Volume 31, Number 4 · March 15, 1984
Marriage à la Mode
By Judith Shapiro, Liang Heng
The White-Boned Demon: A Biography of Madame Mao Zedong
by Ross Terrill
Morrow, 446 pp., $18.95
Jiang Qing is one of the most controversial women of modern times. During the early 1930s in Shanghai, she was a second-rate film and stage actress who lived a bohemian life, provoked small scandals, and associated with young leftists. When Shanghai started to crumble under Japanese attack in 1937 she went to Yanan, the communist base, and became Mao Zedong's fourth and last legal wife (it was her fourth marriage as well). After the communist victory, she lived for years in political obscurity, a precondition set by the Party before it approved the marriage. She emerged in the mid-Sixties as a hard-liner in cultural matters, helping Mao to launch the Cultural Revolution and becoming a member of the 'Cultural Revolution Group,' the tiny ultra-leftist elite that rose to the top during the years of greatest chaos.
Review, 3324 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |