Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China (46 page)

To prepare for his new responsibilities, Deng had to reassure his colleagues and to revise the speeches he was preparing to give at the closing session of the work conference and at the Third Plenum. Deng met with the members of the Politburo Standing Committee and again reassured his colleagues, who were aware of his differences with Mao, that he would not become China's Khrushchev: Chairman Mao had made extraordinary contributions to the party and the party should not launch an attack on Mao like Khrushchev's attack on Stalin. He also reassured them that the country would remain united under the banner of Mao Zedong Thought. Observing the eager optimism generated at the work conference, which he had followed by reading the daily summaries, Deng, the experienced elder statesman, cautioned his juniors against the dangers of becoming “giddy with success.” He warned that China would not be able to resolve all its problems quickly and they should not arbitrarily try to force quick resolutions. He also noted that it might take some time to turn around previous decisions on particular cases, such as that on Peng Dehuai and that on the leaders of the February 1967 “counter-current.”
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Some difficult problems could be resolved only by the next generation. Wanting to avoid reopening the wounds from the Cultural Revolution, he recommended further study. He counseled again, as he had many times before: look first at the big picture, then think about the smaller pictures; seek first to understand the broader truth, then consider the specific truths. Deng declared that before China could begin to bring in investment and technology from abroad, it would first need domestic stability. Only with stability could China realize the four modernizations.
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It was vitally important, then, to avoid giving the Chinese public and the outside world any impression that there was a power struggle in China. Deng's comments to the Politburo Standing Committee were accepted as the views of the party. They were printed and distributed to conference participants a few days after the work conference.
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Since he would now become the preeminent leader, Deng had to redraft the speeches he was slated to give at the closing session of the work conference and at the Third Plenum. By December 2, a few days after Hua had yielded on all major points of policy, Deng called in Hu Yaobang and Yu Guangyuan, committed reformers, who would oversee preparation of his speech for the closing session of the work conference, a speech that might be the most important of his life. He was then busy finalizing negotiations with the United States on normalization of relations and making military preparations for a strong response to Vietnam's expected attack on Cambodia. But
Deng had been considering the issues he would address in the speech since at least 1969–1973 when he had been banished to Jiangxi. Hu Yaobang and Yu Guangyuan would be assisted by the actual drafters of the speech and, as usual, Hu Qiaomu was to supply the final polishing.
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Rarely did Deng write out notes for a speech, but for this meeting on December 2 he took out three pages of notes with some 1,600 Chinese characters (about eight hundred words) and explained to those responsible for the draft what he expected in terms of the speech's style, content, and outline. He told the writers that he wanted the speech to be brief and clear. He wanted short, concise sentences because they would be more forceful. He wanted to make clear how backward China was and how much it needed to change. On December 5, after he read the first draft, Deng gave the speechwriters detailed line-by-line comments. When he met them to review new drafts on December 9 and December 11, he again went through the same detailed process.

In the speech, Deng did not present new policies, for he had not had the time nor the staff to prepare them. Instead, he gave the assembled party leaders an overview of his approach for the new era. The speech reflected his perspective on the big issues that he was then wrestling with: how to encourage fresh thinking while minimizing resistance from conservative officials, how to show respect for Mao while departing from Mao's policies, how to present optimistic visions while preventing later disappointments, how to maintain stability while opening up the economy, and how much freedom to give local officials while still maintaining national priorities.

In his notes for the first meeting with his speechwriters, Deng had listed seven topics: (1) emancipating our minds, (2) promoting inner-party democracy and the legal system, (3) reviewing the past to guide the future, (4) overcoming excessive bureaucracy, (5) allowing some regions and enterprises to get rich first, (6) clarifying assignments of responsibility, and (7) tackling new problems. At the second meeting, Deng told his speechwriters that he had decided to combine the last several topics into one so that the final draft would address four themes.

On the afternoon of December 13, at the closing session of the Central Party Work Conference, Deng began his speech by announcing his themes: “Today, I mainly want to discuss one question, namely ‘how to emancipate our minds, seek the true path from facts, and unite as one, in looking to the future.’” Deng praised the work conference as the best and most open discussion the party had convened since 1957. People, he said, must be allowed to
express their views about the real situation. “Centralism can be correct only when there is a full measure of democracy. At present, we must lay particular stress on democracy, because for quite some time . . . there was too little democracy. . . . The masses should be encouraged to offer criticisms. . . . There is nothing to worry about even if a few malcontents take advantage of democracy to make trouble . . . the thing to be feared most is silence.” Deng did not then or at any other time advocate unlimited free speech. In fact, by November 29, a few days after some people began posting their views on a wall not far from Tiananmen Square, Deng had already stated that some opinions posted on “Democracy Wall” were incorrect.

