Chi Qun
迟群
1932–1999
- Deputy Party Secretary, Tsinghua University (from 1968)
- Party Secretary and Revolutionary Committee Director, Tsinghua University (from 1971)
- Deputy Head, State Council Science and Education Group
- Leader of the "Liang Xiao" writing group
Biography
Early Life and the Worker Propaganda Team at Tsinghua
Chi Qun was born in 1932 in Rushan, Shandong, originally named Chi Guodong; he joined the People's Liberation Army in 1949 and later the Communist Party. In 1968, as factional armed clashes at Peking and Tsinghua universities spiraled out of control, Mao decided to send "Mao Zedong Thought Worker Propaganda Teams" — drawn partly from Unit 8341, the Central Garrison Corps — into the campuses to restore order. Chi Qun entered Tsinghua with the team and, together with Xie Jingyi and others, took charge of the university, becoming deputy Party secretary and deputy director of the Revolutionary Committee.
Tsinghua Party Secretary and the Criticize Lin, Criticize Confucius Campaign
In the second half of 1971, Chi Qun was promoted to Tsinghua Party secretary and director of its Revolutionary Committee, while concurrently serving as deputy head of the State Council's Science and Education Group. He also led the "Liang Xiao" writing group — operating under the name of the Peking-Tsinghua mass-criticism group — which published numerous articles on criticizing Lin and Confucius and "appraising the Legalists, criticizing the Confucians," making it one of the main propaganda instruments of Jiang Qing's faction. On 24 January 1974, he and Xie Jingyi delivered inflammatory speeches at the mass mobilization rally at Capital Stadium, directing criticism to obliquely target Zhou Enlai, Ye Jianying, and other central leaders, making him one of the campaign's chief organizers and agitators within Beijing's university system. In 1975 he also led resistance to the educational rectification pushed by Deng Xiaoping, serving as one of Jiang Qing's faction's key agents in the education system during the Cultural Revolution's later years.
Dismissal and Trial
After the "Gang of Four" was arrested in October 1976, Chi Qun was immediately removed from all posts and placed under investigation. In 1983, the Beijing Municipal Intermediate People's Court sentenced him to 18 years' imprisonment and 4 years' deprivation of political rights for actively participating in a counter-revolutionary clique, counter-revolutionary propaganda and incitement, and false accusation. He died of cancer in 1999.
Related Events (2)
Criticize Lin Biao, Criticize Confucius Campaign
In January 1974, with Mao's approval, the Central Committee circulated "Lin Biao and the Way of Confucius and Mencius," launching the "Criticize Lin, Criticize Confucius" campaign nationwide. Jiang Qing, Yao Wenyuan, Wang Hongwen, and others used this politically charged campaign, framed around a supposed historical struggle between Legalists and Confucians, to obliquely attack Zhou Enlai, Ye Jianying, and other central leaders — dubbed "criticizing the 'Duke of Zhou.'" The campaign spread from central organs to grassroots units; the "Liang Xiao" writing group at Tsinghua and Peking universities published a stream of polemical articles, and Jiang Qing personally promoted Xiaojinzhuang in Tianjin as a model village. The philosopher Liang Shuming publicly refused to criticize Confucius at a CPPCC study session, leaving behind his famous response, "the will of a common man cannot be taken from him." In July 1974 Mao openly criticized Jiang Qing and her allies for forming a "Gang of Four," and the campaign's momentum faltered; in January 1975 Deng Xiaoping was appointed First Vice-Premier, effectively bringing the campaign to a close.
politicalCriticize Deng, Counter the Right-Deviationist Reversal of Verdicts
In 1975, while Zhou Enlai lay gravely ill, Deng Xiaoping oversaw a "comprehensive rectification" of the country under Mao's "three directives," bringing marked improvement to Party and state work. When Deng declined to chair a resolution affirming a "seventy-thirty" assessment of the Cultural Revolution, Mao's nephew and Politburo liaison Mao Yuanxin reported his refusal to Mao, who approved a "greeting meeting" on 24 November 1975 that formally launched the "Criticize Deng, Counter the Right-Deviationist Reversal of Verdicts" campaign. After Zhou Enlai's death in January 1976, Hua Guofeng was named acting Premier, and the movement to attack Deng spread nationwide. Public mourning for Zhou at Tiananmen Square in April 1976 was suppressed as the "Tiananmen Incident," after which Deng was stripped of all his posts. The campaign effectively ended with the arrest of the "Gang of Four" in October 1976, and in July 1977 the 3rd Plenum of the 10th Central Committee restored Deng to all his positions.
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