Jiang Qing
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Jiang Qing (March 1914 – 14 May 1991; also spelled as Chiang Ching) was a Chinese revolutionary, actress, and political figure. She was the fourth wife of Mao Zedong, the Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party and Paramount leader of China. Jiang was best known for playing a major role in the Cultural Revolution as the leader of the radical Gang of Four. Born into a declining family with an abusive father and a mother who worked as a domestic servant and sometime prostitute, Jiang Qing became a renowned actress in Shanghai, and later the wife of Mao Zedong in Yan'an, in the 1930s. In the 1940s, she worked as Mao Zedong's personal secretary, and during the 1950s, she headed the Film Section of the Publicity Department of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Appointed deputy director of the Central Cultural Revolution Group in 1966, Jiang played a pivotal role as Mao's emissary during the early stages of the Cultural Revolution. Collaborating with Lin Biao, she advanced Mao's ideology and promoted his cult of personality. Jiang wielded considerable influence over state affairs, particularly in culture and the arts. Propaganda posters idolised her as the "Great Flagbearer of the Proletarian Revolution." In 1969, she secured a seat on the Politburo, cementing her power. Following Mao's death, she was soon arrested by Hua Guofeng and his allies in 1976. State media portrayed her as the "White-Boned Demon," and she was widely blamed for instigating the Cultural Revolution, a period of upheaval that caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Chinese people. Initially sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve in a televised trial, Jiang's sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in 1983. Released for medical treatment in the early 1990s, she committed suicide in May 1991.