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China The Post-Mao Period, 1976-78
The jubilation following the incarceration of the Gang of Four
and the popularity of the new ruling triumvirate (Hua Guofeng, Ye
Jianying, and Li Xiannian, a temporary alliance of necessity) were
succeeded by calls for the restoration to power of Deng Xiaoping
and the elimination of leftist influence throughout the political
system. By July 1977, at no small risk to undercutting Hua
Guofeng's legitimacy as Mao's successor and seeming to contradict
Mao's apparent will, the Central Committee exonerated Deng Xiaoping
from responsibility for the Tiananmen Square incident. Deng
admitted some shortcomings in the events of 1975, and finally, at
a party Central Committee session, he resumed all the posts from
which he had been removed in 1976.
The post-Mao political order was given its first vote of
confidence at the Eleventh National Party Congress, held August 12-
18, 1977. Hua was confirmed as party chairman, and Ye Jianying,
Deng Xiaoping, Li Xiannian, and Wang Dongxing were elected vice
chairmen. The congress proclaimed the formal end of the Cultural
Revolution, blamed it entirely on the Gang of Four, and reiterated
that "the fundamental task of the party in the new historical
period is to build China into a modern, powerful socialist country
by the end of the twentieth century." Many contradictions still
were apparent, however, in regard to the Maoist legacy and the
possibility of future cultural revolutions.
The new balance of power clearly was unsatisfactory to Deng,
who sought genuine party reform and, soon after the National Party
Congress, took the initiative to reorganize the bureaucracy and
redirect policy. His longtime protege Hu Yaobang replaced Hua
supporter Wang Dongxing as head of the CCP Organization Department.
Educational reforms were instituted, and Cultural Revolution-era
verdicts on literature, art, and intellectuals were overturned. The
year 1978 proved a crucial one for the reformers. Differences among
the two competing factions--that headed by Hua Guofeng (soon to be
branded as a leftist) and that led by Deng and the more moderate
figures--became readily apparent by the time the Fifth National
People's Congress was held in February and March 1978. Serious
disputes arose over the apparently disproportionate development of
the national economy, the Hua forces calling for still more largescale projects that China could ill afford. In the face of
substantive losses in leadership positions and policy decisions,
the leftists sought to counterattack with calls for strict
adherence to Mao Zedong Thought and the party line of class
struggle. Rehabilitations of Deng's associates and others
sympathetic to his reform plans were stepped up. Not only were many
of those purged during the Cultural Revolution returned to power,
but individuals who had fallen from favor as early as the mid-1950s
were rehabilitated. It was a time of increased political activism
by students, whose big-character posters attacking Deng's
opponents--and even Mao himself--appeared with regularity.
Data as of July 1987
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