ABSTRACT
With the death of Mao Zedong in September 1976, China entered the protracted crisis from which it has not yet emerged. About a month after Mao’s death, a coalition of authorities in Beijing undertook to suppress Jiang Qing, Mao’s wife, and her immediate entourage, Wang Hongwen, Zhang Chunqiao, and Yao Wenyuan, as “counterrevolutionaries.” They were understood to have brought the nation to the “brink of ruin” by pursuing the policies of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution that undermined production, wasted resources, fostered political instability, and impaired the educational system. 1
