Chinese told Cultural Revolution was launched in error

Press, 1 October 1979, Page 9

Chinese told Cultural Revolution was launched in error

(NZPA-Reuter Peking | China has said the Cultural Revolution was I launched in error, and because it was then exploited | by the extremist “Gang of ! Four” the upheaval spelt (calamity for the people. ( The havoc wrought over (the 10 years from 1966 also (constituted the “most severe (reversal to our socialist (cause” since the People’s Republic was founded in 1949, I the country was told yester'day as it prepared to mark

\ today the 30th anniversary ]t ; of communist rule. i The appraisal of the Cui-! I tural Revolution came from (( Mr Ye Jianying, who is in it effect Head of State as chair-! i man of Parliament, the it National People's Congress. He delivered a long state-1J of-the-nation speech at ait rally attended by thousands f of people in the Great Hall < of the People, praising Mao t Tse-tung as “the most prom- i inent representative of the Chinese Communist Party |<

and the Chinese people." But Mr Ye did not name( Mao when he spoke of the; Cultural Revolution, although the late party chairman is regarded as its initiator. His theme was that the movement was distorted by the gang and the former Defence Minister, Lin Piao. officially designated in 1966 as Mao’s “closest comrade-in-arms.” “The havoc which the counter-revolutionary Gang

(wrought for 10 long years (spelt calamity for our people, (and constituted the most severe reversal to our socialist cause since the founding of the People's Republic,” he said. He described Lin and the Gang as “counter-revolution-ary swindlers" who had used dual counter-revolutionary (tactics against the party and the people. This was one reason why they could go “on the rampage with their ultra-Left line," he said.