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Institutional belief · Political repression, Cultural Revolution and party-state propaganda

Liu Shaoqi as a traitor and enemy agent

During the Cultural Revolution, the Chinese Communist Party formally declared Liu Shaoqi a traitor, enemy agent and labor scab, portrayed him as the head of a counterrevolutionary revisionist or bourgeois headquarters inside the Party, and treated large numbers of officials and citizens as members, agents or products of his supposed political network.

1 episode

Current understanding

Current understanding

In 1980 the Chinese Communist Party's Eleventh Central Committee formally reversed the case. Its Fifth Plenum stated that the theory of a counterrevolutionary revisionist line and a bourgeois headquarters led by Liu was completely wrong and untenable, that materials had been fabricated to frame and persecute him, and that numerous party, state and military cadres had been falsely branded as his agents. The plenum revoked the accusations, annulled the 1968 investigation report and restored Liu's reputation.

Consequences and human impact

Consequences and human impact

The accusations against Liu became a formal party-state doctrine rather than a factional insult. In October 1968 the enlarged Twelfth Plenum of the Eighth Central Committee approved the investigation report branding the sitting state president a traitor, enemy agent and scab, permanently expelled him from the Party and stripped all party and state posts. The campaign extended to people labeled Liu's agents, followers or products of his line. Liu remained detained and severely persecuted and died in Kaifeng in November 1969. In February 1980 the Fifth Plenum fully rehabilitated him and ordered correction of wrongful cases created through association with his case.

How the consequences followed

“Traitor, enemy agent and scab” translates the formal Chinese labels 叛徒、内奸、工贼. The 1980 correction did not deny that Liu had political disagreements with Mao; it rejected the conversion of those disputes into a fabricated counterrevolutionary identity and criminal-political network.

The Party's later account assigns major responsibility for fabricated materials and persecution to Lin Biao, the Gang of Four and associated actors while also acknowledging that the 1968 Central Committee plenum itself formally adopted the erroneous conclusion.

12 years

from the Central Committee's formal 1968 condemnation to full Party rehabilitation in 1980

1969

year Liu died in detention after political persecution and physical mistreatment

Largest

wrongful case in the Party's history, as the CCP's own 1980 account described the Liu Shaoqi case

Quantitative figures are highlighted only when the cited evidence supports them. The scale of a related catastrophe is not automatically treated as a death toll caused solely by this belief.

Institutional episode

People's Republic of China

1968–1980Enforced doctrine

Liu Shaoqi's fall became an institutional belief because the accusation was formally ratified by the Party's Central Committee and enforced across the party-state. The CCP's own 1980 review reversed the factual core of the case, finding the bourgeois-headquarters theory untenable and materials fabricated to frame Liu.

Institutions

  • Chinese Communist Party Central Committee
  • Central Case Examination Group
  • Cultural Revolution party-state apparatus

Documented consequences

  • Permanent expulsion of the sitting state president from the Communist Party and removal of all party and state offices
  • Detention, political persecution and physical mistreatment culminating in Liu's death in custody in 1969
  • Use of the alleged Liu Shaoqi network to purge and persecute large numbers of party, state and military cadres
  • Extension of the accusation to workers, peasants, intellectuals, students and institutions described as products of Liu's revisionist line
  • Nationwide propaganda presenting a fabricated counterrevolutionary identity as an authoritative Party conclusion
  • Large-scale rehabilitation work after 1980 for people wrongly implicated through Liu's case

Institutional machinery

Liu Shaoqi had been president of the People's Republic of China and a vice chairman of the Communist Party. On 31 October 1968 the enlarged Twelfth Plenum of the Eighth Central Committee formally approved a special-case report declaring him a traitor, enemy agent and scab, permanently expelled him from the Party and removed all party and state positions. The accusation became a framework for attacks on many other officials and social groups. After a Central Commission for Discipline Inspection review, the Eleventh Central Committee's Fifth Plenum on 29 February 1980 unanimously adopted a rehabilitation resolution, cancelled the 1968 charges and investigation report and ordered related wrongful cases corrected.

Sources and what they establish

Last reviewed: 25/08/2026