ABSTRACT
The purge of Gao Gang and Rao Shushi was the first major leadership struggle within the CCP after 1949, and to this day remains one of the most obscure. The principals held some of the most powerful posts in the PRC in the early 1950s: Gao was a Politburo member, one of the six vice chairmen of the Central People’s Government Council, a vice chairman of the People’s Revolutionary Military Council, chairman of the State Planning Commission, and the top Party, government and military official of the Northeast region; Rao was director of the Central Committee’s organization department, a SPC member, and Party secretary, government chairman and political commissar of the East China region. When they disappeared in early 1954, no explanation was given. Subsequent official accusations against Gao and Rao in 1955 and Red Guard revelations during the Cultural Revolution were both extremely skimpy, leaving many crucial aspects of the affair in the realm of the unknown.
