There, on 8 December 1965, following Yao Wenyuan's "Criticism of Hai Rui Dismissed from Office", he published the article "Study History for the Revolution", in which he criticised the most famous historians of the time by denouncing their historism as capitalist.
With the articles and speeches written by him, he played a large role in the campaigns against Liu Shaoqi, Deng Xiaoping and the old establishment of the Party as well as in heating up the atmosphere during the Cultural Revolution.
From 1967 on Qi, together with Wang Li, Guan Feng and other members of the Cultural Revolution Group, started to accelerate Mao's plans for implementing the Cultural Revolution in the army too, and were calling for the peoples to find out the "few capitalist roaders" within the People's Liberation Army (PLA).
For Mao now saw himself confronted with growing opposition inside the Party and chaotic turbulences in his most important power base, the army, he decided to let down the so-called "Three Small", Wang, Guan and Qi.
Jiang Qing was disclosing the main charge in a speech in front of officers of the PLA: The "Wang-Guan-Qi Anti-Party Clique" would have been working secretly for Liu Shaoqi, Deng Xiaoping and Tao Zhu since the beginning of the Cultural Revolution.
On November 2, 1983, the Intermediate People's Court Beijing sentenced him to 18 years in prison on terms of being a member of the counterrevolutionary clique of Lin Biao and Jiang Qing as well as 'counterrevolutionary propaganda', 'wrong accusations' and 'inciting of the masses' (打砸抢; da-za-qiang).
Despite his persecution at the hands of Mao, Qi criticised Li's portrayal of the Chinese leader, claiming that "aside from his account of the support-the-left activities (支左; zhi zuo) in which he [Li] personally participated, most of the Cultural Revolution part of his memoirs consists of stuff gleaned from newspapers, journals and other people's writings.
To make Western readers believe that he had access to core secrets, Li fabricated scenarios, resulting in countless errors in his memoirs."