Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China (24 page)

Mao did not shake the party by suddenly announcing that Wang Hong-wen was relieved of his official position. Wang kept his titles another half-year after the trip to Zhejiang and until then the general public knew nothing of his fall from grace—but Mao never returned him to his leadership post in Beijing.

Promotions for Deng

The first clear hint that Mao intended to give Deng even more responsibilities came on April 18, 1975, when Mao invited Deng to join his meeting with Kim Il Sung. Mao said to Kim, “I won't speak to you about political matters. I will let him talk to you about that. That person is named Deng Xiaoping. He can wage war, he can oppose revisionism. Red Guards attacked him, but now there are no problems. At that time, he was knocked down for some years, but now he is back again. We need him.”
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During the Kim visit, Mao talked briefly with Deng alone. Deng raised his concerns about the growing attacks on “empiricism” by Jiang Qing, Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan, and others. Fearful about Deng's growing influence with Mao due to his success in bringing order and economic progress, they had begun attacking him for paying too much attention to economic matters and too little attention to underlying principles, an argument that
had previously appealed to Mao. But in April 1975, Mao reassuringly told Deng that these criticisms were excessive, noting that “in our party not many people understand Marxism-Leninism. Some people believe they understand it, but actually they don't understand it.... This issue should be discussed by the Politburo.”
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To knowledgeable insiders, the implications of Mao's comments were perfectly clear: the “some people,” the Gang of Four, had overstretched; and now they were vulnerable to criticism.

Indeed the Politburo took up the issue soon thereafter, at a session to discuss Mao's April 25 criticisms of the Gang of Four's writings attacking empiricism. At the Politburo meeting, Marshal Ye Jianying criticized Jiang Qing and other members of the Gang of Four for attacking empiricism. As a result, Jiang Qing was forced to engage in a self-criticism. Immediately after the meeting, Wang Hongwen, who supported Jiang Qing in trying to block the growing power of Deng, wrote to Mao complaining that Zhou Enlai's characteristic pessimism about the state of affairs was now being expressed by others on his behalf.
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It was clear to everyone reading his note that the primary “other” was Deng. But at this point, Mao's confidence in Deng was unwavering.

Late at night on May 3, Mao called a Politburo meeting at his home. For Mao to chair a Politburo meeting was a signal that he had unusually strong views that required discussion, for he had long before passed on responsibility for these high-level meetings to others. Zhou Enlai, making a great effort, left his hospital bed to come to the meeting, the first time he had met with Mao since December. Zhou lived eight more months but this would be the last time the two leaders would spend time together. Mao was still physically able to visit Zhou in the hospital, but he chose not to do so.

At the May 3 meeting, Mao criticized Jiang Qing and others who attacked “empiricism” without also attacking dogmatism. Mao never cut off his relations with Jiang Qing, but at this meeting he was very severe with her. He declared “Don't behave like a ‘Gang of Four.’ Why are you acting that way? Why aren't you uniting with the more than 200 Central Committee members? … You must unite and not split. You should be open and aboveboard and not carry on hidden plots.” Mao added: “If you have opinions, you should discuss them in the Politburo. When you publish things, they should be in the name of the party center, not your personal name. You should not use my name, I haven't sent you materials.” Then, pointing to Deng, he said, “You are the representative of Mao Zedong.” This was also to be the last time that Mao would attend a Politburo meeting.
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At the Politburo meeting, Deng, Marshal Ye, and others added their
own voices to Mao's, further criticizing “the Gang of Four.” They said that Mao's directive on May 3 was very important; it instructed them to practice Marxism-Leninism, not revisionism; to seek unity and not to separate from the mainstream; and the party should be open and aboveboard and not hatch secret plots. They also criticized Jiang Qing for exaggerating the differences with Zhou Enlai and for using the campaign to criticize Lin Biao and Confucius as a way to attack Marshal Ye.

