Verdict in Peking

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"What do people say to each other while changing a set of government policies, or plotting to assassinate a dictator? How discreet are they in their telephone calls? Where do they meet? How do they assure themselves of the trustworthiness of their associates? What means do they use to ensure popular support?
Much of modern China's history is myth—myth that keeps changing in its subject matter and shifting in its purposes. The more recent history is in China, the less clear it is. The passage of years, the death of participants in the historical tableau, and the transformation of the ruling ideology bring a different official picture of recent events every few years. Individual people's contributions to history, or their activity aimed at furthering their own interests or visions, are constantly under reassessment—not least those of Mao Zedong himself.
The trial—a central event in modern Chinese history-represents the view of recent history taken by the ruling Chinese leadership... Tovább

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"What do people say to each other while changing a set of government policies, or plotting to assassinate a dictator? How discreet are they in their telephone calls? Where do they meet? How do they assure themselves of the trustworthiness of their associates? What means do they use to ensure popular support?
Much of modern China's history is myth—myth that keeps changing in its subject matter and shifting in its purposes. The more recent history is in China, the less clear it is. The passage of years, the death of participants in the historical tableau, and the transformation of the ruling ideology bring a different official picture of recent events every few years. Individual people's contributions to history, or their activity aimed at furthering their own interests or visions, are constantly under reassessment—not least those of Mao Zedong himself.
The trial—a central event in modern Chinese history-represents the view of recent history taken by the ruling Chinese leadership in 1980 and in early 1981. It has supplied many more facts about the political process in contemporary China than have previously been available. The only material that approaches it in detail and intimacy is the series of political documents released during the Cultural Revolution, but while that material Is highly informative, it lacks the dramatic immediacy of the testimony and pleas at the trial.
To see someone reliving traumatic events of the past is almost as good as being present when they took place. Tears, cries of rage and hatred, fear, regret, spiritual surrender, and utter defiance are emotions found In the courtroom as often as on the stage. So we shall pull the curtain aside a little way—just enough to see what went on upon certain parts of the Chinese stage In the years 1966-76— the so-called Decade of the Cultural Revolution."
"What do people say to each other whde changing a set of governnnent pohcies, or platting to assassinate a dictator? How discreet are they in their telephone calls? Where do they meet? How do they assure themselves of the trustworthiness of their associates? What means do they use to ensure popular support?"
In this powerful bool<, David Bonavia, Pel<ing correspondent for The Times of London, offers fascinating insights into just such questions. An important landmark In contemporary political history, Verdict in Peking provides a compelling portrait of Mao Zedong, his allies and enemies, and all those who fell victim to his pursuit of a "pure" socialist system. For two decades, until 1976, Mao marshaled China through a series of political, social, and cultural upheavals in which no one —peasant or teacher, engineer or poet, comrade or dissident-could feel safe.
As Mao aged and his power began to erode, his third wife, Jiang Qing, and her three chief allies formed one of the most ruthless conspiratorial groups in history, the Gang of Four. Accused of implementing Mao's infamous Cultural Revolution for their own ends, the Gang was eventually arrested and put on public trial. That trial is the focus of Verdict in Peking.
Weaving actual court transcripts with his own astute analyses of the characters and dramatic events that comprised the rise and fall of the Gang of Four, David Bonavia provides an extraordinary insider's study of this phase in Chinese history. Beyond the rhetoric and camouflage of the conspiracy, Bonavia reveals the forceful personalities of the four who wielded such terrible power for their own ends, and how they engineered their rise to power:
• Yao Wenyuan-JUe Shanghai journalist
who censored and altered articles and
editorials, deciding who should be
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photographed with Mao, slashing television coverage of the funeral of the popular Zhou Enlai. This man masterminded the ideology of a movement in which millions of people suffered or died.
• Zhang Chunqiao —A brilliant strategist who choreographed the turbulent mass movements and street fighting that marked the passage of the Cultural Revolution through Shanghai and all of China. An enigmatic figure, he remained silent throughout his trial.
• Wang Hongwen —The symbol of youth in the movement, who was recruited to command the rowdier elements of the Red Guard (mostly young students who became the spies and enforcers for Mao's and the Gang's ideologies). His vanity was legendary —after Mao's death the press attacked him for being a coward, a bully, and a work-shirker.
• Jiang Q/ng —Mao's third wife, an ex-actress from Shanghai, whose ambitions and vendettas formed the basis for some of the most horrendous outrages perpetrated during the Cultural Revolution.
Charged with the passionate words of those who planned the Cultural Revolution as well as those who fell victim to it, Verdict in Peking offers a powerful and intimate portrait of the real people behind the ideologies and of the far-ranging repercussions of their acts, from which China is still recovering today.
Author of The Chinese, David Bonavia has spent more than ten years in China as Peking correspondent for The Times of London and as special correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review.
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