Zhang Had No Right!

Zhang Had No Right!

By Erick Yax-Vidal

January 12, 1967

Zhang Chuqian signed a list of demands last week given from 2,500 Workers Headquarters workers. They had taken control of a train bound for Beijing. Shanghai party leaders told the workers to stop in Anting, about twenty miles north of Shanghai and so they did. Due to their demands of getting payed more not being met they stayed in the train for three days! On the third day, Zhang went to the Anting station and met with the workers for nine hours, in the end he had agreed to their demands and the next day officially signed approval of their demands live on television. Most importantly he had no approval from Chairman Mao. He had no authority to sign the demands. Mao is the one and only leader.

Due to Zhang having signed the demands, the people of China do not know who they should follow as a leader. They are forced to believe that  there are two leaders, Mao and Zhang, when there is only one Mao. Another thing is that people saw how affective it was to just take a train and make demands. Now people will think that if they do just that they will get what they want. This would not have been true if Zhang had not signed the demands.

Some people might argue that if Mao is the only leader to make important decisions then the country will be inefficient. They might say that it’s important because there has to be multiple leaders distributed throughout the country, due to it being so big. Having multiple leaders does not matter as long as Mao gives his approval, unfortunately he did not give to Zhang.

Zhang Chuqian signed the workers demands without Mao’s approval, after the rebel workers took over a train in protest to their demands of wanting to be paid more were not made. Zhang had no right and should have never signed the demands without Mao approval.