China in 1981: Reform, Readjustment, Rectification

Abstract

DURING THE PERIOD from the 3rd Plenum of the 11th Party Congress in December 1978 to the 3rd Session of the 5th National People's Congress (NPC) in September 1980, Deng Xiaoping's practice faction (shijian pai) had its heyday. At the 5th Plenum of the 11th Central Committee (CC) (February 23-29, 1980), Deng had induced the Small Gang of Four (Wang Dongxing, Wu De, Ji Dengkui, Chen Xilian) to resign, and his old protege Hu Yaobang was made General Secretary of the reconstituted Secretariat. The subsequent appointment of Zhao Ziyang to the premiership and public reprimand of the steel-eating petroleum clique (Li Xiannian, Yu Qiuli, and Kang Shi'en) on somewhat makeshift grounds allowed Deng to consolidate his control over the Politburo and State Council, leaving only Hua Guofeng and an aging Ye Jianying in a position to oppose him. As his power waxed, Deng's reforms became increasingly ambitious. In a speech at an August 1980 expanded Politburo meeting, he called for renewed initiatives to strengthen the system of people's congresses, to separate Party and State organs and functions, to enhance the powers of local governments, to increase production unit autonomy on the basis of democratic self-management, to reform the cadre system, and to strengthen the democratic rights of Chinese citizens by means of an independent judiciary.2 The trial of the Gang of Four, in preparation since the spring of 1980 but not commenced until late November 1980, seemed to fit in well with Deng's grand design. By linking the Gang to Lin Biao and his collaborators, the position of Mao Zedong (as the target of Lin's alleged