ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses how Mao Zedong raised the question of succession, his attempts to answer it, and whether Teng Hsiao-p'ing has found a good method of preventing a repetition of Mao's tragedy. Mao introduced the question of cultivating revolutionary successors as a theoretical problem in the polemics between the Chinese Communist Party and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on the general line of the international Communist movement. Mao launched the Cultural Revolution in 1966 with the intention of cultivating a political force directly under his command with his wife, Chiang Ch'ing, at its center. The main issue in the struggle between the Hua and Teng factions was whether Mao's mistakes should be thoroughly investigated. Mao's mistakes resulted mainly from his practice of individual dictatorship, and he committed his biggest errors in his attempt to solve the succession problem.
