Review essay: The Curse of the “Good Premier”

Zhou Enlai, Mao Zedong’s second-in-command, has been lionized as a moderating force who held back Mao’s excesses. But does he deserve that reputation, when he also enabled them?

Hospitalized in the summer of 1975, Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai was dying of cancer. Intrigue swirled through the halls of power. Chairman Mao Zedong — also seriously ill from ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease — updated texts he had written decades earlier, criticizing the Premier for arcane ideological disagreements. Zhou was desperate to fend off the rivals circling his deathbed, including Mao’s vituperative wife, Jiang Qing. On June 16, Zhou wrote Mao a groveling letter:

"Despite the Chairman’s endless teaching, I have still repeatedly made mistakes or even committed crimes. … About all this, I feel tremendous shame and regret. Now, in my illness, I have repeatedly recalled those mistakes."

Chillingly, Zhou flattered and lavished gratitude onto Mao, even though the Chairman had ordered doctors to withhold surgery from Zhou — treatment which may have prolonged the life of the Premier, who was Mao’s second-in-command.

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