Peking Presses Regional and Provincial Party
 Members
 1. Attacks on powerful figures in the regional and
 provincial party apparatus began soon after the central
 committee plenum in August 1966 and the subsequent creation
 of the Red Guards as a mass action political weapon
 responsive to forces supporting Mao and Lin Piao. Red
 Guard activist teams fanned out all over China during
 September and October to spread the Cultural Revolution
 and "bombard the headquarters" of local authorities in
 a disorderly campaign of riotous demonstrations and mob
 violence.
 2. During this period two of the six regional party
 bureaus and more than a dozen provincial party committees
 were brought under varying degrees of pressure.
 The political and governmental apparatus outside the
 capital resisted with a variety of devices, pretending
 in some instances to welcome Red Guard teams and offering
 sham cooperation but in fact attempting to block
 their efforts. Local "guards" were often organized
 and pitted against the interlopers from Peking. Security
 forces were used by local authorities to channel Red
 Guard violence and where necessary to suppress hoodlum
 gangs attacking local leadership organs.
 3. The pressure was stepped up by Peking during
 November. Red Guard organization was improved and the
 assault by them on the provincial apparatus was more
 carefully focused. Up to the beginning of December,
 however, the only major provincial leaders dismissed were
 the first secretary of the Hopei provincial committee--
 who had been in trouble prior to August--and the second
 secretaries in Shensi and Heilungkiang provinces. In
 Peking, Liu Shao-chi and Teng Hsiao-ping continued to
 show up with Mao at Red Guard rallies, although they were
 by then shorn of significant political power.
 4. In December the attack from the center went
 into high gear. Former party leaders such as Peng Chen,
 already brought down. were "dragged out" by Red Guards
 and physically abused. A full-Campaign, backed
 by Madame Mao and other leaders, was launched against
 Liu Shao-chi and Teng Hsiao-ping. The charges brought
 against Liu and Teng were tantamount to treason, and
 it appeared that preparations were being made for formal
 proceedings against them. The new attacks, in fact,
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