Lowering Mao

His portraits vanish

Last week thousands of shirtsleeved Chinese patiently queued up in the broiling Peking sun to visit the pagoda-like structure on Tian'anmen Square that contains the earthly remains of Mao Tse-tung. Inside the air-conditioned mausoleum they divided into two columns and filed past the crystal case in which the embalmed body of the Great Helmsman reposes under a coverlet of red satin.

Even as Mao continued to receive the respectful homage of the masses, however, his once towering image as the infallible leader of the great proletarian revolution was being systematically downgraded. To begin with, some of his formerly ubiquitous likenesses were being removed from public view. Four large portraits of Mao have vanished from the Great Hall of the People, where the Communist Party is preparing to hold the National People's Congress. At the same time, workmen are preparing to strip one more huge picture of the late Chairman from the fac,ade of another landmark, the Museum of Chinese and Party History.

The disappearance of the portraits was emblematic of the glancing attacks against Mao's heirs that have been stepped up in recent weeks. Most striking was the announcement that Mao's chosen successor, Hua Guofeng, 60, will resign as Premier when the People's Congress meets later this month. Though Hua will reportedly retain the post of Chairman that was held by Mao, the party leaders are expected to act on proposals to reduce greatly the power of that office. Hua's successor, Zhao Ziyang, 61, is the hand-picked candidate of the Senior Vice Premier, Deng Xiaoping. Like Deng, Zhao is one of the many who have once again risen to power in China, after being ignominiously purged by Mao during the Cultural Revolution of the late 1960s.

At the Congress the 76-year-old Deng will fulfill his promise to resign as Senior Vice Premier, ostensibly because of his advanced age. Also expected to relinquish their posts are four other Vice Premiers: Xu Xiangqian, 78, Li Xiannian, 73, Chen Yun, 75, and Wang Zhen, 71.

This drastic reshuffling of top government jobs appears to be a clear-cut victory for the forces of modernization and pragmatism, led by Deng, over the proponents of conservative party orthodoxy, captained by Hua. The changes also reflect a desire on the part of Deng and his colleagues for a system of more truly collective leadership, free of the totalitarian one-man rule installed by Mao. The Congress, in fact, will consider how to improve the new local and regional election process. In China's one-party system the process is hardly democratic, but it could open up the country's vast, entrenched bureaucracy to new people who have not been associated--like Hua--with Mao.

As the leader most closely identified with Mao, Hua has become a target of the campaign to rid China of the Chairman's heritage. The ideas propounded by Hua following his accession to power in 1976 are being discredited. His much publicized slogan, "Speed up socialist modernization," has been replaced by "Haste makes waste." Earlier goals set by Hua for rapid agricultural growth have been revised or abandoned. A model work brigade on a Shanxi commune that he had so zealously promoted has been exposed as having faked production figures (see following story).

Even Hua's reverential task of editing Mao's collected works has proved ephemeral. In Hua's introduction to Volume V, published three years ago, he had declared that "Comrade Mao was the greatest Marxist-Leninist of our time; his thought and teachings will live forever." Plans for publication of Volume VI and all subsequent volumes have now been halted. Hua has revised his position, saying that "concrete circumstances may invalidate Mao's teachings."

Hua's present difficulties may be compounded when the Gang of Four, arrested in 1976, is finally tried this fall. Unfortunately for Hua, many Chinese associate him with Jiang Qing, Mao's widow, and her three associates. Their trial is expected to arouse strong public feeling against the four, who are accused of a multitude of crimes. Though Hua is expected to keep his party post, some in Peking are already talking about a "Gang of Five," a veiled but ominous reference to Chairman Hua's long-term future.

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