Mao’s political secretary and the codifier of “Mao Zedong Thought”, head of the Cultural Revolution Group until his fall in 1970
“The Cultural Revolution was a mad age, and I was a madman then,” Chen Boda said in 1988, after his release. “My life has been a tragedy; let people draw lessons from it.”
From Fujian, he studied at Sun Yat-sen University in Moscow and from 1937 served at Yan’an as Mao’s political secretary, editing Mao’s writings and establishing the term “Mao Zedong Thought”. After 1949 he edited Red Flag and led propaganda work, supplying the theory of the Great Leap, and in 1966 headed the Central Cultural Revolution Group. At the 1970 Lushan plenum he sided with Lin Biao over the state chairmanship, provoked Mao’s anger and fell; in the 1981 trial of the “Lin Biao and Jiang Qing counter-revolutionary cliques” he received eighteen years. He died in 1989.
Also known as: Ch’en Po-ta
Activities and affiliations
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1927–1973
Ideology and propaganda
- Editor of Red Flag, Head of the Central Cultural Revolution Group
- Mao’s political aide; Central Party School teacher1937–1949
- Deputy head of the CCP Propaganda Department1949–
- Member of the Politburo Standing Committee1966–1970Political and party leadership
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1949–
People’s Republic of China state institutionsVice President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences
Scholarship and theory -
1962–
People’s Republic of China state institutionsVice Director of the State Planning Commission
Economy, finance and planning
Career Timeline
- 1927Joined the Chinese Communist Party
- 1927–1931Studied at Sun Yat-sen University in Moscow
- 1937–1949Teacher at the Central Party School in Yan’an; Mao’s political aide
- 1949Deputy head of the CCP Propaganda Department; Vice President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences
- 1958–1966Editor-in-chief of Red Flag
- 1962Vice Director of the State Planning Commission
- 1966–1970Head of the Central Cultural Revolution Group
- 1966–1970Member of the Politburo Standing Committee
- 1970.09Placed under investigation and detained after the Lushan plenum
- 1973Expelled from the party at the 10th Party Congress
- 1981.01Sentenced to eighteen years by the Special Court
Related historical events
- 1949Establishment of the People’s Republic of ChinaMao’s political secretary on the Moscow tripMade a full Central Committee member at the Second Plenum, he went with Mao to Moscow and sat in the treaty talks.
- 1956–1957From the Hundred Flowers to the Anti-Rightist CampaignMao’s secretary who drew out “a hundred schools contend”When he asked about guidelines for historical research in 1953, Mao answered “let a hundred schools contend”.
- 1958–1962The Great Leap Forward and the Great FamineTheorist of the LeapTheorised the communes and the “transition to communism” in Red Flag.
- 1966–1976The Cultural RevolutionHead of the Cultural Revolution GroupLed the Group from 1966 until his fall in 1970.
The Jidong case and accountability at the Special Court
On 26 December 1967, at a meeting in Tangshan, Chen Boda said of the CCP's Jidong party organization that it “may have been a Kuomintang-Communist cooperative party, in which in fact the Kuomintang and traitors may have been at work”, naming Tangshan party secretary Yang Yuan and mayor Bai Yun among those to be examined. The Special Court's judgment recorded that in 1966 he put forward the slogan “sweep away all ox-demons and snake-spirits”, inciting persecution and suppression of cadres and the masses; that in July 1967 he joined Jiang Qing and Kang Sheng in deciding on physical persecution of Liu Shaoqi, thereby depriving him of freedom of movement; and that he repeatedly framed Lu Dingyi as a counter-revolutionary, traitor and inner enemy. Of the Tangshan speech the judgment held that “owing to Chen Boda's agitation, the Jidong case produced grave consequences, and large numbers of cadres and masses were persecuted”.
Figures for the case come from research by Tangshan party historians: more than 84,000 cadres and common people in the region were persecuted, of whom 2,955 died and over 700 were disabled. Some 1,604 cadres who had worked in Jidong were listed for examination and 737 were branded traitors, agents, Kuomintang members or capitalist-roaders, while 662 underground party members were examined and 282 branded. The Jidong case was also one of the counts against him at the post-Mao Special Court, where the prosecution alleged that the case he created led to more than 80,000 cadres and masses being persecuted and nearly 3,000 killed.
Confronted in court on 29 November 1980, Chen Boda first denied it: “I never knew about the Tangshan question and never meddled in it.” After a recording of his own 1967 speech was played back, he acknowledged guilt toward Liu Shaoqi, Lu Dingyi and the Jidong case. His defence counsel argued that he had lost his freedom soon after the 1970 Lushan plenum and should not answer for crimes the clique committed afterwards, and that the Jidong consequences had not been caused by his speech alone. The court convicted him of actively joining a counter-revolutionary clique, of conspiring to subvert the government, of counter-revolutionary propaganda and incitement, and of false accusation and frame-up, sentencing him to eighteen years' imprisonment with deprivation of political rights for five years.