Chapter 245
Chapter 245
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Translator: crow
Chapter Title: Cultural Revolution
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As Korea charged toward world hegemony, something ominous was brewing in the People's Republic of China.
It all began with Liu Shaoqi's "Report on Rectifying the Great Leap Forward."
"The Great Leap Forward's damages were thirty percent from natural disasters and seventy percent from man-made calamities."
Liu Shaoqi announced 1.5 million victims and admitted the Party had committed "grave errors" in the process.
Mao Zedong's wife, Jiang Qing, and Yao Wenyuan whispered to him that this was a ploy to attack the "Party Chairman."
Mao felt displeased but held back for the moment.
Liu Shaoqi didn't stop there, however.
He openly criticized Mao's line and even apologized to the people for it.
"How can a comrade smash my face into the dirt like this?"
When Mao raised his voice in anger, Liu Shaoqi shouted back.
"Too many people have starved to death. History will judge you and me!"
Right after this heated argument, Liu Shaoqi teamed up with Deng Xiaoping to adopt a Korean-style market economy.
To Mao, who believed in socialist order, this was an intolerable challenge.
"I can't let Liu Shaoqi get away with this."
Mao lay in wait like a venomous snake.
Then, Khrushchev fell from power in the Soviet Union.
Mao took this as a "signal."
"In the Soviet Union, the Party and military stepped in to restore order, seeing Khrushchev the revisionist as a danger. Are there no such brave souls in our China?"
Mao made it clear to his inner circle that he intended to eliminate Liu Shaoqi, "China's Khrushchev."
The timing was perfect to launch a power struggle.
With infighting in the Communist Party and economic woes from EA's foreign job blockade, China's domestic situation and economy were in disarray.
"Reform would make things better, right? Nothing's improved at all!"
"Daring counterrevolutionaries opposing Party policy in droves. Dispatch work teams."
Liu Shaoqi tried to suppress this by sending work teams to control student rallies venting their frustrations.
The students, seeing these control efforts, grew resentful of Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping.
Mao didn't miss the opportunity.
He met with young student representatives and told them the controls by Liu and Deng were "wrong," bolstering their resolve.
"The patriotic and Party-loving spirit of you young comrades is right. Push forward without hesitation in what you believe."
"We believed Chairman Comrade would understand us."
On January 4, 1963, Lin Biao stepped forward to openly condemn State Chairman Liu Shaoqi.
"The Party's revisionists have criticized Chairman Mao's leadership, but that's wrong. Chairman Mao is a heaven-sent superman, and his leadership is flawless. Stop pinning the clumsy mistakes from the field on Comrade Mao!"
Lin Biao's attack was just the signal.
On January 19, student representatives with armbands sent a letter to Mao Zedong.
"Korean capitalist flyboy revisionists are polluting the socialist revolution. If left alone, the revolution's purity will be tainted. Chairman Comrade! We must renew society and politics!"
Mao replied with this:
"'Rebellion is justified'—to rebel is no crime, rebellion has its reasons."
With those words, the Red Guards gained legitimacy for their uprising.
"Rise up! Protect the purity of the Chinese Revolution!"
As the Red Guards rose, the CCP plunged into chaos.
Mao watched and encouraged them.
"The young ones are doing well."
Mao didn't stop at words of encouragement.
He had his subordinates post a big-character poster.
"Bombard the headquarters."
It was tantamount to ordering the overthrow of the government.
The Red Guards moved openly to attack the government.
Government offices burned, officials dragged out and subjected to struggle sessions.
Yet Liu Shaoqi didn't crumble easily.
He had a loyal army at his command,
and the backing of the KCIA, which had surveillance networks across the CCP.
"Really?"
"Don't forget we warned you about the Red Guards too. Our intelligence is accurate."
Backed by Korean intelligence support, Liu swiftly purged those sympathetic to the radical Red Flag faction opposing him in the Party.
He reorganized his forces around the conservative White faction based on urban workers.
"You idiots. Should've taken out Liu Shaoqi in one strike. Don't you know things get messy if you don't cut the snake's head off?"
Contrary to Mao's calculation that one Red Guard assault would finish Liu, his camp held firm.
Liu still lorded over the government and state as State Chairman.
