81 Facts About Jiang Qing

Jiang Qing, known as Madame Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary, actress, and major political figure during the Cultural Revolution.

Jiang Qing was the fourth wife of Mao Zedong, the Chairman of the Communist Party and Paramount leader of China.

Jiang Qing used the stage name Lan Ping during her acting career, and was known by many other names.

Jiang Qing married Mao in Yan'an in November 1938 and served as the inaugural "First Lady" of the People's Republic of China.

Jiang Qing served as Mao's personal secretary in the 1940s and was head of the Film Section of the Communist Party's Propaganda Department in the 1950s.

Jiang Qing served as an important emissary for Mao in the early stages of the Cultural Revolution.

Jiang Qing collaborated with Lin Biao to advance Mao's unique brand of Communist ideology as well as Mao's cult of personality.

At the height of the Cultural Revolution, Jiang Qing held significant influence in the affairs of state, particularly in the realm of culture and the arts, and was idolized in propaganda posters as the "Great Flagbearer of the Proletarian Revolution".

However, Jiang Qing, deriving most of her political legitimacy from Mao, often found herself at odds with other top leaders.

Jiang Qing was arrested in October 1976 by Hua Guofeng and his allies, and was condemned by party authorities.

Jiang Qing was born in Zhucheng, Shandong province, on 19 March 1914.

Jiang Qing's father was Li Dewen, a carpenter, and her mother, whose name is unknown, was Li's subsidiary wife, or concubine.

Jiang Qing's father had his own carpentry and cabinet making workshop.

When Jiang Qing enrolled in elementary school, she took the name Li Yunhe, meaning "Crane in the Clouds", by which she was known for much of her early life.

Jiang Qing's mother relocated them to Tianjin where Jiang worked as a child laborer in a cigarette factory for several months.

Jiang Qing's talent brought her to the attention of administrators who selected her to join a drama club in Beijing where she advanced her acting skills.

Jiang Qing returned to Jinan in May 1931 and married Pei Minglun, the wealthy son of a businessman.

From July 1931 to April 1933, Jiang attended National Qingdao University in Qingdao.

Jiang Qing met Yu Qiwei, a physics student three years her senior, who was an underground member of the Communist Party Propaganda Department.

Jiang Qing joined the "Communist Cultural Front", a circle of artists, writers, and actors, and performed in Put Down Your Whip, a renowned popular play about a woman who escapes from Japanese-occupied north-eastern China and performs in the streets to survive.

In February 1933, Jiang Qing took the oath of the Chinese Communist Party with Yu at her side, and she was appointed member of the Chinese Communist Party youth wing.

Jiang Qing fled to her parents' home and returned to the drama school in Jinan.

In September 1934, Jiang Qing was arrested and jailed for her political activities in Shanghai, but was released three months later, in December of the same year.

Jiang Qing then traveled to Beijing where she reunited with Yu Qiwei who had just been released following his prison sentence, and the two began living together again.

Jiang Qing returned to Shanghai in March 1935, and became a professional actress, adopting the stage name "Lan Ping".

Jiang Qing appeared in numerous films and plays, including Goddess of Freedom, Scenes of City Life, Blood on Wolf Mountain and Wang Laowu.

In Ibsen's play A Doll's House, Jiang Qing played the role of Nora.

In 1937, Jiang Qing joined the Lianhua Film Company and starred in the drama Big Thunderstorm.

Jiang Qing reportedly had an affair with director, Zhang Min; however, she denied it in her autobiographical writings.

In 1967, at the beginning of China's Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, Jiang Qing declared eight works of performance art to be the new models for proletarian literature and art.

Jiang Qing went first to Xi'an, then to the Chinese Communist headquarters in Yan'an to "join the revolution" and the war to resist the Japanese invasion.

The Lu Xun Academy of Arts was newly founded in Yan'an on 10 April 1938, and Jiang Qing became a drama department instructor, teaching and performing in college plays and operas.

Shortly after arriving in Yan'an, Jiang Qing became involved with Mao Zedong.

However, thirty years later, at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, Jiang Qing became active in politics.

Jiang Qing and Mao's only child together, a daughter named Li Na, was born in 1940.

Jiang Qing worked as Director of Film in the Central Propaganda Department, and as a member of the Ministry of Culture steering committee for the film industry.

Jiang Qing supported criticism of the film for celebrating counter-revolutionary ideas.

Jiang Qing was one of the most powerful and controversial figures in China during Mao's last years.

Jiang Qing argued this is what had happened in the Soviet Union under Khrushchev.

Jiang Qing took part in most important Party and government activities.

Jiang Qing was supported by a radical coterie, dubbed, by Mao himself, the Gang of Four.

Jiang Qing first collaborated with then second-in-charge Lin Biao, but after Lin Biao's death in 1971, she turned against him publicly in the Criticize Lin, Criticize Confucius Campaign.

