Everything about Yao Wenyuan totally explained
Yao Wenyuan (
1931 –
December 23,
2005) was a
Chinese literary critic and politician and a member of the "
Gang of Four" during China's
Cultural Revolution (1966-1976).
Biography
He began his career in
Shanghai as a literary critic, where he became known for his sharp attacks against colleagues, such as in June
1957 against the newspaper
Wenhuibao. Since that time, he began to closely collaborate with leftist
Shanghai politicians, including the head of the city's Propaganda Department,
Zhang Chunqiao. His article "On the New Historical Beijing Opera '
Hai Rui Dismissed from Office'" (Chinese: 海瑞罢官; pinyin: Hăi Ruì bà guān), published in the
Shanghai daily
Wenhuibao on
November 10,
1965, launched the
Cultural Revolution.
The article was about a popular opera by
Wu Han, who was deputy mayor of Beijing.
Zhang Chunqiao and Jiang Qinq feared the play could be counter-revolutionary because parallels could be drawn between the characters in the play and the communist government.
In the play Hai Rui a government official speaks for the peasants against the imperial government criticizing officials for hypocritically oppressing the masses while pretending to be virtuous men. Hai Rui is dismissed because of this. Yao claimed it was a coded attack on Mao for dismissing in 1959 then-minister of defense
Peng Dehuai, a critic of Mao’s disastrous
Great Leap Forward.
Confused by this unexpected attack, Beijing's party leadership tried to protect Wu Han, providing Mao the pretext for a full-scale "struggle" against them in the following year. Yao was soon promoted to the Cultural Revolution Group.
Yao Wenyuan was an ideal candidate for the criticism for such an opera because of his consistent socialist background. In April 1969 he joined the Politburo of the
Central Committee of the
Communist Party of China, working on official propaganda. A member of "Proletarian writers for purity" he was the editor of "Liberation Daily" Shanghai's main newspaper. He joined the state's efforts to rid China's writers union of the famous writer Hu Feng.
In October 1976, he was arrested for his participation in the Cultural Revolution and sentenced to 20 years imprisonment.
He was released on
October 23,
1996, and spent the remainder of his life writing a book and studying Chinese history. He was living in his hometown of Shanghai and became the last surviving member of the Gang of Four after
Zhang Chunqiao died in
April 2005. According to China's official
Xinhua news agency, he died of
diabetes on
December 23,
2005, aged 74
(External Link
).
Further Information
Get more info on 'Yao Wenyuan'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://yao_wenyuan.totallyexplained.com">Yao Wenyuan Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
