Jiang Qing:
I have received your letter of June 29th. It would be better for you to stay there for a while
as Comrades Wei and Chen [2] suggested [3]. I have two foreign guests this month [4]. I will
tell you about my schedule after the meetings. Since leaving Wulin [5] on June 15th, I have
lived in a cave [6] in the west for more than ten days. I have not been very well informed. On
the 28th, I came to the place where Ziyun Huanghe was [7]. It has been ten days since then. I
read the materials every day and it is very interesting.
Great chaos will lead to great order. Seven or eight years later, it will happen again. The
monsters and demons will emerge on their own. Their class nature dictates that they must
emerge. My friend's speech, [8], is being urged by the Central Committee to be published,
and I'm prepared to agree to its publication. He specifically addresses the issue of a coup
d'état. His approach to this issue has never been seen before. His promotion of it always
makes me feel uneasy. I've never believed that my few small books had such magical power.
Now, after his promotion, the entire Party and the country are praising them. It's like Wang
Po selling melons, boasting about her own achievements. I've been forced into this situation
by them. It seems I can't disagree with them. This is the first time in my life that I've agreed
against my will on a major issue. It's called being above human will. Ruan Ji, a Jin Dynasty
scholar, opposed Liu Bang. He travelled from Luoyang to Chengxi and sighed, "In the absence
of heroes, the world has made its own heroes." Lu Xun once said the same thing about his
essays. Lu Xun and I share a common heart. I like his frankness. He said that dissecting
oneself is often more rigorous than dissecting others. After stumbling a few times, I often do
the same. But my comrades often don't believe me. I am confident, but also somewhat
unsure.
When I was young, I once said, "I'm confident that I can live two hundred years and ride the
waves for three thousand miles." I was quite cocky, but not entirely confident either. I always
felt that when there's no tiger in the mountain, the monkey is king, and I've become that



kind of king. But it's not compromise. I have some tiger spirit, which is the main thing, and
some monkey spirit, which is the secondary thing. I once quoted a few lines from a letter
written by Li Gu of the Later Han Dynasty to Huang Qiong: "The first is easily defeated, and
the one who cries is easily tainted. Those who are able to perform the “White Snow in
Spring” are few in number. Under the influence of fame, a great reputation is difficult to
justify." [9] These last two lines refer to me. I once read them at a Politburo Standing
Committee meeting. It's important for people to know themselves. At the Hangzhou
Conference in April of this year [10], I expressed my disagreement with my friends'
proposals. But what good was it? He continued to speak in the same way at the Beijing
Conference in May [11], and the press was even more ferocious, exaggerating it to the point
of being a miracle worker. So, I had no choice but to go to the Liangshan Mountains. I
suspect their real intention was to use Zhong Kui to fight the demons.
I became a member of the Communist Party's Zhong Kui in the 1960s. Things always tend to
their opposite. The higher they are blown, the harder they fall. I'm prepared to be shattered.
That's not a big deal; matter is indestructible; it just shatters. Of the more than one hundred
parties in the world, the majority no longer believe in Marxism-Leninism. Marx and Lenin
were also shattered by people, so how much more so are we? I urge you to pay attention to
this issue as well. Don't let victory get you carried away. Always reflect on your weaknesses,
shortcomings, and mistakes. I've spoken to you about this countless times. You remember, I
spoke about it in Shanghai in April. What I've written above is a bit like jargon. Isn't that
exactly what some anti-Party elements say? But they want to completely overthrow our
Party and me personally. I'm only talking about the role I played, and I feel some of the
terms are inappropriate. That's what distinguishes me from the gangsters.
This matter cannot be made public now. The entire left and the broad masses all say so.
Revealing it would be a dampening of their enthusiasm and abetting the Rightists. The
current task is to overthrow the Rightists throughout the Party and the country (it's
impossible to completely overthrow them). Furthermore, in seven or eight years, there will
be another campaign to sweep away all those monsters and demons, and there will be many
more sweeps after that. Therefore, these black words of mine, which are almost cryptic,
cannot be made public now. It's unclear when they will be made public [12], as the left and
the broad masses do not welcome my speaking like this. Perhaps sometime after my death,
when the Rightists are in power, they will make them public. They will exploit my words to
try to perpetuate the black flag, but if they do, they will be doomed. Since the overthrow of
the emperor in 1911, the reactionaries in power in China have never been able to hold
power for long. The longest they managed was only twenty years (Chiang Kai-shek), and they
fell as soon as the people rebelled. Chiang Kai-shek exploited Sun Yat-sen's trust in him and
established the Whampoa Military Academy, recruiting a large number of reactionaries and
thus establishing his own position. Once he turned against the Communist Party, he gained
the support of almost the entire landlord and bourgeoisie. Since the Communist Party was
inexperienced at the time, he was happy to temporarily gain power. But during these twenty



