The Conscience of the Party: Hu Yaobang, China’s Communist Reformer by Robert L. Suettinger

Author:Robert L. Suettinger [Suettinger, Robert L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Asia, China, Political Science, Political Ideologies, Communism; Post-Communism & Socialism, Biography & Autobiography, Historical, Political, Cultural; Ethnic & Regional, Asian & Asian American
ISBN: 9780674298316
Google: zTn5EAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Published: 2024-10-15T07:00:00+00:00

Deng Xiaoping Takes Charge

In early December, work conference delegates turned to personnel issues, and each regional group began considering recommendations to put before a full Central Committee plenum. On December 1 the Standing Committee convened a special meeting of all provincial first secretaries and military region commanders, at which Deng Xiaoping set out guidelines for upcoming personnel decisions. He reminded all that the foreign press was watching their meetings for signs of an internal power struggle, so they would proceed carefully. The principle of “No one can go down, they can only go up” (or as other accounts put it, “Only entrances, no exits”) was to be applied, and only three or four new Politburo members would be added.138 Even those Politburo members who had been severely criticized “would not be moved.” Deng was clear about who the new members would be: Chen Yun, Deng Yingchao (Zhou Enlai’s wife), Hu Yaobang, and Wang Zhen, Deng’s staunchest supporter.139

Deng’s December 1 declaration set the course for concluding the work conference. The next day the six regional groups began developing policy and personnel recommendations, which corresponded with Deng’s. They recommended that Wang Dongxing, Ji Dengkui, Wu De, and Chen Xilian could maintain their Central Committee ranks but their substantive responsibilities should be adjusted. Hu Yaobang’s group called for Wang Dongxing to be removed as director of the party’s General Office and head of the Central Guards Bureau. They even recommended that the 8341 Unit be downsized and placed under the authority of the Beijing Garrison.140 The Politburo met on December 10 to consider the recommendations. It decided to recommend to the Third Plenum that Chen Yun be made a vice-chairman and be added to the Politburo Standing Committee; that Deng Yingchao, Hu Yaobang, and Wang Zhen be added to the Politburo; and that nine other veterans who were purged during or before the Cultural Revolution be restored to Central Committee membership.141

As a potent demonstration of the increased power of his position, Deng Xiaoping needed to be responsible for the most important written document of the work conference and the Third Plenum—his concluding address to the Central Committee.142 Deng had been preparing his speech for the concluding session of the work conference even before he began his Southeast Asia tour in early November, leaving the task of drafting to Hu Qiaomu. On December 2, Deng summoned Hu Yaobang and Yu Guangyuan to his home to discuss Hu Qiaomu’s draft, which was heavily freighted with class struggle references and other language that did not reflect either the modern perspective Deng desired or the energized atmosphere of the work conference. “It’s no good [buxing],” Deng said, and he instructed the two to prepare a new draft based on a detailed outline he had written on a notepad.

Deng wanted a “forward-looking” speech, designed to “liberate thinking,” generate enthusiasm, break away from old ideas and habits, and move ahead with the modernization of the economy.143 With help from the State Council Political Research Office and oversight from Hu

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