Possible causes of Liu’s fall

The causes of Liu’s fall (and events leading to Lin Biao’s death) are not clear. For several years the names of Liu, Deng, and Lin were linked, and the three were condemned in the party press as “capitalist roaders” intent on defeating the revolution. After Mao’s death, on Sept. 9, 1976, however, his widow, Jiang Qing, and her so-called Gang of Four undertook a coup that was quickly aborted. Hua Guofeng, a relatively junior member of the hierarchy, achieved party leadership, and Deng Xiaoping was rehabilitated. Then, in February 1980, the 11th Central Committee of the CCP decided “to completely rehabilitate” Liu, calling him a “great Marxist and proletarian revolutionary,” and to remove the labels of “renegade, traitor, and scab” formerly attached to him. Lin was then identified with the Gang of Four and charged with “concocting false evidence” and subjecting Liu to “political frame-up and physical persecution” while overthrowing other leaders on the charge of being Liu’s agents.

While little is known of Liu’s first four spouses, his fifth wife, Wang Guangmei, achieved great notoriety during the Cultural Revolution for her “bourgeois” lifestyle. Liu had at least eight children, and one of them, Liu Yuan (by Wang), became a general in the Chinese army and a mid-level government bureaucrat.