On May 27 and June 3, Deng for the first time replaced Wang Hongwen as chair of a Politburo meeting. At the June 3 meeting, Jiang Qing and Wang Hongwen were forced to carry out self-criticisms.
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Deng told Mao about it a few days later, when he joined Mao for the visit of President Marcos of the Philippines, and Mao expressed his approval for his conduct of the meeting, for he had not been overly harsh with Jiang Qing. Deng had proved to Mao that he would do what Mao wished and would continue working with her.

Mao never completely shut out Wang Hongwen, who would assist Hua Guofeng in officiating at Mao's funeral, but in fact after his trip to Zhejiang, Wang did not play a role in party deliberations. When Wang was sent off to Zhejiang, he suggested that Mao ask either Marshal Ye or Deng to take his place in chairing party meetings. When Marshal Ye declined, writing to Mao on July 1 that he was too old and that Deng should lead the daily work of the party, Mao immediately approved. On July 2 Marshal Ye wrote the official document announcing that Deng would now, in addition to leading the government as de facto premier and the military as vice chairman of the CMC, lead the daily work of the party. Topping it all off, around this time Mao also gave him a new assignment in the area of foreign policy: Deng was to become the first Chinese Communist official to make a state visit to a Western country.

Breakthrough to the West: The French Connection

From May 12 to May 17, 1975, during the first state visit of a Chinese Communist leader to a Western country—France—Deng had an opportunity to begin preparations for helping China learn from the West, just as it had learned from the Soviet Union in the 1950s.
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Deng's selection by Mao for this important trip aroused the suspicion of the Gang of Four, who correctly saw it as one more sign of Deng's increasing power. The trip certainly had a great influence on Deng as a leader. In contrast to his fleeting trip through France the year before, Deng's visit would offer him an opportunity to learn
in some detail how much the country he had known half a century earlier had been transformed, and to consider what China might need to do to achieve the four modernizations.

Why France? A year earlier Mao had put forth his theory of the “three worlds,” which presented the developed European countries as part of the second world—that is, countries that China should join with to resist the two dominant powers, the Soviet Union and the United States. Of all the second-world countries, France had taken the most initiative to build good relations with China. It had normalized diplomatic relations with China in 1962, when few Western countries were willing to do so. In September 1973, too, President Pompidou had made a formal and well-received visit to Beijing, the first such visit by the head of a European country. So in 1975, when France offered a formal invitation for a state visit, China welcomed the opportunity to both return Pompidou's overture and signal that it was rousing itself after the self-imposed isolation of the Cultural Revolution.

During his 1975 visit to France, Deng was received by President Giscard D'Estaing and Prime Minister Jacques Chirac. Chirac later recalled that Deng was straightforward, warm-hearted, and well-informed about international relations.
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While touring the country, Deng showed his personal appreciation of French life as he traveled to Lyon and Paris to visit some of the places he had seen while there half a century earlier.

Deng's key foreign policy message to France was a request for continuing support from the West as they together resisted the most aggressive dominant power, the Soviet Union. Deng expressed doubts about the value of détente with the Soviet Union and praised the unity of the Western Europeans, who were standing fast against the Soviets. But for Deng, learning about modernization was at least as important as tackling foreign policy issues. He visited agricultural and industrial sites, and held discussions about increasing trade between France and China. For the first time Deng toured modern Western factories, where he saw the remarkable changes in France since he had left fifty years earlier, and where he was struck by how far China had fallen behind. The ripple effects of this learning experience and of the successful state visit were far-reaching. Just three years later, Chinese economic officials led by Gu Mu would follow up on Deng's visit and play a crucial role in both awakening party leaders to economic and diplomatic opportunities overseas and building support for opening China even more to the West.

