Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China (136 page)

Born in 1915 to a Hakka farm family in Liuyang county, Hunan, Hu, a top student, was encouraged by his left-leaning teachers to take part in patriotic activities. At age fourteen, he left school, crossed the eastern border of his province into Jiangxi, and made his way to the Jiangxi Soviet. He took part on the Long March as one of
the “little red devils,” the dedicated youth who served the older soldiers. In Yan'an, he was one of Mao's favorites. After his youth work, Mao placed Hu in the Political Department of the PLA. During the civil war, Hu was a low-ranking political commissar in He Long's Second Front (later the First Field) Army, which took the northern route into Sichuan. Deng came to know Hu in 1950 when Hu served under him as a party secretary in northern Sichuan (at the time Deng, who was party secretary of the Southwest Bureau, was headquartered in Sichuan). When officials from the six large regions were transferred to Beijing in 1952 and Deng was assigned to the party center, Hu was named first secretary of the Communist Youth League.

Hu sometimes joked with visitors that Deng had selected him for leadership because, at four feet eleven inches, he was the only official shorter than Deng.
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But Deng had many good reasons to choose Hu Yaobang. During his many years in the Jiangxi and Yan'an soviets, Hu had enjoyed good relationships with other top leaders. Moreover, Deng knew that Hu Yaobang learned quickly and studied hard, possessed boundless energy, and was completely dedicated to reform: he was ready to do whatever was necessary to get the country moving. Recognized as one of the ablest officials of his generation, Hu had been effective as first secretary of the Communist Youth League from 1952 to 1966, a decade of which overlapped with Deng's tenure as general secretary of the party. Hu was also effective in the early 1960s when he served in Hunan as party secretary of Xiangtan prefecture and in the mid-1960s as provincial party secretary of Shaanxi and party secretary of the Northwest Region. In early 1967 when the Red Guards made a list of Deng's supporters who should be criticized, the first name on the list was Hu's.
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After returning to work in July 1975, Hu rallied the dispirited scientists whose help was badly needed to promote modernization. At the Central Party School in 1977–1978, too, he inspired officials preparing to rejuvenate the party and the government after the Cultural Revolution. After being appointed head of the Organization Department in December 1977, Hu was tireless in his efforts to reverse the verdicts on officials who had been falsely accused during the Cultural Revolution. He also provided theoretical leadership by promoting the influential essay “Practice Is the Sole Criterion for Judging Truth.” At the Central Party Work Conference held before the Third Plenum in December 1978, Hu played a major role in coordinating issues among the different groups, promoting a consensus on personnel appointments, and helping prepare speeches for all three principal speakers—Hua Guofeng, Ye Jianying, and Deng Xiaoping.
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Hu thus had a broad general knowledge of all aspects of party work, having worked in the military and in leadership positions in the party's propaganda and organization departments.

When he became general secretary, Hu initially enjoyed the support of all key officials. He had maintained good relations with Hua Guofeng since 1962–1964 when they had worked together as provincial leaders in Hunan. He had strong backing from Marshal Ye, a fellow Hakka, who had known him since the Yan'an period. Chen
Yun, too, had known Hu in Yan'an when Hu was head of the Organization Department in the army's Political Department while Chen Yun was head of the overall Organization Department of the party. In 1978 Chen Yun worked closely with Hu Yaobang in reversing verdicts and in 1980 he supported Hu Yaobang's appointment as party chairman.
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At the time of the 12th Party Congress in 1982 when the title of “party chairman” was abolished, Hu Yaobang became general secretary.

