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Hai Rui Dismissed From Office
''Hai Rui Dismissed from Office'' (; also called ''Dismissal of Hai Jui'' in English) is a stage play, written by Wu Han (1909–1969), notable for its involvement in Chinese politics during the Cultural Revolution. The play itself focused on a loyal Ming minister named Hai Rui, who was portrayed as a savior to passive peasants for whom he reversed unjust land confiscations. The play became a center of scholarly and political controversy because of its implications for debates within the communist party, including at the Lushan Conference, regarding the political role of peasants going forward in light of the failures during the Great Leap Forward. Background Wu Han, who wrote the play, was a historian and politician who focused on the Ming Dynasty. He also served simultaneously as a Deputy Mayor in Beijing. In 1959, Wu became interested in the life of Hai Rui (1514–1587), a Ming-era minister who was imprisoned for criticizing the Jiajing Emperor. Wu Han wrote several a ...
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Wu Han (historian)
Wu Han ( zh, s=吴晗, p=Wú Hán}; August 11, 1909 – October 11, 1969) was a Chinese historian and politician. Wu was one of the most important historians in the development of modern historical scholarship in China during the 1930s and 1940s. In the 1940s he was a leading member of the China Democratic League, a non-aligned political organization during most of the Chinese civil war which eventually threw its weight behind the Chinese Communist Party. After 1949, he served as the Vice Mayor of Beijing. In November 1965, at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, he came under attack for a play he wrote about an upright Ming dynasty official called ''Hai Rui Dismissed from Office'', which was widely understood as an anti-Mao allegory. His political downfall also resulted in the purge of Beijing Mayor Peng Zhen. Wu died in prison in 1969. Biography Early life and education Wu Han was born in Yiwu, Zhejiang in 1909. With support from the Wu clan organization and with th ...
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Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong pronounced ; traditionally Romanization of Chinese, romanised as Mao Tse-tung. (26December 18939September 1976) was a Chinese politician, revolutionary, and political theorist who founded the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949 and led the country from Proclamation of the People's Republic of China, its establishment until Death and state funeral of Mao Zedong, his death in 1976. Mao served as Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 1943 until his death, and as the party's ''de facto'' leader from 1935. His theories, which he advocated as a Chinese adaptation of Marxism–Leninism, are known as Maoism. Born to a peasant family in Shaoshan, Hunan, Mao studied in Changsha and was influenced by the 1911 Revolution and ideas of Chinese nationalism and anti-imperialism. He was introduced to Marxism while working as a librarian at Peking University, and later participated in the May Fourth Movement of 1919. In 1921, Mao became a founding member of the ...
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Historical Materialism
Historical materialism is Karl Marx's theory of history. Marx located historical change in the rise of Class society, class societies and the way humans labor together to make their livelihoods. Karl Marx stated that Productive forces, technological development plays an important role in influencing social transformation and therefore the mode of production over time. This change in the mode of production encourages changes to a society's economic system. Marx's lifetime collaborator, Friedrich Engels, coined the term "historical materialism" and described it as "that view of the course of history which seeks the ultimate cause and the great moving power of all important historic events in the economic development of society, in the changes in the modes of production and exchange, in the consequent division of society into distinct classes, and in the struggles of these classes against one another." Although Marx never brought together a formal or comprehensive description of ...
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Five Man Group
The Five Man Group (; also known as the Group of Five) was an informal committee established in the People's Republic of China in early 1965 to explore the potential for a "cultural revolution" in China. The group was led by Peng Zhen (the mayor of Beijing), the fifth most senior member of the Politburo. The Group was said to be tasked with studying popular trends in China's arts and cultural realms. In 1965 the Group commissioned a study of the play ''Hai Rui Dismissed from Office'', written by Vice-Mayor Wu Han, which came under suspicion for being an anti-Mao allegory. The Group then released the ''February Outline'', a document arguing that the play was not of a political nature. Mao became offended by the ''Outline'' and dissolved the group in May 1966, when it was replaced by the Cultural Revolution Group. Mao argued that Yao Wenyuan hadn't focused on the word 'dismissed' in the title of the play, which, according to Mao, was the crucial word since the play had been writt ...
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Wenhui Bao
''Wenhui Bao'' (), anglicized as the ''Wenhui Daily'',Shanghai Municipal Government"Press Group Celebrates" 26 July 2008. Accessed 18 Dec 2014. is a Chinese daily newspaper published by the Shanghai United Media Group. History ''Wenhui Bao'' was founded in Shanghai on January 25, 1938 by leftist-leaning intellectuals centered on writer and journalist Ke Ling. Over the next decade, it was closed down twice for its political leanings. In 2024, Rappler reported that the Manila bureau chief of ''Wenhui Bao'' from 2021 until 2024, Zhang "Steve" Song, was an undercover Ministry of State Security (MSS) operative who worked closely with Huawei and gathered intelligence about the internal dynamics and politics of key personalities in the Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 island ...
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Liu Shaoqi
Liu Shaoqi ( ; 24 November 189812 November 1969) was a Chinese revolutionary and politician. He was the chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress from 1954 to 1959, first-ranking Vice Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, vice chairman of the Chinese Communist Party from 1956 to 1966, and the President of the People's Republic of China, chairman of the People's Republic of China (president of China) from 1959 to 1968. He was considered to be a possible successor to Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, Chairman Mao Zedong, but was purged during the Cultural Revolution. In his early years, Liu participated in labor movements in strikes, including the May Thirtieth Movement. After the Chinese Civil War began in 1927, he was assigned by the CCP to work in Shanghai and Northeast China, and travelled to the Jiangxi Soviet in 1932. He participated in the Long March, and was appointed as the Party Secretary in North China in 1936 to lead anti-Japanese ...
