Yao Wenyuan (12 January 1931 – 23 December 2005) was a Chinese politician and a member of the "Gang of Four" during the Cultural Revolution.
Biography[]
Yao Wenyuan was born in Zhuji, Zhejiang, China in 1931, and he worked as a literary critic in Shanghai. His 1965 criticism of a New Historical Beijing Opera play and the subsequent arrest of its author (who was an alleged supported of the disgraced Peng Dehuai) led to the start of the Cultural Revolution. In 1969, he joined the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, working on official propaganda. In October 1976, following Mao Zedong's death, he was arrested for being one of the powerful "Gang of Four" responsible for the revolution, and he was sentenced to 20 years in prison. He was released in 1996, and he died of diabetes in 2005.