Mao had made full use of people like Zhou Enlai and Kang Sheng, who felt vulnerable to criticism and would do almost anything to avoid it. Hu Yaobang did not have the same vulnerabilities, but in contrast to Deng Xiaoping, who always remained confident, poised, and authoritative, Hu, lacking comparable confidence, endeavored to prove that he deserved to be in high leadership circles.
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He liked reading and read widely in theory, history, and literature, and he worked hard to prove that he had the theoretical background to be a worthy high-level leader. In busy times, he slept in his office in Zhongnanhai rather than return to his home, even though it was within easy walking distance.
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Hua Guofeng

Hua Guofeng, like many leaders of his generation, joined the party as an anti-Japanese patriot. He had completed elementary school and three years of middle school. Originally named Su Zhu, he took the name Hua Guofeng (meaning “Chinese vanguard against the Japanese”) when he joined the Communist Party in 1938 at age seventeen, just after the Communists' Eighth Route Army established its headquarters in his home province of Shanxi. After joining the party, he was assigned to help recruit soldiers for the military and to find others who would serve as guerrillas in the militia in their local villages. He also helped recruit and cultivate young people to become party members. In the years of fighting from 1937 to 1949 he took part in guerrilla activities and worked with the regular army but he never joined the army. He ended the civil war as a local county party leader, like Zhao Ziyang and Wan Li, at the same time, in their respective provinces.

In 1949, as the advancing Communist army took over the country, Hua was sent to Hunan province, first as party secretary in Xiangying county and then, in 1951, to Xiangtan county, Mao's home county. In 1952 he rose to be head of the government office of Xiangtan prefecture, which included twelve counties, and deputy party secretary; in 1955 he became party secretary of Xiangtan prefecture. In Xiangtan where he strongly supported collectivization, he came to the attention of Mao Zedong on one of Mao's visits to his home area. In 1956 Hua was promoted to the provincial level where he first worked in educational and cultural affairs, then headed the provincial United Front and in 1958 the Hunan province economics small group. He became deputy governor in 1958. In the fall of 1959, Hua became one of Hunan's provincial party secretaries. In 1964 he played a role in developing the industries that
had moved inland to Hunan from the coastal areas to escape the possibility of foreign attack.

In the summer of 1959, Hua accompanied Mao on a visit to his home county. At the time, China had no air conditioning and Hua, concerned about the heat and Mao's safety, reportedly stood guard all night so that the windows in Mao's bedroom could remain open. Under Hua's leadership, Mao's home in Xiangtan in effect became a national shrine and Hua helped build the area around it into a tourist site. In Mao's hometown, Shaoshan, Hua also supervised the development of an irrigation project.

By early 1967 Hua was already the second-highest official in Hunan and at the 9th Party Congress in April 1969 he was elected a member of the Central Committee. In 1970 he became provincial first party secretary. In short, Hua was a generalist who rose step by step within the hierarchy with experience in all major civilian sectors: agriculture, industry, finance, culture-education, and science and technology.
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The month after Lin Biao's crash in 1971, Mao assigned Hua to be first political commissar of the Hunan Provincial Military Region to help ensure that Lin Biao's followers did not dominate the military in the region. Hua's experience on the Politburo from 1973 to 1976 gave him a broad introduction to national policy issues and a chance to get to know other high-level officials. He had no experience in foreign policy and had never served in the regular army. At the January 1975 NPC he was promoted to vice premier and minister of public security. Hua did not stand out as a brilliant leader, but Mao found him to be a strong and reliable supporter of his political campaigns and Hua rose after each major political campaign. But unlike Mao the romantic revolutionary, Hua acquired a reputation as one who investigated problems firsthand and then solved problems pragmatically.

Ji Dengkui

In 1975, Ji Dengkui, at age fifty-two, was one of the youngest of the vice premiers and was considered a possible candidate for an even higher position.
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In 1952 when Mao was touring Henan, he had been dissatisfied with the vague, general answers he was receiving from local officials—until he talked with Ji Dengkui, then a twenty-nine-year-old party secretary in a factory producing machinery for a coal mine. In his explanations, Ji Dengkui was very concrete, clearly well-informed, and, unlike most officials who were intimidated when talking to Mao, not afraid to answer directly. Mao asked Ji a series of questions—if he had joined in the intense criticisms of other people, whether others had done the same to him, whether he had killed other people, and whether he had committed errors in killing others. Ji answered “yes” to all the questions while providing examples. Mao had expected to talk with Ji for ten to fifteen minutes, but, impressed with his answers, he instead invited Ji to join him on the train to Wuhan, where they talked for four hours. An able official, Ji Dengkui had risen steadily in the Henan party structure and was considered more skilled than
a Hunan rival who was about the same age, Hua Guofeng. Every time Mao visited Henan, he asked to speak with Ji. It is estimated that Mao talked with Ji on over fifty occasions. In the wake of the Great Leap Forward, when Mao asked whether the problems were serious, Ji explained that he and several members of his family had suffered from malnutrition due to policy errors. When Mao asked how long it would take to recover from the Great Leap, Ji said if things went well, it would take two to three years; if they did not go well, three to five years. Mao publicly contrasted Ji's views, which later proved correct, with those of Chen Yun, who said it would take a decade. From that point on, Ji did not have good relations with Chen Yun. Though Ji suffered at the outset of the Cultural Revolution, his career rebounded quickly and by 1970 Mao had appointed him to the State Council.

