Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China (25 page)

The Political Research Office

On January 6, 1975, the day after Deng took office as vice premier, he had called in Hu Qiaomu and suggested to him that he, Wu Lengxi, Hu Sheng, Li Xin, and others form a small group of writers to deal with theoretical issues.
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Acutely aware of Mao's sensitivities on theoretical issues, Deng and Hu chose people highly regarded by Mao and selected topics to work on that were dear to Mao's heart: the “three worlds,” the character of the Soviet Union, the crisis of capitalism, and critiques of revisionism and imperialism. From the beginning, Deng spent a great deal of time and energy to find ideological arguments acceptable to Mao, to permit himself to have maximum freedom to pursue policies that he felt beneficial to the party and country. As the small brain trust that had been assembled in January expanded its membership in the Political Research Office beginning in July, Deng could work on issues he personally regarded as important (and that Mao would not object to), especially science and technology, and industrial development.

Although the Political Research Office was much smaller than the U.S. White House and was not responsible for implementation, it shared a similar purpose—to act, in effect, as an inner cabinet, a small group of independent advisers directly responsible to Deng who could help him define an overall strategy and draft public announcements. Deng had far greater control over the Political Research Office than over the party bureaucracy, which was too large and diverse to be his personal instrument.

In addition to their informal exchanges, members met every two weeks.
They divided their work into three main areas: theory (Marxist theory and Maoism), domestic issues, and international relations. Initially there were only six senior members (Hu Qiaomu, Wu Lengxi, Li Xin, Xiong Fu, Hu Sheng, and Yu Guangyuan), but soon a seventh was added (Deng Liqun—see Key People in the Deng Era, p. 722). Even at its peak, only forty-one staff members, including support staff, worked in the Political Research Office. A number of the members had been part of Deng's Diaoyutai group, which had worked on the famous nine letters to the Soviet Union in 1962–1963. All the office members were recognized as senior party intellectuals, creative strategists, and good writers. Wu Lengxi, Li Xin, Xiong Fu, Hu Sheng, and Hu Qiaomu had a great deal of experience guiding propaganda work under Mao, but Hu Qiaomu, like Deng Liqun and Yu Guangyuan, also had a strong theoretical background and broad intellectual training.

Deng worked closely with the office members when preparing major speeches and documents. He provided the political direction and laid out the ideas to be incorporated into the drafts they prepared, but he relied on their expertise to ensure that the speeches and documents were faithful to the historical record and consistent with Mao's past writings and Marxist theory. Deng personally read the drafts of important speeches and documents, then met with the writers to go over them. On especially important issues, the documents were then passed on to Mao before they were released, and after Deng received Mao's comments, he would check personally that Mao's views had been incorporated properly.
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Even though Deng had an unusual relationship with Mao, he, like others, worried that the mercurial Mao might find some document unacceptable and let loose his fury in attacks like those at the peak of the Cultural Revolution.

Despite Deng's general authority over party affairs, Mao allowed the Gang of Four to retain control over propaganda in order to prevent Deng from veering from Mao's intended message. In fact, Jiang Qing had her own special writing group, which met at Peking University and at the Beijing City party offices and which was constantly looking for opportunities to criticize documents coming from Deng's Political Research Office.

Jiang Qing's propaganda work and Deng's responsibilities, including culture, science, and technology, inevitably overlapped. To Deng, consolidation in the cultural sphere required a fundamental reorientation—one that involved winning back intellectuals who had been alienated by the Cultural Revolution and putting them in positions where they could contribute to China's modernization. The Political Research Office thus played a key role
in 1975 in strengthening institutions that promoted science, particularly the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).
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One of the most disputed areas between Jiang Qing and Deng was over the compilation and editing of the fifth and final volume of Mao's selected works; it became a battleground for how to define Mao's legacy. One reason Deng had invited Li Xin into his brain trust was because as former secretary to Kang Sheng he had retained control over many of Mao's papers; Li Xin's presence in the Political Research Office strengthened the case for keeping the compilation of the fifth volume under Deng's control. Yet even though Hu Qiaomu, Li Xin, Wu Lengxi, and others on the Political Research Office staff prepared papers for the fifth volume, they conducted their work in a separate office, under the umbrella of a different organization.

One document considered for inclusion in volume 5, Mao's speech “On the Ten Great Relationships,” emerged as a major point of contention. In this speech, originally given on April 25, 1956, after collectivization and nationalization of enterprises had been completed, Mao made a number of points that Deng could use to support programs he was promoting in 1975. Mao said that in peaceful times China should reduce military and defense expenses and channel resources to support economic development in the coastal regions, and that the leaders should learn from the strong points of all nations. Deng requested Mao's permission to republish that speech. When Mao reviewed the drafts of that speech prepared for republication, he suggested some changes, which Deng made. When Deng returned the revised draft to Mao, his cover letter suggested that because the speech had implications for their current domestic and international work, it might be useful to publish it soon, even before volume 5 as a whole was published.
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Mao returned the draft once again with the comment that it should be sent to the Politburo members for discussion. Not surprisingly, the Gang of Four objected to its republication, and Mao never approved its distribution to the general public. On December 26, 1976, shortly after Mao had died and the Gang of Four had been arrested, the speech was finally republished.
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The Political Research Office officially halted its work in December 1975, after Deng lost Mao's support. In its five months of activity, it had held only thirteen meetings of the entire staff.
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In this brief time, it had spearheaded Deng's efforts to develop a long-term road map describing the changes needed in the remainder of the century to achieve the four modernizations. It played a critical role in preparing for the revival of higher education, widening the range of acceptable cultural activities, and promoting science, including
social science. In 1976 it would be criticized for its role in producing the “three poisonous weeds”: (1) The Twenty Articles on Industry, (2) The Outline Report on the Work of the CAS, and (3) The Discussion of Overall Principles. The office played a major but not exclusive role in shaping the first two documents, and the third was produced entirely within the office.