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Deng Xiaoping
Deng Xiaoping also Romanization of Chinese, romanised as Teng Hsiao-p'ing; born Xiansheng (). (22 August 190419 February 1997) was a Chinese statesman, revolutionary, and political theorist who served as the paramount leader of the People's Republic of China from 1978 to 1989. In the aftermath of Mao Zedong's Death and state funeral of Mao Zedong, death in 1976, Deng succeeded in consolidating power to lead China through a period of reform and opening up that transformed its economy into a socialist market economy. He is widely regarded as the "Architect of Modern China" for his contributions to socialism with Chinese characteristics and Deng Xiaoping Theory. Born in Sichuan, the son of landowning peasants, Deng first learned of Marxism–Leninism while studying and working abroad in France in the early 1920s through the Work-Study Movement. In France, he met future collaborators like Zhou Enlai. In 1924, he joined the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and continued his studies in ...
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Zhou Enlai
Zhou Enlai ( zh, s=周恩来, p=Zhōu Ēnlái, w=Chou1 Ên1-lai2; 5 March 1898 – 8 January 1976) was a Chinese statesman, diplomat, and revolutionary who served as the first Premier of the People's Republic of China from September 1954 until Death of Zhou Enlai, his death in January 1976. Zhou served under Chairman Mao Zedong and aided the Chinese Communist Party, Communist Party in rising to power, later helping consolidate its control, form its Foreign policy of China, foreign policy, and develop the Economy of China, Chinese economy. As a diplomat, Zhou served as the Chinese Foreign Minister of the People's Republic of China, foreign minister from 1949 to 1958. Advocating peaceful coexistence with Western Bloc, the West after the Korean War, he participated in the 1954 Geneva Conference and the 1955 Bandung Conference and helped orchestrate 1972 Nixon visit to China, Richard Nixon's 1972 visit to China. He helped devise policies regarding disputes with the United States, ...
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Kang Sheng
Kang Sheng (; 4 November 1898 – 16 December 1975), born Zhang Zongke (), was a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) official, politician and calligrapher best known for having overseen the work of the CCP's internal security and intelligence apparatus during the early 1940s and again at the height of the Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s and early 1970s. A member of the CCP from the early 1920s, he spent time in Moscow during the early 1930s, where he learned the methods of the Soviet NKVD and became a supporter of Wang Ming for leadership of the CCP. After returning to China in the late 1930s, Kang Sheng switched his allegiance to Mao Zedong and became a close associate of Mao during the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Chinese Civil War, and after. He remained at or near the pinnacle of power in the People's Republic of China from its establishment in 1949 until his death in 1975. After the death of Mao and the subsequent arrest of the Gang of Four, Kang Sheng was accused of ...
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Zhang Chunqiao
Zhang Chunqiao (; 1 February 1917 – 21 April 2005) was a Chinese political theorist, writer, and politician. He came to the national spotlight during the late stages of the Cultural Revolution, and was a member of the ultra-Maoist group dubbed the " Gang of Four". Zhang joined the Chinese Communist Party in 1938, later becoming a prominent journalist in charge of ''Jiefang Daily'' after the establishment of the People's Republic. He rose to prominence after his October 1958 article entitled "Destroy the Ideology of Bourgeois Right" caught the attention of Mao Zedong, who ordered its reproduction in ''People's Daily''. With the onset of the Cultural Revolution, he was appointed as a member of the Cultural Revolution Group. In 1967, Zhang organized the Shanghai People's Commune and briefly became its chairman, effectively overthrowing the local Shanghai government and local party structures. Afterwards, he was appointed as the director of the Shanghai Revolutionary Committe ...
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Jiang Qing
Jiang Qing (March 191414 May 1991), also known as Madame Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary, actress, and political figure. She was the fourth wife of Mao Zedong, the Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, Chairman of the Communist Party and Paramount leader of China. Jiang was best known for playing a major role in the Cultural Revolution as the leader of the radical Gang of Four. Born into a declining family with an Domestic violence, abusive father and a mother who worked as a Domestic worker, domestic servant and sometimes a Prostitution, prostitute, Jiang Qing became a renowned Actor, actress in Shanghai, and later the wife of Mao Zedong in Yan'an, in the 1930s. In the 1940s, she worked as Mao Zedong's Personal assistant, personal secretary, and during the 1950s, she headed the Film Section of the Publicity Department of the Chinese Communist Party, Publicity Department of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Appointed deputy director of the Central Cultural Re ...
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People's Commune
The people's commune ( zh, c=, p=rénmín gōngshè) was the highest of three administrative levels in rural areas of the People's Republic of China during the period from 1958 to 1983, until they were replaced by Townships of the People's Republic of China, townships. Communes, the largest Collective farming, collective units, were divided in turn into production brigades and Production team (China), production teams. The people's commune collectivized living and working practices. Many individual homes were abolished in favour of communal residences, with many houses taken apart and demolished. Regardless of age or relationship, many men and women lived separately, and often, multiple families were placed in the same communal homes. One's land, tools, resources were pooled together, with working hours and farming practices completely dictated by the CCP. In a 1959 analysis, Arrigo Cervetto argued that the People's Communes in China represented a transitional phase toward capi ...
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