The Last Of "The Four"

The Four. The Fantastic Four? More likely, The Frightful Four, at least in the opinions of the Chinese people oppressed in the Chinese Cultural Revolution. The last surviving member of "The Four", Yao Wenyuan, has finally meet his demise, thereby, closing one of the most horrible chapter in China, and possibly, the history of mankind. The other members, Jiang Qin, committed suicide in prison in 1991, Wang Hongwen, who died of liver cancer the following year; and Zhang Chunqiao, who came out of prison and died last April. Yao Wenyuan, the final surviving member of the Gang of Four that terrorized China during the violent 1966-76 Cultural Revolution by persecuting thousands, has died, the government said Friday. He was 74. Yao's death on Dec. 23 was blamed on diabetes, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. It didn't say where he died or explain the delay in reporting his death. Infamously renowned as"The Killer With The Pen", Yao Wen Yuan was a staple example for propaganda writer extraodinaire, who literally write his way to power. Having wrote the 10,000-word diatribe against the the famous play, "The destitution of Hai Rui", which in turns launched the "Cultural Revolution" on November 10, 1965. Quite possibly one of the most powerful propaganda expert ever, Yao was arrested in October 1976, a month after Mao Zedong's death, and was convicted of trying to gain power by persecuting officials and members of the public and spent 20 years in prison before his release in 1996. Well, not that anyone will miss him anyway.