Jiang Qing's hobbies included photography, playing cards, and holding screenings of classic Hollywood films, especially those featuring Greta Garbo, one of her favorite actresses, even as they were banned for the average Chinese citizen as a symbol of bourgeois decadence.

In 1951, Jiang Qing was given a minor position of Film Bureau Chief.

Jiang's first attempt was her advice to ban the 1950 Hong Kong movie The Inside Story of the Qing Dynasty Court, of which Jiang believed to be unpatriotic.

Jiang Qing's opinion was not taken seriously by the communist leadership due to the minor political influence of her office and the movie was distributed in PRC's major cities like Beijing and Shanghai.

Again, Jiang Qing's opinion was dismissed by the communist leadership due to the lack of political influence from her office.

Jiang Qing asked the editor of The People's Daily to republish the new literary interpretation of the classic novel Dream of Red Mansions by two young scholars at Shandong University.

However, during this period, as a foreign dignitary, Jiang Qing was able to access a wide variety of movies that were banned in Soviet Russia, including many Hollywood productions.

In 1963, Jiang Qing asked A Jia, the director of the National Beijing Opera Company, to assist her in transforming the works of Beijing Opera with the modern revolutionary socialist theme.

Jiang Qing was behind the development of the opera Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy, which she tasked the Shanghai Beijing Opera Company for the production.

In June 1965, Jiang Qing met and formed a working relationship with Yu Huiyong, the future Minister of Culture of the PRC.

Jiang Qing first arranged for Yu to join the composition team of her opera On the Docks, which was the first Beijing Opera to portray the themes from contemporary society and the lives of Shanghai's working class after liberation.

Jiang Qing tasked Yu to revise the musical scores of the yangbanxi for the modern Chinese masses, and both of them believed that the revolutionary artwork must represent the reality of modern life.

In October 1966, Yu was released after Jiang Qing requested a meeting with Yu to stage the production of two operas in Beijing.

Jiang Qing seated Yu next to her, as a display of Yu's importance in the making of yangbanxi, during the showing of Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy.

Yu, acting as the pawn of Jiang Qing, was able to manifest Jiang Qing's orders into technical details that can be followed by the performers.

Jiang Qing first recommended that the lyrics be written in Mandarin, which was in line with the Chinese government policy that mandated the use of Mandarin as the language of instruction in schools nationwide.

Jiang Qing was known to be blunt in directing the yangbanxi, but Yu was able to serve as the mediator between Jiang Qing and the performers.

Jiang Qing took advantage of the Cultural Revolution to wreak vengeance on her personal enemies, including people who had slighted her during her acting career in the 1930s.

Jiang Qing incited radical youths organized as Red Guards against other senior political leaders and government officials, including Liu Shaoqi, the President at the time, and Deng Xiaoping, the Vice Premier.

In 1968, Jiang Qing had Zhou's adopted son and daughter tortured and murdered by Red Guards.

In 1968, Jiang Qing forced Zhou to sign an arrest warrant for his own brother.

In 1973 and 1974, Jiang Qing directed the "Criticize Lin, Criticize Confucius" campaign against premier Zhou because Zhou was viewed as one of Jiang Qing's primary political opponents.

In 1975, Jiang Qing initiated a campaign named "Criticizing Song Jiang Qing, Evaluating the Water Margin", which encouraged the use of Zhou as an example of a political loser.

Jiang Qing was little-concerned about the weak Hua Guofeng, but she feared Deng Xiaoping greatly.

In numerous documents published in the 1970s, it was claimed that Jiang Qing was conspiring to make herself the new Chairman of the Communist Party.

Jiang Qing showed few signs of sorrow during the days following Mao's death.

Jiang Qing believed that upholding the status quo, where she was one of the highest-ranked members of the central authorities, would mean that she would effectively hold on to power.

Jiang Qing continued to invoke Mao's name in her major decisions, and acted as first-in-charge.

Jiang Qing was not accused of conspiring with Lin Biao, or with other members of the Gang of Four who allegedly planned an armed rebellion to "usurp power" in 1976, when Mao was close to death.

Jiang Qing did not confess her guilt, something that the Chinese press emphasized to show her bad attitude.

Jiang Qing maintained that all she had done was to defend Chairman Mao.

Jiang Qing was sentenced to death, with a reprieve of two years, in 1981.

Jiang Qing was eventually released, on medical grounds, in 1991.

Jiang Qing died by suicide on 14 May 1991, at the age of 77, by hanging herself in a bathroom of her hospital.

Jiang Qing wished for her remains to be buried in her home province of Shandong, but in consideration of possible future vandalism to her tomb, the state decided to have her remains moved to a safer common cemetery in Beijing.

Jiang Qing is buried in Futian Cemetery in the western hills of Beijing.

Jiang Qing's father named her Li Jinhai because he wanted a son, but this was altered after her birth to Li Shumeng.

Jiang Qing enrolled in school under a more dignified name, Li Yunhe and simply changed it for convenience to Li He.

Jiang Qing used Li Jin to pen a number of articles she wrote during the Cultural Revolution.