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Mao Yuanxin

Mao Yuanxin

毛远新

1941–2021

  • Deputy Director / Political Commissar, Shenyang Military Region political department
  • Deputy Director, Liaoning Revolutionary Committee
  • Liaison Officer to the Politburo on behalf of Mao Zedong (from 1975)

Biography

Early Life and Rise During the Cultural Revolution

Mao Yuanxin was born on 14 February 1941 in Dihua (present-day Urumqi), Xinjiang, the son of Mao Zemin, Mao Zedong's younger brother; after Mao Zemin was killed in Xinjiang in 1943, he was raised from childhood by Mao Zedong and Jiang Qing. During the Cultural Revolution he served as deputy director and then political commissar of the Shenyang Military Region's political department and deputy director of the Liaoning Revolutionary Committee, becoming an important backer of Jiang Qing's faction in the northeast. In 1975 Mao Zedong designated him concurrent liaison officer to the Politburo, responsible for relaying information between Politburo meetings and Mao himself, making him a key channel through which the aging Mao received political updates and issued "supreme instructions."

The Report That Triggered the "Greeting Meeting"

In November 1975, Mao asked Deng Xiaoping to chair the drafting of a resolution affirming a "seventy-thirty" assessment of the Cultural Revolution (seventy percent achievement, thirty percent error); Deng declined, saying it would be inappropriate for him to preside over drafting such a document. Mao Yuanxin promptly reported Deng's refusal to Mao, and also told him that the letters from Tsinghua deputy Party secretary Liu Bing and others accusing Chi Qun and Xie Jingyi were "aimed at Chairman Mao." On hearing this, Mao said, "It seems I need to give everyone a heads-up," and approved convening the "greeting meeting" that formally launched the "Criticize Deng, Counter the Right-Deviationist Reversal of Verdicts" campaign. Mao Yuanxin's report is widely regarded as one of the direct triggers that turned Mao against Deng and led to Deng's third political downfall.

Aftermath After 1976

After the "Gang of Four" was arrested in October 1976, Mao Yuanxin was placed under investigation in Beijing. On 27 September 1977, the Liaoning Provincial Party Committee expelled him from the Party for life and stripped him of all posts. In March 1986, the Shenyang Intermediate People's Court sentenced him to 17 years' imprisonment and 4 years' deprivation of political rights for organizing and leading a counter-revolutionary clique and related offenses. After his release in 1993, he lived quietly in Shanghai in relative seclusion until his death there in 2021.

Related Events (1)

Criticize 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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