In his major policy address to the Ninth National Congress of the Communist party of China in April 1969, party Vice Chairman Lin Biao concisely summarised the major struggles between two lines that have taken place since the CPC was formed in Shanghai in 1921.
The history of the Communist party of China, he said is one in which Chairman Mao's Marxist-Lenninist line combats right and 'left' opportunist lines in the party. Under the leadership of Chairman Mao, our party defeated Chen Duxiu's right opportunist line, defeated the 'left' opportunist lines of Qu Qiubai and Li Lisan, defeated Wang Ming's first 'left' and then right opportunist lines, defeated Zhang Guotao's line of splitting the Red Army, defeated the right opportunist anti-party bloc of Peng Dehuai, Gao Gang, Jao Shushi and others and, after long years of struggle, has shattered Liu Shaoqi's counterrevolutionary revisionist line. Our party has consolidated itself, developed and grown in strength precisely in the struggle between two lines.
Less than two years later Lin Biao, Defence Minister, Vice Premier of the State Council and successor-designate to Chairman Mao Zedong - whose close comrade-in-arms he appeared to be throughout the crucial years of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution added his own name to the list. Some months later Lin was dead, presumably along with several military leaders the apparent victim of a tragedy of his own creation.
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