That didn't discourage the Red Guards at all.
"Rebellion is justified!"
Under the pretext of smashing revisionists aligned with Liu Shaoqi, they attacked high-ranking Party, government, and military officials indiscriminately.
"Peng Dehuai, Marshal?"
"That's right."
"Drag him out."
The Red Guards seized even top military figures like Marshal Peng Dehuai and subjected them to struggle sessions.
"Apologize to Chairman Mao. Isn't it your nonsense that's let the revisionists thrive?"
"I can't do that."
"This guy's hopeless."
The Red Guards beat even the military elders mercilessly.
High officials died or were crippled frequently in the brutal assaults, but Mao didn't bat an eye.
"When doing great things, you have to overlook small sacrifices."
The Red Guards' rampage wasn't limited to people.
"This is a rotten item soaked in capitalist poison."
"That's feudal remnant trash."
They smashed any cultural artifacts in sight.
This marked the full onset of the "Cultural Revolution."
Their madness was escalating, but Mao, who should have reined them in, had no intention of doing so.
He believed the Red Guards needed to run wild until Liu Shaoqi fell.
Liu Shaoqi condemned their behavior.
"Those who call themselves the nation's intellectuals are plunging the country into chaos. Is this the conduct of the educated?"
Liu threatened to deploy the military if the Red Guards didn't return to their universities.
"I can't agree to that."
Lin Biao, the top military figure, opposed mobilizing the troops.
"The young people's patriotic fervor deserves respect."
Lin Biao intended to let the Red Guards rampage as much as Mao wanted.
With military deployment blocked, Liu's options were limited.
Public security couldn't even touch the Red Guards' mayhem.
Yet Liu had no intention of relinquishing power.
"If I hand power to Mao Zedong, he'll destroy this country."
The White faction agreed with Liu.
"Just look at the Soviet Union. Rural proletariat is a fantasy. The true proletariat are urban workers."
They had no desire to abandon reform and openness for Maoism.
With neither side willing to yield, the CCP power struggle showed no signs of stopping.
The Red Guards' riots grew ever more severe.
At some point, they began picking targets on their own judgment, heedless of anyone.
"Revolutionary elder who served Chairman Mao?"
"Yes. I'm on your side. Must be some misunderstanding."
"Shut up, you revisionist bastard. One look at your bourgeois-tainted house shows what a mask you've worn."
"Drag him out."
The Red Guards attacked not just the White faction but even Red Flag elders.
Party elders rushed to Mao Zedong, pleading for him to calm the Red Guards.
"How am I supposed to calm hot-blooded youths flying off the handle?"
Mao dismissed their pleas like that.
He had no choice.
Pulling back the Red Guards now would invite Liu's counterattack, leaving him to die as a sidelined old man.
"Absolutely not."
Mao had never imagined a future without power.
What value was a life of looking over your shoulder without strength or influence?
"I must be this country's master. Like Lee Se-jun."
Mao wasn't alone in this thinking.
His wife Jiang Qing had no desire to back down either.
"After Chairman Comrade comes me. For me to seize power, he must reclaim the throne."
The Gang of Four, with Jiang Qing at the apex, stoked Mao's resolve and assured him victory in the power struggle.
Thus, the CCP's internal strife showed no signs of abating.
Amid the chaos, countless cultural artifacts flowed into Korea.
The KCIA bribed Red Guards to sneak out targeted artifacts through back channels.
No huge sums were needed.
"Take away your feudal trash relics for all I care."
Korea scooped up thousands of national-treasure-grade artifacts amid the turmoil.
"Our bellies are still hungry. Can't we grab more?"
Korea even egged the Red Guards on to tomb-rob the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang.
"How can we let a counterrevolutionary like Qin Shi Huang, the ultimate feudal dreg, rest in peace?"
"You're right."
Korea diligently collected valuable items from the destruction sites.
These plundered artifacts were transported to Korea's National Central Museum.
The Chinese gallery needed endless expansions to storage just to house them all.
While collecting Chinese relics, Korea didn't forget to bolster Liu Shaoqi's intelligence capabilities.
"Fight like that for about ten years. Until you shit all over the name 'CCP.'"
In the end, Korea was the only winner in the power struggle between Liu Shaoqi and Mao Zedong.