Gao Gang–Rao Shushi Affair

Background

Gao Gang, one of the founders of the Shaanxi–Gansu revolutionary base, ran the Northeast in the early years of the People's Republic and was transferred to central work in 1953; at the time of the affair he was a Politburo member, a vice-chairman of the Central People's Government, chairman of the State Planning Commission and a vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission. Rao Shushi, long the leader of East China, became head of the CPC Organisation Department in 1953. According to the historian Lin Yunhui, Mao Zedong was at this time dissatisfied with how Liu Shaoqi and Zhou Enlai handled questions such as the New Democratic order and the new tax system; in May 1953 eight industrial ministries under the Government Administration Council were placed under Gao as head of the planning commission.

The Finance and Organisation Conferences

From June to August 1953 a national conference on financial and economic work made criticism of the new tax system drawn up under Finance Minister Bo Yibo its main theme. Lin argues that Gao used the criticism of Bo to attack views of Liu Shaoqi's — "criticising Bo to hit Liu" — with Rao also involved. At the second national conference on organisational work in September and October, Rao and others levelled accusations at An Ziwen. Mao later said Gao and Rao had spread far and wide a list of Politburo members that An had privately drafted.

Exposure

Deng Xiaoping recalled in 1980 that after Mao proposed at the end of 1953 dividing the central leadership into a first and second line, Gao "became very active", having "first won Lin Biao's support": he approached Deng to "negotiate", saying Liu Shaoqi was "not mature" and seeking his help to "topple" Liu, and told Chen Yun, "let's have several vice-chairmen, one for you and one for me". Chen and Deng reported this to Mao. Citing Chen Yun's official chronology and other sources, Lin writes that Mao summoned Chen and Deng on 19 December 1953 and on the 24th told the Politburo that "there are two headquarters in Beijing", proposing a resolution on strengthening Party unity.

The Fourth Plenum

The Fourth Plenum of the Seventh Central Committee met in Beijing from 6 to 10 February 1954. Mao, on holiday in Hangzhou, did not attend; Liu Shaoqi reported to the plenum on behalf of the Politburo and Mao. It adopted the Resolution on Strengthening Party Unity, which condemned treating "the regions and departments they lead as personal capital and independent kingdoms" but did not name Gao or Rao. By Lin's count the plenum lasted five days and heard 44 speakers. Afterwards the Central Secretariat convened separate forums on Gao and Rao to examine their activities.

Outcome and Assessments

In August 1954 Gao Gang committed suicide while under house arrest. In March 1955 the CPC National Conference heard Deng Xiaoping's report on the Gao–Rao "anti-Party alliance" and on 31 March resolved that the two had formed an alliance to "seize supreme power in the Party and the state", expelled both from the Party and decided to set up a Central Control Commission; it said their activities had "reached their peak in 1953, the first year of the First Five-Year Plan". Mao told the conference that there had "indeed been no written agreement" between them but that "they had an alliance". Rao was held in custody for many years and died of illness in March 1975.

The CPC's 1981 historical resolution called it "the major struggle against the careerists Gao Gang and Rao Shushi, who had schemed to split the Party and usurp supreme power". Discussing the draft in 1980, Deng said exposing Gao and Rao "was not wrong", but asked: "what line did Gao Gang actually put forward? In my view, he really had no line." According to Zhang Baijia, a former deputy director of the Party History Research Centre, the case has never been reversed, though all the cadres implicated have been rehabilitated; recent official Party histories no longer speak of "usurping power" or an "anti-Party alliance" but keep the verdict of "splitting the Party", and later conflicts such as the 1959 fall of Peng Dehuai have to some extent been seen as sequels to the affair.