Deng Xiaoping and Ye Jianying Are Wolves in Sheep's Clothing
#PUBLICATION NOTE
This edition of Deng Xiaoping and Ye Jianying Are Wolves in Sheep's Clothing has been prepared and revised for digital publication by the Institute of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism under the Central Committee of the Communist Party in Switzerland on the basis of the edition published on the website reddit.com.
#INTRODUCTION NOTE
This is a letter from Comrade Mao Zedong to Comrade Jiang Qing dated the 30th of April, 1976. It was first published on the website reddit.com.
In this letter, Comrade Mao Zedong makes a remarkably accurate prediction of the events that would play out during the October 1976 counter-revolutionary State coup and the subsequent restoration of capitalism in China. The letter was originally deemed to be apocryphal; however, following the discovery of original documents from around the same time (middle of 1976) dealing with the same themes, and even making the same comparison of Deng Xiaoping to the eunuch Zhao Gao, the letter can be deemed most likely genuine.
#Workers and oppressed people of the world, unite!
#DENG XIAOPING AND YE JIANYING ARE WOLVES IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING
#LETTER TO JIANG QING
#Mao Zedong
#30th of April, 1976
#★
Jiang Qing:
I have received your letter.
Lately, I cannot help but feel an uneasy premonition. Usually, I am an optimist, but this time, it is impossible not to have bouts of pessimism. Of late, I have been unable to either sleep or eat; the path I see before the nation and the Party makes me ill at heart. My prediction is this: I fear that I am just taking the same path that Qin Shi Huangdi already took. The tragedies of history replays endlessly, and this is no exception. Although I have examined him closely, and found Comrade Hua Guofeng to be a good person, he is simple and honest, but his abilities are a little lacking and his methods are a little too inflexible. I keep comparing myself to the first emperor — for, beside our other similarities, we both opposed Confucius and his rites, preferring instead the Legalist method of ruling, and, just as Qin Shi Huangdi has been cursed for 2'000 years, so, too, will the intellectuals curse me for several thousand years. I have made my peace with that.
During his final tour of the eastern portion of his empire, Qin Shi Huangdi died in Shaqiu. Huhai, his son, conspired with Zhao Gao and Li Si to forge his will, compelling Crown Prince Fusu to kill himself. This is known as the Shaqiu Conspiracy. After Huhai ascended the throne and became Qin Ershi, Zhao Gao incited him to kill off all the other sons of the first emperor, and, not long after that, Zhao Gao himself plotted to get rid of his co-conspirators, finally consolidating power in his own hands. I predict that, once I die, our own Huhai, Zhao Gao, and Li Si will pop up within our Party, with our own Shaqiu Conspiracy to conquer political power and tamper with my political legacy. I believe that this Zhao Gao is none other than Deng Xiaoping, for he alone in our Party has Zhao Gao's trickery and abilities. I think that Hua Guofeng is Huhai, and Ye Jianying is Li Si — just as Huhai and Li Si got played by Zhao Gao, and so became ghosts beneath his blade, so, too, will Hua Guofeng and Ye Jianying get played by Deng Xiaoping and get ousted by him. Whether Deng, Hua, and Ye will succeed like their previous incarnations in trampling over my legacy, I do not know.
A treacherous eunuch like Zhao Gao must certainly be especially crafty and cunning, a mediocre schemer certainly cannot compete with the likes of Zhao Gao in treachery, subversion, and deceit. The historical Zhao Gao was proficient with the law. Xiaoping is our Zhao Gao. Xiaoping is a person who, like Zhao Gao, can «point at a deer and call it a horse»; he is chamaeleon-like in his abilities. If I am, unfortunately, proven right, Xiaoping may erase all the policies I've enacted in my life. If Hua Guofeng and Ye Jianying were to engage in this new «Shaqiu Conspiracy» with Deng, they would definitely come off the worst for it, just like Qin Ershi and Li Si.
When Zhao Gao hid in the shadows of the first emperor, he hid his true colours and «hid his light while biding his time». While he was, on the inside, a conspiratorial opportunist at heart, he hid that beneath a facade of respect and diffidence, fooling the first emperor into thinking that he was a loyal and honest minister, leading the first emperor around and around by the nose with his wiles. Once Huhai became emperor, he immediately worked to completely subvert the Legalist form of government. Deng is like Zhao Gao, a wolf in sheep's clothing. Can he subvert my legacy? I cannot say.