Lin Biao (林彪, 1907–1971) was one of the ten Marshals of the People's Liberation Army and, for a time, the constitutionally designated heir to Mao Zedong. A graduate of the Whampoa Military Academy, he distinguished himself in the Chinese Civil War, most decisively in the Liaoshen and Pingjin campaigns of 1948–1949 that delivered Manchuria and North China to the Communists. After the founding of the People's Republic in 1949, Lin rose to become Minister of National Defence in 1959, replacing the purged Peng Dehuai following the Lushan Conference. In that post he politicised the PLA, promoted the cult of Mao, and in 1964 compiled the Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung—the "Little Red Book"—whose foreword hailed Mao Zedong Thought as "the highest level of Marxism-Leninism."
Lin's ascendancy peaked during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). As the army backed the Maoist line against Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping, Lin became Vice-Chairman of the Communist Party and, at the Ninth Party Congress in April 1969, was formally enshrined in the new Party Constitution as Mao's "close comrade-in-arms and successor"—an extraordinary written designation of succession unique in Communist Party history. His support rested on the PLA's dominance of the Revolutionary Committees that replaced collapsed civilian administration. Yet this very dependence on military power, and his pressure to restore the post of State Chairman (which Mao opposed) at the 1970 Lushan plenum, bred Mao's suspicion.
The denouement came in the "Lin Biao Incident" (林彪事件) of 13 September 1971. According to the official account, Lin, his wife Ye Qun, and his son Lin Liguo—implicated in an abortive coup-and-assassination plot codenamed "Project 571" (五七一工程, a homophone for "armed uprising")—fled aboard a Trident jet that crashed in Öndörkhaan, Mongolia, killing all aboard. The episode profoundly shook the legitimacy of the Cultural Revolution, since the anointed successor had supposedly betrayed Mao. The subsequent "Criticise Lin, Criticise Confucius" campaign (批林批孔, 1973–1974) sought to recover ideological footing by linking Lin to Confucian "reaction." In 1981 a special court of the Supreme People's Court formally named Lin's group, alongside the Gang of Four, as a counter-revolutionary clique.
For the China-modern-history paper, Lin Biao is a high-yield figure connecting three examinable threads: the PLA's role in the Cultural Revolution, the politics of succession under Mao, and the regime's crisis of legitimacy after 1971. Examiners commonly ask candidates to explain why Lin's designated succession was abandoned, to assess the Lin Biao Incident's impact on popular faith in Maoism, or to compare his fall with that of Liu Shaoqi and the later rehabilitation of Deng Xiaoping. Strong answers cite the Ninth Congress constitutional clause, the 1970 Lushan dispute over the State Chairmanship, and the 1981 verdict, distinguishing the official narrative from scholarly debate over Project 571's authenticity.
Example
In April 1969, the Ninth Party Congress wrote Lin Biao into the Communist Party Constitution as Mao Zedong's successor—only for Lin to die in a plane crash over Mongolia on 13 September 1971 while allegedly fleeing a failed coup.
Frequently asked questions
At the Ninth Party Congress in 1969, Lin was named in the Party Constitution itself as Mao's 'close comrade-in-arms and successor.' This explicit written enshrinement of a successor was unprecedented and unrepeated in Communist Party history, making his subsequent fall all the more destabilising.