MADAME MAO A TOP POLITICIAN

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31235, 6 December 1966, Page 19

MADAME MAO A TOP POLITICIAN

GV.Z. Press Association —Copyright) TOKYO, December 5. Chiang Ching, Mao Tse-tung’s wife, has been named cultural adviser to the army, and in her first major speech has indirectly indicated that President Liu Shao-chi and the party’s general secretary, Teng Hsiao-ping, are her husband’s enemies, says the Associated Press.

Her appointment to the Army post now gives her links both to .the armed forces and the Communist Party where she is first deputy chairman of its Cultural Revolutionary Committee. The speech, delivered on November 28 and reported yesterday, was made at an important rally of literary and art workers in Peking during which it was disclosed that

the country’s most famous opera troupe—the No. . 1 Peking Opera Company of Peking—and several other top music and dance ensembles have been drafted into the Army. Madame Mao’s new' powers and her enthusiastically received speech removed any doubt that she now is the first woman of China and one of its top political figures. She put her finger on Liu and Teng by pointedly refusing to list them as among those backing her efforts to put on works reflecting Mao’s ideas. “Great Support” “Chairman Mao and his close comrade-in-arms, Comrade Lin Piao, Comrade Chou En-lai, Comrade Chen Po-ta, Comrade Kang Shen and many other comrades have affirmed our achievements and given us great support and encouragement,” she said.

Tao Chu, head of the propa ganda bureau of the party and a new Politburo member, Li Fu-chun, were not singled out by Chiang Ching as her supporters, but they were present at the rally.