1977
Yang Kaihui (杨开慧) was the second wife of Mao Zedong, whom she married in autumn 1920 and with whom she shared three children. Yang Kaihui was the daughter of Yang Changji, one of Mao’s most beloved teachers at Hunan First Normal University. Even though she joined the CCP in 1921 as one of the party’s earliest members, she never held an official position. Instead, Yang Kaihui spent her life devoted to Mao and their children.
Late 1927 was the last time Yang ever saw Mao. After many failed attempts at revolutionary upheavals in 1927, Mao seeked hiding at Jinggangshan where he built up the Red Army and married his third wife, He Zizhen (贺子珍). Three years later, Yang Kaihui and their eldest child were captured by a local Kuomintang (国民党, KMT) warlord. On November 14, 1930, the KMT executed Yang Kaihui.
Yang Kaihui became an early revolutionary martyr. In 1977, the image of Yang Kaihui dressed in a white high-necked jacket and calf-length black skirt appeared in numerous propaganda posters. Yang Kaihui’s image was used to preserve the national perception and image of Mao following his death in 1976 and the overthrow of the “Gang of Four.” The attention on Yang Kaihui and her marriage to Mao was a direct attack on Mao’s fourth wife, Jiang Qing, who was a member of the “Gang of Four” and in prison for her crimes. In doing so, the posters aimed to show that Mao had once enjoyed a happy marriage and harkened back to the early revolutionary ideology.
