Political Transition: Opposition, Repression and Propaganda

After Mao: a struggle over leadership

Mao Zedong’s death in September 1976 opened a struggle over who would lead China. The Communist Party remained in power, but its leaders disagreed over the country’s direction. Changing the leadership did not mean allowing competing political parties or unrestricted public criticism.

One powerful group was the Gang of Four: Mao’s wife Jiang Qing, Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan and Wang Hongwen. They had risen to prominence during the Cultural Revolution of 1966–1976 and had dominated Chinese politics in the early 1970s. Their influence therefore connected them closely with a period of political persecution and upheaval.

Their rival, Hua Guofeng, won the immediate succession struggle. Although relatively inexperienced and little known, Hua became Mao’s successor. The Gang of Four were arrested after Mao’s death. Their removal showed that even powerful Communist leaders could lose their position and become targets of repression.

Punishing and discrediting the Gang of Four

Arrest was followed by a massive propaganda campaign against the four. They were labelled an ‘anti-Party clique’ and accused of trying to seize Party power. This presented their defeat not simply as one faction overcoming another, but as a victory defending the Communist Party.

The campaign also helped the new leadership distance itself from the suffering associated with the Cultural Revolution. Anger could be directed towards four defeated leaders while loyalty to the Party was encouraged. For people who had suffered during that period, attacks on the Gang could have a strong personal appeal.

Their trial ran from November 1980 to January 1981. Jiang Qing and Zhang Chunqiao received suspended death sentences: these were death sentences whose execution was postponed, rather than immediate executions. Yao Wenyuan and Wang Hongwen received lengthy prison sentences. The trial extended the punishment of the defeated leadership into the new period.

Democracy Wall: an opening for public criticism

Opposition also developed outside the Communist leadership. In late 1978, people began displaying big-character posters on a brick wall on Xidan street in Beijing. These large handwritten posters made political arguments visible to people in a public space. The site became known as Democracy Wall.

Contributors called for less bureaucracy and more democracy. Their criticism included the violence of the Cultural Revolution, and some challenged Deng Xiaoping and the Party leadership themselves. Similar walls appeared in other cities. Unofficial journals also circulated widely and became popular, giving criticism a reach beyond a single wall.

Deng initially tolerated the movement. This created space for discussion of past abuses, but tolerance was not the same as a guaranteed right to oppose the government. The crucial question was whether criticism would remain acceptable when it challenged the current leadership rather than only discredited figures from the past.

The limits of tolerance in 1979

During 1979, the authorities brought this opening to an end. Democracy Wall was moved to a small park in western Beijing. Anyone wishing to display material had to register their name and address with the authorities. This made contributors identifiable and reduced the freedom offered by a prominent public wall.

By the autumn, many movement leaders and writers or publishers of unofficial journals had been arrested, tried and given long prison sentences. Debate was restricted to the framework of Deng’s Four Basic Principles, rather than being allowed to develop freely. Campaigns outside mainland China, beginning in Hong Kong, called for the prisoners’ release, but did not persuade the Party to reverse its approach.

The contrast is important: Deng permitted criticism for a time, then used repression when public debate became politically inconvenient. China’s leadership could move away from the Cultural Revolution without accepting unrestricted political opposition.

How Communist propaganda supported the transition

Propaganda worked alongside arrests and trials. Whereas repression restricted what opponents could do, propaganda tried to influence how people understood political events.

After 1976, posters and cartoons attacked the Gang of Four, while other posters showed mass criticism or celebration of their downfall. Cartoons were particularly suited to ridiculing political enemies. Slogans demanded that people continue exposing and criticising the Gang, turning their defeat into an ongoing public campaign.

At the same time, propaganda praised Hua Guofeng. He was often portrayed in the same manner as Mao, visually taking his predecessor’s place. This suggested continuity and helped present a relatively unfamiliar leader as Mao’s legitimate successor. A 1977 slogan, ‘Our hearts turn towards Chairman Hua, relentlessly criticize the “Gang of Four”, score a victory in production’, connected loyalty to Hua, hostility towards his rivals and productive work.

These messages served two purposes together: they condemned defeated leaders while strengthening the authority of the leadership that replaced them. Their appeal was helped by people’s experience of suffering under the Gang. However, propaganda’s portrayal of a united, celebrating population cannot establish that everyone agreed. Official messages reveal what the authorities wanted people to believe more directly than they reveal private opinion.

Change without an end to political control

The period from 1976 to 1981 combined a change of leaders with continuity in Communist political control. The Gang of Four were removed and punished; Democracy Wall briefly allowed wider criticism before repression returned. Official propaganda supported the new leadership, while independent posters and journals were restricted. The central distinction is between changing who held power and allowing the public freely to challenge that power.