years, he never achieved unification. The wars between the Kuomintang and the Communist
Party, the wars between the Kuomintang and various warlord factions, the Sino-Japanese
War, and finally the four-year civil war left him stranded on a group of islands [13]. If an anticommunist right-wing coup were to occur in China, I'm certain they would suffer unrest and
would likely be short-lived, because revolutionaries representing the interests of over 90
percent of the people would not tolerate it. The rightists might exploit my words to gain
temporary power, but the leftists would undoubtedly leverage other words to organize and
overthrow the rightists. This Cultural Revolution was a serious exercise in practice. Some
areas (such as Beijing) were deeply entrenched and collapsed overnight. Some institutions
(such as Peking University and Tsinghua University) were deeply entrenched and collapsed in
an instant. Wherever the rightists were more arrogant, their defeat would be more
disastrous, and the leftists would become more energized. This was a nationwide exercise,
and the left, the right, and the wavering middle would all learn their own lessons.
Conclusion: The future is bright, but the road is tortuous. These two old sayings still apply.
It's been a while since we last wrote, and when we do, it's been very long. Let's talk next
time!
Mao Zedong
July 8, 1966

[1] Jiang Qing, then deputy head of the Cultural Revolution Group of the CPC Central
Committee.
[2] Wei refers to Wei Wenbo, then secretary of the Secretariat of the CPC Central
Committee's East China Bureau. Chen refers to Chen Zhuxian, then secretary of the
Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee's East China Bureau and first secretary of the
Shanghai Municipal Committee.
[3] Refers to Shanghai.
[4] On July 12, 1966, Mao Zedong met with the Crown Prince of Nepal, Birendra Shah; On
July 17, he met with representatives attending the Emergency Conference of Asian and
African Writers and observers from some international organizations.
[5] Refers to the city of Hangzhou.
[6] Refers to the Dripping Cave in Shaoshan, Hunan, Mao Zedong's hometown.
[7] Refers to Wuhan City.
[8] Refers to the lengthy speech delivered by Lin Biao, Vice Chairman of the CPC Central
Committee and Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission, at the enlarged meeting
of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee held in Beijing on May 18, 1966.



[9] The following lines appear in the "Book of the Later Han: Biographies of Zuo Zhou and
Huang": "'The bright and clear sound is easily lost, and the wailing sound is easily defiled.' A
song of springtime will inevitably find few sympathizers, and a great reputation is often not
lived up to."
[10] Refers to the enlarged meeting of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the
CPC Central Committee chaired by Mao Zedong in Hangzhou on April 16, 1966.
[11] Refers to the enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee
held in Beijing from May 4 to 26, 1966.
[12] In May 1972, this letter from Mao Zedong was published as the fifth document for the
meeting to criticize Lin Biao and rectify the style of work. On October 1, 1972, September 2,
1973, and March 1, 1975, the People's Daily published portions of the letter.
[13] Refers to Taiwan Island, Penghu Islands and the surrounding islands of the People's
Republic of China.