The Tenth National Congress

Date: August 24-28, 1973

Place: Beijing

Number of delegates: 1,249

Party membership: 28 million

Major contents: The congress was held after the Lin Biao counter-revolutionary clique was smashed. The delegates to the meeting indignantly denounced the crimes of the Lin Biao counter-revolutionary clique and unanimously supported the sanctions and all other measures adopted by the Party Central Committee against the clique. Zhou Enlai made a political report to the congress and Wang Hongwen made a report on the revision of the Party Constitution. The congress continued the "Left" deviation errors of the previous congress. After the congress, Jiang Qing, Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan and Wang Hongwen formed the "gang of four" in the Political Bureau of the Central Committee. Jiang Qing and the company had seized more power, their ambition and activities attempting at usurping the highest power of the Party intensified.

The congress elected 195 members and 124 alternate members to the new Central Committee. At the First Plenary Session of the Tenth CPC Central Committee, Mao Zedong was elected chairman, and Zhou Enlai, Wang Hongwen, Kang Sheng, Ye Jianying and Li Desheng vice-chairmen, of the CPC Central Committee. The members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau were Mao Zedong, Wang Hongwen, Ye Jianying, Zhu De, Li Desheng, Zhang Chunqiao, Zhou Enlai, Kang Sheng and Dong Biwu.