The Twenty Articles on Industry

With his new broader responsibilities, Deng called together officials from all the major economic ministries. From June 16 until August 1, participants met at a State Council theoretical forum on planning work
(Guowuyuan jihua gongzuo wuxuhui)
where they discussed the long-term goals for the economy.
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The forum's planners, from the State Planning Commission, created an agenda that avoided the contentions that inevitably arose in discussions of five-year plans that specified where resources would come from and the size of allocations to specific sectors and projects. Although work on the Ten-Year Economic Vision, the Five-Year Plan (1976–1980), and the 1976 Annual Plan had begun even before the forum opened, the final decisions on these plans were shaped by the long-term goals set by the forum.

The discussions at this State Council forum centered particularly on industry. In the recovery from the Great Leap Forward, Deng had supervised the drafting of the Seventy Articles on Industry in 1961, which provided an overall framework for the structure and goals of the industrial system. This forum addressed similar issues, and although the number of articles varied in different drafts, the last version in 1975 contained twenty articles.

Because statistical systems and reporting were still in disarray in 1975, participants in various fields first exchanged what information they had about the economic situation. During the forum's first two weeks, plenary sessions were held during which leading economic officials heard reports from all the major sectors of the economy. Participants in each sector could see from these reports how much their sectoral goals had to be balanced with the needs and capacities of the other sectors. Beginning on July 2, Gu Mu divided the forum into various working groups to deal with problems in theory, organization, and several key sectors. At the end of the month, the meeting resumed as a whole and pulled together the participants' conclusions in the “Twenty Articles on Industry.”

By 1975, officials had heard about the takeoff of the four little dragons
(South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore), all capitalist countries that were growing more rapidly than the Soviet Union and the socialist countries in Eastern Europe. At that time, however, it was still taboo to openly praise capitalism, because doing so would raise questions about the value of China's sacrifices over many years and even about whether the Chinese Communist Party should remain in power. Instead Marxism-Leninism and Maoism remained the official creed for justifying high-level decision-making.

After the disruptions of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, however, leaders' enthusiasm for modernizing the country by relying heavily on willpower, as they had during the Great Leap Forward, had virtually disappeared. Most participants believed that to grow economically China needed to return to the sober planning of the 1950s before the Great Leap Forward and of the early 1960s during the recovery from the Leap. Participants believed that China should rely on a planning system because of its huge population, shortage of land, and its limited resources. Whereas less crowded countries with smaller populations could enjoy the benefits of lavish consumption despite the waste that comes from open markets, party leaders believed China had to establish priorities and control profits and wasteful consumption. Furthermore, given the risk that Mao might oppose even this sober planning, participants justified it as Mao's way. Invitations to the forum announced that its purpose was to discuss “Mao's theory of speeding up modernization.” And after the forum, the Ten-Year Economic Vision that emerged was labeled “Mao's plans for modernization.”
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In acknowledging the need for China to raise its sights, Deng was ahead of the other leaders. His travels to New York and France and his frequent meetings with foreign officials had given him a far clearer sense than most officials of how much other countries had been transformed and how far China had fallen behind. To catch up, China needed fundamental changes.

Some years after Mao's death, Deng could boldly explain that China must borrow ideas from capitalist countries, and that doing so would not threaten its sovereignty or rule by the Communist Party. But Deng had been criticized during the Cultural Revolution for being too bourgeois, and in 1975 there was not yet a consensus about opening markets and learning from capitalist countries. So he did what he could to push at the margins. He promoted an expansion of foreign technology imports. He accepted the view of fellow officials that China should not borrow money from foreigners, but the country could make “delayed payments” when foreigners sent goods or capital to China.
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In addition, Deng supported giving material incentives to workers
by offering to pay not according to need, but “according to work.” Even these modest efforts to modify the old system, however, frightened some conservative officials, who continued to argue fiercely about the need to adhere strictly to the principles of Mao Zedong.

Deng did not attend the forum, but he read the summary reports of the discussions and on August 18, after the first draft of the “Twenty Articles on Industry” was completed, he gave his views on the major issues presented. He acknowledged that agricultural production had to be increased before industry could be expanded and he agreed that industry should provide machinery to the communes to help raise agricultural production. At the time, Chinese industry was in no position to sell manufactured goods abroad. To pay for a planned expansion of technology imports to improve China's production capacity, Deng was prepared to sell petroleum, coal, and handicrafts. Some of the early imports would be mining equipment so that China could expand the production of coal and petroleum. Overall, Deng stressed the importance of science and technology and of improving enterprise management and the quality of products. He wanted new rules and laws, better enforcement, and organizational discipline. He also confirmed his support for giving extra pay to those who did difficult or hazardous work.
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The drafters revised their document to take Deng's views into account.

On September 5, representatives from some twenty leading state enterprises were invited to review the drafts of the “Twenty Articles on Industry” and offer their views.
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One round of revision was completed on October 25, which happened to be the same day that Mao Yuanxin first passed on Mao's criticism of Deng at a Politburo meeting. Although the drafters had taken care to call the plans “Mao's plans,” on October 29 Zhang Chunqiao complained that the twenty articles used quotations by Mao only from before the Cultural Revolution. Hu Qiaomu quickly turned out a new draft that incorporated phrases Mao had used during the Cultural Revolution. (He later blamed himself for failing to anticipate that problem, which triggered Mao's criticisms and gave Mao an excuse for dismissing Deng.) Members of the Gang of Four had not been included in the discussions on the economic issues, but early in 1976, once the issues had been politicized, they joined in the criticism, calling it one of the three “poisonous weeds” that had encouraged material incentives and neglected mass mobilization.