Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China (135 page)

In Yan'an, Deng Liqun joined the Communist Party in 1936, and later was attached to the Marxist-Leninist Academy and carried on secret investigative work. When Deng Liqun was surreptitiously investigating Li Rui, who was criticized during the Yan'an rectification campaign, Deng interviewed Li Rui's wife whom he then courted, even while ostensibly continuing the investigation; the two eventually ran off together, an act for which Deng Liqun later made a self-criticism.

During the civil war, Deng Liqun was sent to the Northeast where he met Chen Yun and served in a variety of positions, including director of the Political Research Office of the Liaodong Provincial Committee. In the summer of 1949 Deng Liqun was assigned to Xinjiang, where he became head of the Propaganda Department and secretary general of the Xinjiang branch of the Communist Party.
³
He worked closely with General Wang Zhen, who had been sent to Xinjiang to pacify the region. When Mao Zedong, who was then seeking the cooperation of the minority groups, found out that General Wang had started minority reforms too early and had killed massive numbers of Uighurs, he became furious. At that point, Deng Liqun notified Mao that it was not Wang Zhen but he, Deng Liqun, who had made the decision to wipe out so many locals who might have resisted Communist rule. For his bravery in defending Wang Zhen and exposing his own role, Deng Liqun lost his job; it would take some time before he again rose in the hierarchy. But he did win the undying support of Wang Zhen, who shared with Deng Liqun a strong sense of
yiqi
, a code of brotherly honor and loyalty among some brotherhoods. After reading the popular
book
Water Margin
and virtually all of the traditional tales of knights-errant. Deng Liqun developed a deep belief in
yiqi
that he maintained throughout his life.
⁴

After Xinjiang was pacified, Deng Liqun went to Beijing where he worked under the supervision of Liu Shaoqi in the party General Office, then directed by Yang Shangkun. He helped to draft party documents and later joined the staff of the party journal
Red Flag.
When Liu Shaoqi was attacked during the Cultural Revolution, his top two secretaries roundly denounced him, but Deng Liqun, then his third secretary, again moved by
yiqi
, refused to criticize him. As punishment, Deng Liqun was attacked and sent to a “May 7 Cadre School” for reeducation and labor. After serving his time, he chose to remain at the May 7 cadre school for another year before returning to Beijing, so that he could devote himself to mastering Marxist-Leninist theory.

After returning to Beijing, in 1975 Deng Liqun was invited by Hu Qiaomu to become the seventh and final senior member of Deng Xiaoping's Political Research Office. When Deng Xiaoping was criticized later in the year, his closest associates were told to join in the criticism. Virtually all of them did, with the exception of Deng Liqun. Deng Liqun was prepared to go to prison for taking this stand, but he only lost his job. Moreover, soon after Deng Xiaoping returned to work in 1977, Deng Liqun became one of the insiders who drafted his speeches.
⁵
And in June 1980, Deng Liqun became head of the Research Office of the party Secretariat, where he put out daily intelligence briefs that were circulated to the highest-level officials, collected research materials for leaders, conducted his own research, produced four journals, and wrote theoretical works.
⁶

Staff writers like Deng Liqun followed directives from Deng Xiaoping, Chen Yun, and others, but as knowledgeable specialists on party history and theory, they had an opportunity to help shape the documents. Given the respect that others had for Hu Qiaomu and Deng Liqun as guardians of party orthodoxy, higher-level officials dared not argue that the documents and speeches the two men supervised violated party theory and precedent.

Deng Liqun was neither a “knee-jerk” conservative nor an impulsive nationalist. He and his son Deng Yingtao both specialized in rural economics at Peking University and were early advocates of rural reform. In the early stages of the rural reform, Deng Liqun advocated a larger role for the market. When he returned from a study tour in Japan, immediately after Deng Xiaoping's visit there in October 1978, Deng Liqun was full of praise for Japanese efficiency and quality standards, as well as for the Japanese spirit and organizational methods. But Deng Liqun supported Chen Yun's cautiousness about giving up the planned economy. Moreover, in 1980 Deng Liqun gave a series of lectures at the Central Party School on the economic views of Chen Yun that seemed to encourage a cultish reverence for Chen himself. Thereafter, Chen Yun always strongly supported Deng Liqun.

