly released, in 1934 she was jailed for a period of three to eight months. Regardless of her actual time in prison, upon her release Jiang Qing returned to Shanghai.
In Shanghai, Jiang Qing won the coveted role and played Nora for many performances to outstanding reviews. Jiang Qing and others would later deprecate her talent as an actress, describing her as no better than "second-rate, " but her Nora was superb. As one critic, cited by Ross Terrill said, "(In the Shanghai theater, ) 1935 was the year of 'Nora. "'
As an actress, she was, once again, controversial. Not only were her films suspect for their leftist leanings, but her personal life was publicly linked with the volatile lives of other actors and actresses. For personal and political reasons, she left Shanghai for the Communist base at Yenan (Yan'an). In 1937, the struggle with Japan for control over China became a shooting war, bringing together two disparate Chinese political groups-the Communist party and the Nationalist party. Mao Zedong became the leader of the Party. Jiang Qing arrived in Yenan in August of 1937.
In October of 1949, Mao Zedong proclaimed the founding of the People's Republic of China, making Jiang Qing the wife of the head of the country. For some time, Jiang Qing lived quietly as Mao tried to guide the infant communist state forward. After some years of attempting to follow Soviet Russian models, Mao grew impatient with the slow progress of China and, in 1957, launched a series of campaigns known as the "Great Leap Forward, " which were intended to promote rapid growth. The Great Leap was disastrous and other Party leaders soon began to reduce Mao's power.
Beginning in 1962, Mao turned to examine culture in a systematic fashion and Jiang In Shanghai, she linked up with two local political leaders, Zhang Chunqiao and Yao Wenyuan. Jiang Qing had known Zhang Chunqiao earlier in the leftist world of the 1930. He had become the head of the Communist party in Shanghai, and like Mao, was very interested in such theoretical issues as Revisionism. Yao, an important writer, was the son of a prominent business family. Jiang drew both of them into her clique. Mao was shut out of the political and intellectual life of Peking, and turned to the Party and cultural apparatus in Shanghai to get his perspective heard. This put Jiang Qing on center stage.
In 1966, Mao and Jiang launched their attack on Chinese culture, upon Mao's political enemies, and, many said, upon Jiang Qing's personal enemies. Called the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, " this attack was an all-encompassing event whose precise causes and parameters are even now only partially understood. When Mao was excluded from Party circles, he recruited the alienated youth of China, known as "Red Guard" to "Smash the Four Olds, " and to attack both traditional culture and the party. Jiang Qing staged revolutionary operas, met with Red Guard groups, spoke to the army where she had a strong position, and represented Mao in all phases of the movement. The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution became violent, and many wrongs were done as noted political and cultural figures were attacked for alleged wrongdoings.
An undercurrent to the Cultural Revolution was fed by widespread awareness that Mao was old and ill. It was apparent that he would soon die, and that somebody would succeed him. Jiang Qing felt that she, who had been at Mao's side for 40 years, was his proper heir. The conservative group which had opposed the Great Proletarian Revolution's excesses was led by Deng Xiaoping (Teng Hsiao-p'ing), who became Jiang Qing's chief adversary.
Working with her allies, Zhang Chunqiao and Yao Wenyuan, in Shanghai, Jiang Qing added another, Wang Hongwen (Hung-wen), a young firebrand who had distinguished himself in the Cultural Revolution. Worried about the fight to succeed him, Mao at one point warned Jiang Qing, "Don't become a Gang of Four, " a caution against becoming an isolated group within the government. The group used their control over cultural and propaganda channels to attack their enemies in an increasingly frenzied fashion, as it became apparent that Mao was dying, leaving them little time to establish Jiang as successor.
On September 9, 1976, when Mao died, Jiang Qing and her allies strove to move troops into position and create a documentary record that demonstrated Mao's desire for Jiang Qing to succeed him. But she had angered too many people, and the conventions against women in power were too strong. Deng Xiaoping and his clique came together behind a benign, temporary successor to Mao, Hua Guofeng (Hua Kuo-feng), and Jiang Qing was arrested. By 1980, Deng had established his own power, and she and the others went on trial for crimes committed during the Cultural Revolution. Because Deng and his supporters did not dare attack Mao directly, they blamed the Cultural Revolution on individuals like the "Gang of Four. "
At the trial, Zhang Chunqiao stood mute, refusing to dignify the attack against him by speaking. Wang Hongwen, seeking leniency, cooperated eagerly, confessing to crimes which he had not committed. Jiang Qing, typically, took the offensive. Her position held much truth: that Mao had been behind the Cultural Revolution and had not been duped by others.
All of the Gang were given long sentences (Yao Wenyuan was given 20 years; Wang Hongwen was sentenced to life; and Zhang Chunqiao's death sentence was commuted to life in prison). Jiang Qing's was initially a death sentence, commuted for two years to see if she "reformed. " Steadfastly refusing to recant, she spent the next decade in prison. In 1991, it was announced that she had committed suicide on May 14.
Achievements
Politics
She controlled many of China's political institutions, including the media and propaganda. She incited radical youths organized as Red Guards against other senior political leaders and government officials, including Liu Shaoqi, the President at the time, and Deng Xiaoping, the Deputy Premier.
Views
She blamed traditional culture for Revisionism, saying that because people still followed cultural models in opera, theater, music, and film, the traditional Chinese values were reasserting themselves.
Quotations:
"I was Mao's dog; I bit whom he said to bite. "
Personality
She was a shocker, she made storms, she drew attention to herself.
As a mother, she was said to have been busy and uninvolved; certainly, she was never close to her own child, and was later said to have viewed Mao's other children as rivals to her own status and that of Li Na.
Jiang Qing used her new political power to avenge herself upon many who had slighted her in the past, going back to the conflicts of her youthful career as an actress in Shanghai. Some of her victims died in prison.
Jiang Qing was an ambitious, talented, and resourceful woman who seized every opportunity to rise. In doing so, she caused a great deal of suffering.
Interests
Jiang Qing's hobbies included photography, playing cards, and holding screenings of classic Hollywood films.
Artists
She liked actress Greta Garbo.
Connections
In 1930, Jiang Qing married a merchant named Pei Minglun but found marriage too confining and soon divorced him.
Jiang Qing fell in love with another member of the radical groups, Yu Qiwei. In those unsettled times, living together was taken as "marriage" by Chinese society, and so Yu is regarded as Jiang Qing's second husband. She was not yet 18.
She married an influential Shanghai critic, Tang Na (Dang Na). When she left Tang Na, he publicly threatened to commit suicide.
By the summer of 1938, she was living with Mao and carrying his child, a daughter to be named Li Na. Mao, like Jiang Qing, had already been married three times, and he had accumulated at least six children; Jiang Qing would raise some of them as her own.