Jiang Qing, the
daughter of a carpenter, was born in Zhucheng, China,
in 1914. After being educated at Qingdao University she worked as
a stage and film actress in Shanghai.
In 1936 Jiang
Qing joined the Chinese Communist Party.
Soon afterwards she met Mao
Zedong and
she became his third wife in 1939. After the establishment of the
People's Republic
of China in
1949, Jiang Qing worked in the Ministry of Culture.
Jiang Qing
emerged as a serious political figure in China during the Cultural
Revolution when
she criticizedparty
leaders such as Liu Shaoqi, who
favoured the introduction of piecework, greater wage differentials
and measures that sought to undermine collective farms and factories.
During this period
Mao
Zedong galvanized
students and young workers as his Red
Guards to attack revisionists in the party. Mao told them the
revolution was in danger and that they must do all they could to stop
the emergence of a privileged class in China. He argued this is what
had happened in the Soviet Union under Joseph
Stalin and Nikita
Khrushchev.
The Cultural
Revolution came to an end when Liu Shaoqi
resigned from all his posts on 13th October 1968. Lin
Biao now
became Mao's designated successor. Mao
now gave his support to the Gang of Four:
Jiang Qing, Wang Hongwen, Yao Wenyuan and Zhange Chungqiao. These
four radicals occupied powerful positions in the Politburo after the
Tenth Party Congress of 1973.
After the death of Mao
in 1976 the power of the Gang of Four declined dramatically. In 1980
they were found guilty of plotting against the state. Jiang Qing and
Zhange Chungqiao, who were considered to be the leaders, were sentenced
to death (later commuted to life imprisonment).
Jiang Qing
died in 1991. Later the government claimed that she had committed
suicide.
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