Decades of Communist propaganda extolling workers and peasants did not fully erase the disdain that Deng Liqun, who attended Peking University and was from a
prominent family, felt toward someone like Hu Yaobang, who left school at the age of fourteen and lacked poise. Chen Yun, Wang Zhen, and other conservatives believed Deng Liqun would make an excellent party general secretary, and liberal officials had no doubts that he nourished such ambitions. Deng Liqun denied that he had ever sought such a post, but he did not disguise his disdain for Hu Yaobang, which he displayed with a vigor that went beyond mere objective analysis.

Hu Qiaomu

Hu Qiaomu, former secretary to Mao Zedong, master drafter (
bi ganzi
, “a pen”) of official documents, and the most authoritative party historian, enjoyed higher rank and greater prestige than Deng Liqun.
⁷
Hu was a brilliant scholar of extraordinary breadth. As an official, he felt responsible for preserving the authority of the party and the orthodoxy of party statements. As a scholar, he read broadly and continued to learn. As a friend, he could be very considerate of those who wished to express diverse views, advising them how to make their views acceptable to the top leaders. As the defender of orthodoxy, he could attack intellectuals who criticized the party. As a competitor, he could put down rivals as the most authoritative voice on party orthodoxy and as the master writer.

Hu had personal relationships with many of the top leaders that dated back to when he worked in Yan'an as a secretary to Mao. As a member of the Communist Youth League, he automatically became a member of the Communist Party in 1936. In the early years after 1949, Mao had used Hu as the guardian of the official party view by appointing him to supervise publication of the
People's Daily.
Drawing on his personal knowledge of Mao's papers as well as party documents, in 1951 Hu wrote the official thirty-year history of the party, establishing himself as the top party historian. He was also one of the editors of the four volumes of Mao's
Selected Works.

Although Hu Qiaomu was far more familiar with theory and party history than were other top officials, he was more cautious than Deng Liqun about injecting his own views. Even so, Hu sometimes took liberties when recording leaders' spontaneous statements, in order to give their writings a consistency with party theory, history, and terminology. Top leaders knew of his talent, his encyclopedic knowledge of party history, and also his sensitivities, and thus sought his assistance to give legitimacy to their actions. Deng Xiaoping, for instance, drew on Hu Qiaomu's talents to provide leadership for his Political Research Office, and he continued to call on him to provide the unchallenged ideological perspective that would enable Deng to write speeches and documents that expressed his own viewpoints but were, after Mao's death, invulnerable to any criticism that they strayed from party orthodoxy.

Unlike Deng Liqun, who had a strong sense of righteousness and was ready to endure punishment out of his sense of
yiqi
, Hu Qiaomu was pliable and concerned about keeping good relations with whoever was in power. Hu was quick to show his
allegiance to whomever he thought held power, but he did not always have a good sense of current politics. In 1975, Hu supported Deng Xiaoping, but in the 1976 campaign to criticize Deng, he cooperated in criticizing him. (When Deng returned to power, Hu asked Deng Liqun to take his letter of apology to Deng, but Deng Xiaoping, aware that Hu had not passed on any deep secrets, said there was no problem and without looking at the letter sent it back.
⁸
) Then, when Zhao Ziyang became premier, Hu Qiaomu was not only quick to visit him but also went so far as to question the usefulness of Deng's speech on the four cardinal principles, a speech that Hu himself had drafted for Deng.

