Mao’s Portrait Is Defaced in Beijing : Students Seize 3 After Possible Bid to Provoke Crackdown

The world’s most famous portrait of Mao Tse Tung was splattered with paint today in what may have been a botched attempt to provoke a military crackdown on the tens of thousands of students occupying Tian An Men Square.

Students seized three men for hurling the red, blue, yellow and black paint at the huge portrait, paraded them around the square and erected a sign declaring: “This was not done by students or the people.”

The portrait is one of Chinese communism’s most sacred icons. Hanging on the Gate of Heavenly Peace, it marks the spot where Mao proclaimed the establishment of the People’s Republic in 1949 and hoisted its red and gold five-star flag.

Calculated Provocation

Some students and foreign observers speculated that the defacement of the portrait was a calculated provocation intended to trigger violence and provide a pretext for authorities to crack down on the mainly peaceful uprising.

Two of the culprits were carrying press passes from an obscure south China newspaper and were carrying copies of the paper with them, students said after detaining them.

Hundreds of thousands of bogus press passes are in use in China, often carried by criminals.

Soon after the portrait was splattered it was covered with a sheet of canvas by workmen using a hydraulic crane.

The attack went against the grain of a strange revival of Mao’s memory during the weeks of unrest, during which students have occupied the square, troops have been sent to the capital and the government has been riven by political crisis.

Display of Devotion

Workers on protest marches have carried Mao’s portrait and banners describing him as a hero in probably the first such public display of devotion to the late Communist Party chairman in the capital in a decade.

Student organizers scarcely old enough to remember Mao, or the ultra-left 1966-76 Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution he launched, quote his writings on military strategy and political philosophy when organizing their protests.

While activists call for Western-style democratic freedoms and demand the resignations of Premier Li Peng and senior leader Deng Xiaoping, few are willing to criticize Mao for his authoritarian, anti-intellectual rule of China for 27 years.

“We do not admire Mao’s policies, which were a disaster for China and especially for intellectuals. But he was at least a real leader with a certain kind of morality and principles,” said an engineering student from Beijing’s Qinghua University.

‘An Honest Dictator’

“Now what we have are corrupt leaders who run the country like a family business. If we must have dictatorship, then at least we should have an honest dictator,” he added.