Chairman Mao Dies, 1976
In 1976 two leading figures of the People’s Republic of China died. Premier, Chou En Lai died in January, and Mao Tse Tung, “father” of Communist China, died in September.
Their deaths left a power vacuum, which the Gang of Four, led by Mao’s widow, Jiang Qing, tried to control. A massive media campaign blamed the Gang of Four for all the excesses of the Cultural Revolution.
