March 19, 1914 - Jiang Qing
Her political ascent during the Cultural Revolution placed her at the center of one of the most destructive ideological campaigns in modern Chinese history, a period marked by mass persecution, forced relocations, and the systematic destruction of cultural heritage. As a leading member of the Gang of Four, she helped direct the purging of intellectuals, artists, and party officials deemed insufficiently revolutionary. The scale of suffering associated with the Cultural Revolution — estimated to have caused hundreds of thousands to millions of deaths — makes her a figure of considerable historical weight, even accounting for the collective nature of the leadership responsible.
From Wikipedia
Jiang Qing (March 1914 (1914-03) – 14 May 1991 (1991-05-15); also spelled as Chiang Ch'ing), born Li Yunhe, also known as Li Jin, and briefly known by her stage name Lan Ping in the 1930s Shanghai, was a Chinese revolutionary, actress, and political figure. The fourth wife of Mao Zedong, she played a major role in the Cultural Revolution and led the Gang of Four.
Born to an abusive father and a mother who worked as a domestic servant and sometimes a prostitute, Jiang joined the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1933. She pursued an acting career in Shanghai before going to Yan'an, where she married Mao in 1938. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, she wielded considerable influence over the arts while engaging in party power struggles, orchestrating campaigns against the film The Life of Wu Xun and the Peking opera Hai Rui Dismissed from Office, and promoting revolutionary operas. A Politburo member at the Ninth and Tenth Central Committees and de facto leader of the Cultural Revolution Group, she was arrested following Mao's death and expelled from the party. Blamed for the upheavals of the Cultural Revolution, she was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve in a televised trial, before her sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. She committed suicide in May 1991.
Further reading
- Madame Mao: The White-Boned Demon
The most authoritative biography of Jiang Qing, tracing her life from aspiring actress to Mao's wife, her wielding of power, and her eventual imprisonment and suicide.
View on Amazon → - The Life of Madame Mao
A biography of Jiang Qing—the infamous 'White-Boned Demon'—from her origins as an outcast to her death sentence and life imprisonment following Mao's death.
View on Amazon →
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