Hu passed the entrance examination in physics at Peking University but studied history instead. At Zhejiang University he studied English and other European languages and European literature and history. He could also draw on his vast knowledge of party history, science, economics, and philosophy, some of which he had picked up from his readings in Chinese, Russian, and Western languages. In Yan'an, he had helped to draft the first document of “Resolution on Some Questions of History,” and it was understandable that Deng would turn to him in 1980–1981 to be a key drafter of a second document, “Resolution on Certain Issues in the History of Our Party since the Founding of the People's Republic of China,” which evaluated the history of the party under Mao. Somewhat paradoxically given his role as the keeper of party orthodoxy, Hu Qiaomu could see the value of many of the contradictory readings he digested, and he never developed a fully consistent point of view. Indeed, in private he could at times express positions that were more liberal than those of many of his critics, and during the Cultural Revolution he was attacked by the radicals and later by the Gang of Four. But in his public role as the chief guardian of orthodoxy, with the weighty responsibility of preserving the authority of the party, he often joined in the attacks on liberals.

Hu Qiaomu could write quickly under pressure. He had a large group of writer-researchers who checked historical documents for precedents, pulled together current information, and wrote initial drafts, but he usually did the final editing of important documents and speeches, thereby providing an overall consistency and an authoritative tone that balanced different perspectives. With his deep knowledge of party history, he was rarely questioned when he judged whether something was consistent with party tradition. Hu was intense and dedicated, but also moody. He could be dogmatic in defending party orthodoxy against any rivals and prickly in defending himself against any challengers to his role as the top writer in the party.

Hu Yaobang

Hu Yaobang joined the Communist Youth League and the Red Army at age fourteen.
⁹
He was so completely dedicated, spontaneous, and enthusiastic; so willing to exert himself with every ounce of his energy; so willing to go the extra mile for comrades
who had suffered, that in the late 1980s perhaps no high-level leader had more devoted admirers than Hu. Indeed, Hu Yaobang was beloved as the conscience and heart of the party. When Hu was removed from office in 1987, many party members—even those who were not close to him—believed that he, like Zhou Enlai, had been treated unfairly. In his speeches, Hu was so bubbly, so completely open and obviously genuine, that no other Chinese leader could move an audience as he did. Listeners were deeply affected, for instance, when he recounted how he felt when under attack during the Cultural Revolution or when in 1932 he had been sentenced to execution, a fate he escaped when a fellow official interceded on his behalf.
¹⁰

Even some of Hu's admirers acknowledge that he lacked the poise and gravitas normally expected of top officials. When he gave speeches, with arms flailing in animated gestures, he appeared to some like an inexperienced youth; critics disparagingly called him “the cricket.” In his taped memoirs, Zhao Ziyang acknowledged that Hu was an idealistic, committed reformer, but argued that because Hu had never held a top position with overall responsibility for a local area, he couldn't appreciate fully the importance of political stability and unity.
¹¹
In fact, Hu had held such a position when he served briefly as first party secretary in Shaanxi province (November 1964–June 1965); while there, conservative officials criticized him for putting too much emphasis on production and for protecting officials instead of giving full support to the class struggle. Hu was never a military commander, but some officials said that if he were, he would be like a bold general ready to lead his troops into battle, rather than a brilliant strategist who could weigh all the factors and determine the appropriate plans.

From 1952 to 1966, when Hu was head of the Communist Youth League, his task was to encourage young people, to help them enjoy political work so they would want to dedicate themselves to the party and the country. He did not have Deng's weighty responsibilities: to make overall decisions for the nation, to keep order, and to defend China from the outside. Even admiring subordinates acknowledged that Hu Yaobang was not a well-organized office manager, nor did he manage to protect his subordinates from attacks by others. His loudest critics said that Hu often spoke too long and too spontaneously without taking enough care to consider all the implications. Former subordinates report that Hu took far more care to familiarize himself with policies and to follow them than his critics acknowledged, but he was inclined to grant freedom to intellectuals and leeway to lower-level officials who wanted to resolve problems in their own ways. When Australian prime minister Robert Hawke asked Hu's deputy Hu Qili how he felt when Hu Yaobang began to speak without notes, Hu Qili replied, “terrified.”
¹²