finely balanced forces at the top of the hierarchy
 in Peking. When Mao returned to take up an active
 role again in early spring this led to the destruction
 of several major party leaders who had opposed
 Mao and whose ambitions and conniving had been
 exposed. The purge--the first to affect politburo
 figures in seven years--deepened Mao's suspicions
 of all the rest and thus helped set the stage for
 the 11th central committee plenum in early August
 1966. The evidence indicates that this plenum was
 the scene of a showdown between Mao and the old-line
 party apparatus responsive to Lie Shao-chi and Teng
 Hsiao-ping. Mao, supported by Lin Piao and Premier
 Chou En-lai, won a victory in Peking. It was not
 conclusive, however, because the new team of top
 leaders--a basically unstable group--faced growing
 resistance from powerful leaders in the provinces.
 Most of these men had been clients of Liu and Teng
 and could read the writing on the wall.
 A drive to bring some of these provincial party
 leaders down began at once, but was not pressed
 strongly until December. By then the opposition
 included virtually every first secretary in the
 regional party bureaus and provinces and about half
 the commanders of the 13 military regions. They
 were aligned with a number of key party and military
 figures still able to function in Peking and thus
 made a potentially formidable group. They struggled
 desperately to retain their positions and succeeded
 in this until the military establishment entered
 the conflict on the side of Peking during the last
 week in January.
 The basis on which leaders at the center gained
 positive support from the armed forces is not clear.
 It seems likely that a number of high-ranking military
 officers opposed Mao and Lin Piao on this issue
 in December--former Marshal Ho long and 19 other
 major military figures were later charged with having
 plotted a "copy" and were purged shortly after the
 turn of the year.
 There is reason to believe that up to mid-January
 a number of key field commanders were still
 uncommitted, some because they were confused by the
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 Lyndon Baines Johnson Library