Jiang Qing was born as Lǐ Shúméng in Zhucheng, Shandong Province in 1914. Also known as Lǐ Jìn and Lǐ Yúnhè , Jiang Qing's father was called Li De Wen. Later, she worked as a stage and film actress in Shanghai under the stage name of Lán Píng . She joined the Communist Party of China in 1933 and worked as an actress in Shanghai from 1933 to 1937. In 1939, Kang Sheng introduced her to Mao Zedong in Yan'an, and she became Mao's fourth wife. After 1949, she worked in the Ministry of Culture.
Rise in power
Jiang Qing emerged as a serious political figure in China during the Cultural Revolution when she
criticized party leaders such as Liu Shaoqi, who favoured the introduction of piecework, greater wage differentials and measures that sought to undermine collective farms and factories. She became a member of the Politburo in 1969. She was appointed as the deputy director of the Cultural Revolution in 1966 and formed the Gang of Four with Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan and Wang Hongwen. From that point on, she was the most powerful figure in China during Mao's last years and became a controversial figure of Mao's regime. During this period Mao Zedong galvanized students and young workers as his Red Guards to attack what he termed as revisionists in the party. Mao told them the revolution was in danger and that they must do all they could to stop the emergence of a privileged class in China. He argued this is what had happened in t
he Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin and Nikita Khrushchev. Later years
At her trial in 1981 she was the only member of the Gang of Four who bothered to argue on her behalf. The defense's argument was that she obeyed the orders of her husband at all times. Jiang Qing maintained that all she had done was to defend Chairman Mao. It was at this trial that Jiang Qing made the famous quote "I was Mao's dog. Whoever he asked me to bite, I bit". She was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve in 1981, and the sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment. This was allegedly to "give her time to repent." She was released for medical reasons in 1991. In May 14, 1991, Jiang Qing committed suicide by hanging herself in a bathroom of her hospital.