When in 1975 Mao tapped Deng to replace Wang Hongwen as chair of party meetings, the party was still in disarray from the struggles of the Cultural Revolution. Deng's new position in the party structure allowed him to make major strides in rebuilding the party throughout the country. The first step in renovation beyond Beijing was at the provincial level, and three months later the process would extend further, down to county and commune levels.
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Two days after Marshal Ye's July 2 letter announcing Deng's appointment to head party affairs, Deng addressed a party center “theoretical study group” attended by provincial party leaders; the meeting focused on unifying and then rebuilding the party.

In his presentation, Deng, knowing he was on a short leash from Mao, drew heavily on Mao's teachings, or at least “Mao's three important instructions,” the selection of Mao's teachings that Deng had packaged together to fit his current goals. Deng's objectives were, first, to reassure Mao that he would fight against revisionism, and then to focus on political stability and unity while boosting the economy. In his efforts to unify the party Deng drew on Mao's efforts at the 7th Party Congress, held in 1945 at the end of World War II. At that congress, the first one that Deng attended, Mao had stressed the need to unify various guerrilla-warfare units that had been spread out engaging the Japanese. Deng, making the connection to the earlier period, explained that just as “our mountaintop” mentality developed naturally when guerrillas were fighting from different locations, so too did factionalism develop naturally during the Cultural Revolution. And, Deng concluded, the
party needed once again to overcome factionalism and heed Mao's call for unity made at the 7th Party Congress.
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Members “not guilty of crimes” who cooperated with consolidation and gave up factionalism, including former radicals, would be treated favorably.

While taking care not to challenge Mao's sensitivities, Deng moved boldly and strategically to select those who could contribute to governing the country rather than to making a revolution. Although he did not explicitly vow to clean the party of “leftists” or “radicals,” he did criticize “sectarianism” (leftists clinging to their factions) more than “revisionism” (rightists). Leadership, Deng declared, should be in the hands of officials who had ten or more years of experience. Without explicitly objecting to those who had risen through the ranks of the Red Guards, he thus excluded those who risen since 1965, namely during the Cultural Revolution, when some had “helicoptered up” quickly to high positions. Deng also called for a reexamination of those who had entered the party without proper scrutiny of their qualifications; again without specifically saying so, this directive focused on the 16 million new party members added between 1966 and 1975 when procedures were chaotic, rather than on the 18 million who were admitted before the Cultural Revolution.
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In essence, those weeded out for “lacking qualifications” were those who retained factional allegiances. Mao did not challenge Deng's efforts, thereby implicitly acknowledging that at that point the country did need more stable leadership.

A central task in party rebuilding was the removal of military officers from leadership in civilian institutions, where they had been placed by Lin Biao. On August 8, 1975, Deng directed that the army, with few exceptions, should be withdrawn from all civilian positions. Many in the military were then serving as parts of “revolutionary committees” that would at some point be transformed into regular government offices. In late 1975 many of the troops were sent back to the barracks.

On May 5, 1975, immediately after Mao had chaired his last Politburo meeting, Deng again visited Zhou Enlai in the hospital. Deng was aware that he was beginning to deal with issues close to Mao's heart and he knew that Zhou Enlai was the one person who had even more experience than he did in dealing with Mao's changing moods. Zhou warned Deng to proceed cautiously and to deal with specific issues step by step, rather than to undertake overall consolidation. As much as Deng respected Zhou and acknowledged the risk that Mao might withdraw his support, Deng was bolder than Zhou
and determined to move ahead with overall consolidation by attacking the big long-term issues he considered necessary to promote the four modernizations.
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Deng was not yet talking about reform, but while building the party structure that could later carry out reform he was also beginning to consider the content of future reforms. To do this he needed to expand his personal brain trust—writers, theorists, and strategists operating outside the regular bureaucracy who could help him think through the big issues. Shortly after Mao asked Deng to take over leadership of the daily work of the party, Deng sought and received Mao's approval to expand his personal brain trust into a formal party structure, the Political Research Office. It was placed under the State Council, but in fact Deng continued to provide personal leadership and Hu Qiaomu, former head of the brain trust, remained to guide the work.