Shortly before the civil war began in 1946, Deng Xiaoping had met Ji and Ji's friend Zhao Ziyang, both then district party secretaries in Henan, in the border region under Deng's direction. Thereafter, Ji studied for one year in Moscow and then was assigned to Henan, working under the No. 1 Ministry of Machine Building. Deng was familiar with Ji's abilities and supported Ji's assignment to work in Zhejiang. Ji Dengkui had the necessary qualifications for guiding the government's work in the factious province: experience, skill, and support from high-level leaders.

Li Xiannian

Li Xiannian, who after the Third Plenum ranked just below Deng Xiaoping and Chen Yun in the Chinese power structure, had a remarkable ability to get along with many different and even opposing leaders, including Mao and his rival Zhang Guotao, Mao and Zhou Enlai, Hua Guofeng and Deng, and Deng and Chen Yun. Ever since arriving in Beijing in 1954, Li had worked on economic affairs.
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Born into a poor peasant family in eastern Hubei, he joined the Communist Party in 1927 and after the Guomindang and Communists split, he took part in guerrilla activities in the E-Yu-Wan (Hubei, Henan, Anhui) base. Later he joined the forces of Zhang Guotao, who then commanded far more troops than Mao. Zhang, recognizing Li's abilities, promoted him to the rank of political commissar in one of the regiments of his Fourth Front Army.
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On the Long March, when the Fourth Front Army under Zhang separated from Mao's forces and took the western route, it suffered devastating defeats at the hands of local warlord forces, particularly the cavalry of Ma Bufang. Li Xiannian led some 1,500 of these soldiers, now emaciated, through China's Northwest until the four hundred survivors reached Xinjiang. There they were met by Chen Yun—who arranged food and medical care until the men were nursed back to health. Li then went on to Yan'an. After Mao's split with Zhang Guotao, Li Xiannian was extremely careful to show his complete loyalty to Mao and to avoid any possible dubious activities.

In the latter part of the civil war, Li moved forces placed under his command to the Central Plain region, not far from his native village in Hubei. When Deng and
Liu Bocheng marched to the nearby Dabie Mountains, their troops encountered serious hardships and Li, making use of his local contacts, helped provide them support: for his efforts, he was promoted to deputy commander of the Liu-Deng forces. After the Communist victory in 1949, Li Xiannian remained in Hubei as provincial party secretary. Over the next several years, he held a variety of high positions in Wuhan City, Hubei province, and in the party's Central-South Bureau, where he worked with Lin Biao.

In Wuhan, Li worked on economic issues, and in 1954, when Deng gave up his position as minister of finance, Li was brought to Beijing as Deng's replacement, serving concurrently as vice chairman of the Finance and Economics Commission of the State Council, under the direction of Chen Yun. At the plenum immediately following the 8th Party Congress in 1956, Li became one of the seventeen members of the Politburo. Unlike Chen Yun, he took an active role in foreign affairs, greeting foreign delegations and making a number of trips abroad. In 1972, for example, he accompanied President Nixon on his visit to the Great Wall. Foreigners remembered Li as warm and affable, and it was clear that he was devoted to his professional work. In addition, he did not express strong opinions and avoided taking political stands that favored one leader against another. Li was a survivor, always able to move with the political winds.