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Politically significant theatrical play

Hai Rui Dismissed from Office is a theatre play, written by Wu Han (1909 1969), notable for its involvement in Chinese politics during the Cultural Revolution. The play itself focused on a loyal Ming Dynasty minister named Hai Rui, who was portrayed as a savior to passive peasants for whom he reversed unjust land confiscations. The play became a center of scholarly and political controversy because of its implications for debates within the communist party, including at the Lushan Conference, regarding the political role of peasants going forward in light of the failures during the Great Leap Forward.

Wu Han, who wrote the play, was a historian and politician who focused on the Ming Dynasty. He also served simultaneously as a Deputy Mayor in Beijing. In 1959, Wu became interested in the life of Hai Rui, a Ming minister who was imprisoned for criticizing the Jiajing Emperor. Wu Han wrote several articles on his life and his fearless criticism of the emperor. Wu then wrote a play for Beijing Opera titled "Hai Rui Dismissed from Office," which he revised several times before the final version of 1961. The play was first staged in early 1962. Wu was not a connoisseur of Beijing Opera and rarely went to see it, a fact he noted in the preface to his play. Academic Alessandro Russo writes that Wu's rare opera attendance may have been because in the 1950s and early 1960s, cultured Chinese did not see it as a "commendable spectacle" but better suited for popular enjoyment. Hai is restored to office after the emperor dies. Peasants are portrayed as passive and innocent victims awaiting a savior, and they celebrate Hai Rui. In the context of the problems of false production statistics arising during the Great Leap Forward, Mao called on party leaders in April 1959 to learn from Hai Rui to tell the truth, and stated that party members were nowhere near as brave as Hai Rui. In this April 1959 meeting preparing for the Lushan Conference, Mao cited Hai Rui as an example of an official who challenged authority by authoring a Memorandum to the Emperor in which he criticized "very sharply and without any compliments." Mao asked his audience, "How many of our comrades today have Hai Rui's courage?" In one of the most tense moments of the controversy over the problems of the Great Leap Forward, Mao stated: Peng Dehuai himself stated "I want to be a Hai Rui!" in a 1962 letter to Mao requesting his return to politics. Yao's article was suggested to him and sponsored by Jiang Qing and Zhang Chunqiao. Although close to Mao personally, Jiang and Zhang were outside the cultural apparatus of the party. Ultimately, Yao's article was published in Wenhui Bao, an important Shanghai newspaper which was both widely read for its cultural content and political review, because it was not officially an organ of the party and was not subject to prior restraints. Even a personal request by Mao to publish Yao's critique as a pamphlet was rejected by party authorities in Beijing. Once it was no longer feasible to prevent other newspapers from republishing it, including because Zhou intervened, Peng Zhen consented to its reprinting. They attempted to downplay any connection between the play and the party's discord over peasant politics. Wu wrote, "In a word, I forgot class struggle!" Wu's article began with a chronology intended to implicitly distance his play and other writings on Hai Rui from the controversy at the Lushan Conference, but the effect backfired. Because Yao Wenyuan's article had not directly raised the connection with the Lushan Conference, Wu's chronology looked like an unnecessary apology.

Six weeks after the publication of Yao Wenyuan's critical article, Mao Zedong made his first significant statement on the controversy December 21, 1965. At a work conference of the Central Committee, Mao stated, "Peng Dehuai is Hai Rui." Mao stated that the results of the 1959 Lushan Conference remained controversial and the political disagreements had grown in the time since the conference. Peng Zhen met with Mao the day after Mao's speech and objected, arguing that the dismissal should not be considered the core issue, as there were no organizational or personal ties between Wu and Peng Dehuai. Early in January 1966, he conveyed a meeting of the Shanghai Party Committee, maintained that Wu was left wing, and that the debate over Hai Rui Dismissed from Office should "remain within academic limits." At his direction, the Group of Five drafted a formal disciplinary code (the "Outline Report on the Current Academic Discussion," also known as a "February Outline") intended to restrict the terms of the argument and thereby stop further articles comparing the play to contemporary political issues. The Party's Central Committee approved the February Outline. Mao opposed the inquiry, describing "[t]hose who prevent the publication of left wing essays" as "great scholar tyrants." Using a literary comparison which became famous after the incident, Mao told Peng Zhen, "The Central Department of Propaganda is the King of Hell's Palace. The King of Hell's Palace has to be overthrown and the imps set free: overthrow the cliques, set free the left."

A series of top level party meetings from mid March to mid May 1966 addressed the controversy following the February Outline and Mao Zedong's response to it. Peng Zhen argued that the February Outline was intended to encourage an open forum and that any arguable shortcomings in it could be corrected. Mao allies Kang Sheng (who like Peng Zhen, was a member of the Group of Five) and Chen Boda criticized Peng Zhen, including political positions he had taken in his role as Beijing's mayor prior to the Hai Rui Dismissed from Office controversy. Simultaneously, Peng Zhen tasked his office with preparing dossiers critical of his leftwing opponents. In late April, the Central Committee decided to revoke the February Outline, disband the Group of Five, disband the Beijing Party Committee which Peng Zhen led, and disavow his handling of the Hai Rui Dismissed from Office controversy. It discussed Peng Zhen's political errors in detail, stating that he had defended Wu Han and prevented political criticism of the play and therefore obscured the class struggle. The Circular of May 16 also ambiguously criticized unspecified rightists in the party who "sleep by our side," comparing such people to Nikita Khruschev.

Wu Han became one of the first victims of the Cultural Revolution and died in prison in 1969. The removal of Peng Zhen and others such as Lu Dingyi and Zhou Yang from their positions strengthened Mao's coalition and emboldened Mao's attacks on revisionism within the party. Peng Zhen and his supporters in the Beijing Party Committee and Beijing government were replaced by Li Xuefeng and other Maoists. In contrast to that view, Academic Alessandro Russo observes that public views of Yao Wenyuan's critical article were split, and that it was Peng Zhen himself and other party elites in the cultural apparatus who were most irritated by the criticism of Wu. Theories include that Wu was a suitable polemical target because he was not sufficiently ranking in the cultural apparatus to prompt a strong institutional defense. Academic Frederick Teiwes argues that as the controversy regarding Hai Rui Dismissed from Office unfolded, Mao had been plotting against his rival Chinese President Liu Shaoqi for months. Teiwes writes that because Peng Zhen was a longtime supporter of Liu, Mao could weaken Liu by attacking Peng Zhen via his subordinate Wu.

The theme was also the subject of a play written by Zhou Xinfang and with Xu Siyan (许思言), Hai Rui Submits His Memorial (海瑞上疏, Hai Rui Shangshu), and the play was performed by the Shanghai Peking Opera Troupe in 1959. Zhou Xinfang was also arrested and persecuted during the Cultural Revolution and died in 1975.