Ye Qun (; 2 December 1917 – 13 September 1971) was a Chinese military officer and politician, and the wife of Lin Biao, the Vice Chairman of Chinese Communist Party who controlled China's military power along with Chairman Mao Zedong. She was mostly known for taking care of politics for her husband. Ye was a member of the 9th Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party. She died with Lin Biao and their son Lin Liguo in a plane crash over Mongolia on September 13, 1971. They also had a daughter, Lin Liheng (Doudou), who was not on the airplane.
Early life
Ye Qun was born in Minhou County, Fujian Province. In 1935, she attended a middle school affiliated with the Beijing Pedagogical University and took part in the anti-Japanese demonstrations by Beijing students on December 9, 1935. Early in the Second Sino-Japanese War, she briefly joined one of the Kuomintang youth organizations. She later went to Yan'an and joined the Chinese Communist Party in 1938.
In 1942, Ye Qun married Lin Biao, with whom she had two children: son Lin Liguo (林立果) and daughter Lin Liheng (林立恒).
Political career
thumb|right|250px|From left: Ye Qun with [[Jiang Qing and Lin Biao]]
During the Chinese Civil War, she served as staff officer, secretary, translator and other positions in the headquarters of the units within People's Liberation Army. Following the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, Ye Qun took on the role of Lin Biao's secretary. From that time on, she began to actively participate in political activities. She served as the deputy director of the General Education Department within the Ministry of Education. She later served deputy director of the Shanghai Municipal Education Bureau and deputy director of the Guangzhou Education Bureau.
In 1960, he returned to Beijing from Guangzhou and served as director of Lin Biao's office. In late 1965, she assisted Lin Biao in bringing down his adversary, Luo Ruiqing, the Chief of the General Staff of the People's Liberation Army. As a result, although she was not a member of the CCP Central Committee at the time, she attended a Politburo meeting in December 1965. During the meeting, she was given the floor three times and over a period of about ten hours she enumerated the "offenses" of Luo Ruiqing, who according to the Ye, misinterpreted Maoism and tried to launch a coup to remove Lin Biao from power in the Ministry of Defense.
French Sinologist Jean-Luc Domenach characterizes her as:
Presumably fearing the loss of time, the Lin family, including Lin Biao, Ye Qun, and Lin Liguo, fled in a PLAAF Hawker Siddeley Trident, from Qinhuangdao Shanhaiguan Airport on September 13, 1971.
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However, according to the historian J. D. Spence, "this story is essentially beyond verification, since the photographs later released by the Chinese authorities are of dubious authenticity and details on Lin Biao’s exact plans and on the other plotters are blurred" The government narrative also does not sufficiently explain how and why Lin Biao's plane crashed. It is also still unclear whether Lin Biao himself planned a coup, or whether his wife Ye Qun and his son Lin Liguo had such plans and did not inform Lin Biao about it. Skeptics have claimed that Lin's decision to flee to the Soviet Union was illogical, on the grounds that the United States or Taiwan would have been safer destinations.