Published on : 12/08/2024

On August 12, 1977, Hua Guofeng (華國鋒), the then Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, declared the end of the "Cultural Revolution".

The 11th National Congress of the Communist Party of China was held in Beijing from that day until August 18, with three agendas, namely the political report of the Central Committee, amendments to the Constitution of the Communist Party of China, and the report on amending the party constitution, as well as the election of the Central Committee.

Hua Guofeng, the then Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, read out the political report on behalf of the Central Committee, in which he mentioned the "Jiang Qing counter-revolutionary clique" (江青反革命集團), i.e., the Gang of Four, Wang Hongwen (王洪文), Zhang Chunqiao (張春橋), Jiang Qing (江青), and Yao Wenyuan (姚文元), accusing them of usurping the party and power, inciting a counter-revolutionary armed rebellion, and completely revising Chairman Mao's great theory, altering the party's basic line during the entire socialist historical stage, and revising Chairman Mao's complete discussion on the issue of capitalist-roaders in the party.

Hua Guofeng also claimed that the Gang of Four had thrown out the counter-revolutionary political programme of "Old cadres are democrats, and democrats are capitalist-roaders," slandered that there were bourgeoisie within the Communist Party, "completely reversed the friend-enemy relationship in the historical stage of socialism, attempted to overthrow a large number of the party's revolutionary leaders in politics and the army, destroy our party, destroy our army, overthrow the dictatorship of the proletariat, and restore capitalism."

Afterward, Hua Guofeng spontaneously declared that the "Cultural Revolution" had ended with the crushing of the Gang of Four, "Our country's first proletarian Cultural Revolution has ended victoriously with the crushing of the 'Gang of Four' as a landmark."