Cultural Revolution OTD 1975

20/7/75 Zhou Enlai, Deng Xiaoping, Zhang Chunqiao, Ye Jianying and Wang Dongxing agree for Mao to have surgery to remove (just) one of his cataracts.

20/7/75 Deng Xiaoping sends Mao a report on Bo Yibo, who has written to rebut his alleged betrayal of the Party in 1936 and to ask to return to work.

19/7/75 The Party distributes Deng Xiaoping's remarks to the Military Affairs Commission leadership conference, ending 15/7/75, to its members.

15/7/75 Zhou Enlai reviews a report from Zhang Chunqiao on the further simplifying Chinese characters and promoting Pinyin and standard Mandarin.

15/7/75 Ji Dengkui returns from Zhejiang and visits Zhou Enlai, then Deng Xiaoping, with a proposal to end local factionalism by crushing the left.

15/7/75 Zhang Chunqiao and Yao Wenyuan praise Deng Xiaoping and Ye Jianying's speeches on PLA reform, which paid respect to ideological campaigns.

15/7/75 Marshal Ye Jianying closes the military leadership conference and takes responsibility for the problems that Deng Xiaoping raised yesterday.

14/7/75 Deng Xiaoping says that the Campaign to Criticise Lin Biao and Confucius (which has petered out by now) is a long-term task for the Party.

14/7/75 Unlike the officers who pay lip service to People's War while the PLA modernises, Deng Xiaoping is explicit: no more "millet plus rifles".

20/7/75 Mao listens to a report on rehabilitating purged ex-official Zhou Yang and edits it to downgrade the severity of Zhou's previous errors.

19/7/75 In Hangzhou, Wang Hongwen oversees the massive PLA operation of taking over factories and putting down strikes by rebel worker groups.

18/7/75 The director of "Pioneers", a new film suppressed by Jiang Qing over various political errors, writes to Mao asking him to overrule her.

17/7/75 Kang Sheng's son Zhang Zishi takes over the Party in Hangzhou. 10 000 troops are mobilised to break strikes against Zhejiang's leaders.

17/7/75 A Central Directive aims to end factionalism in Zhejiang by strengthening its established leadership decisively against radical opposition.

16/7/75 Mao approves proposals to end factionalism in Zhejiang by breaking strikes, punishing grassroots rebels and propagandising the workers.

15/7/75 The PLA leadership agrees that the army's expansion during the GPCR needs to reverse, aiming to shed a quarter of its 6 million personnel.

15/7/75 Ye Jianying says that the PLA needs to reform quickly, while also being mindful of theory and guarding against "bourgeois rightist thought".

14/7/75 Comparing radicals' attacks on toppled Culture official Zhou Yang with attacks on Lu Xun under the Nationalists, Mao calls for lenience.

14/7/75 Mao says that the art and culture available needs to grow and reminds Jiang Qing of the principle of "letting a hundred flowers bloom".

14/7/75 Jiang Qing visits Mao who complains that the current bar for political acceptability leaves the public with very little new art and culture.