To praise Mao while still giving himself room to depart from some of his policies, Deng said, “Without [Mao's] outstanding leadership, [we] would still not have triumphed even today. . . . Chairman Mao was not infallible or free from shortcomings . . . at an appropriate time they should be summed up and lessons should be drawn from them . . . however, there is no need to do so hastily.” He repeated his view that Mao had committed errors, that he himself had made errors, and that any leader who tries to accomplish things makes errors. Deng expressed the prevailing view at high levels that China's two huge disasters, the Great Leap and the Cultural Revolution, were caused by a system that allows one person to dominate without any input from other voices. China therefore needed to develop a legal system so that a single individual, no matter how able, will not dominate. If laws are initially imperfect and incomplete, they can be made fair and just, step by step, over time.

Deng's strategy for achieving modernization stood in stark contrast to Mao's reliance on spiritual appeals to advance the Great Leap Forward. As Deng said: “Initiative cannot be aroused without economic means. A small number of advanced people might respond to moral appeal, but such an approach can only be used for a short time.”
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Instead, Deng argued, China must create an internal structure that will reward those who advance science, technology, and productivity with promotions and a comfortable way of life. In particular, Deng advocated giving more flexibility to local officials, who would then take more initiative.

Deng declared that the theory of collective responsibility had meant, in practice, “that no one is responsible.” He advocated assigning responsibilities to individuals and acknowledged that to do so, one must also give individuals power. When in 1975 he had said that lower officials must dare to think and dare to act, officials worried that Mao might reverse these policies; in 1978, when he repeated the phrase, those listening to his speech did not have to
worry about a possible policy reversal: they felt empowered to try to help the country, even if they might make some mistakes along the way.

Deng supported reversing verdicts made during the Cultural Revolution: “Our principle is that every wrong should be corrected.” But he was adamantly opposed to people “settling accounts” against those who in the past had attacked them or their friends or relatives. To avoid cycles of retaliation, injustices should be settled promptly without leaving loose ends. “But,” he said, “to go into every detail is neither possible nor necessary.” People should not dwell on the Cultural Revolution, which he knew could only be divisive, but let time clarify it: “stability and unity are of prime importance.” People who had engaged in beating, smashing, looting, and factionalism could not be placed in important positions, but many who committed errors and then engaged in sincere self-criticisms should be given new opportunities. Deng made a point of mentioning, however, that the party would be stricter with those who made mistakes in the future.
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Deng tried to anticipate some of the problems that would arise with the new policies and to diffuse the hard feelings of those who would be unhappy about them. He knew that inequalities would increase—that given the speed of change that was to come, and the many needs of the Chinese, “some will get rich first.” But, he said, others will have their opportunity later, and those who get rich first should help those who are initially left behind. He warned that problems would probably emerge that would be unfamiliar to him and other party leaders, but that the overall interests of the party and the state had to remain the priority: they must all “keep on learning.”
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Although he did not yet get into specifics, Deng stood ready to allow some markets, and told his colleagues not to fear that they would cause economic chaos. He acknowledged that there would be frictions between those responsible for overall planning and local officials determined to exercise more autonomy. Conflicts of interest might be more serious than before, but, he argued, the long-term development of productive forces would help ease such problems.
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To prepare for the many changes to come, Deng recommended that the party officials study three subjects in particular: economics, science and technology, and management. And he specified how officials would be evaluated: the party committee in an economic unit would be judged mainly by the unit's adoption of advanced methods of management; by its progress in making technical innovations; by increases in productivity; and by its profits, measured in part by the personal income of its workers and the collective
benefits it provides. The participants were eager for more specific guidance in this new environment. Although members ordinarily dispersed after the last major speech of a work conference, after Deng's speech, the attendees agreed to extend the conference for two more days so that the small groups from the various regions could continue to discuss how they could implement the new directions Deng had described.
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Many ideas expressed in Deng's speech seem to a Western business manager like common sense; some of them even had roots in policies carried out in China before 1949 as well as in the more stable years of the early 1950s and early 1960s. But for those leading China in 1978, Deng's ideas represented a fundamental departure from the Mao era. Listeners had reason to hope that China's painful period of mass mobilization, class warfare, hard-line ideology, hero worship, intensive collectivization, and all-encompassing economic planning would at last be brought under control.

The Third Plenum, December 18–22, 1978

The Third Plenum of the Eleventh Party Congress began on Monday, December 18, at the Jingxi Hotel, where the work conference had ended the previous Friday. Slightly over half the participants at the plenum had also taken part in the work conference, but the plenum also included all the members of the Central Committee—who held the key positions in the party, government, and the military—whereas the work conference had included other prominent party leaders selected because they could help provide a broad theoretical perspective. Those attending the plenum who had not attended the work conference assembled on the Monday morning and afternoon before the others arrived to read the conference speeches by Deng Xiaoping, Marshal Ye, and Hua Guofeng so that they could all share the same perspective. There followed three days of formal plenary sessions and small group meetings led by the same leaders of the work conference.

The Third Plenum in a sense was a celebration of the spirit of the work conference, a formal approval of the new directions in a ceremony that announced the results of the work conference to the Chinese public and to the rest of the world. Plenums are identified by the number of the party congress that they follow, but the changes wrought by the Third Plenum of the 11th Congress were so momentous that when a Chinese person says simply, “the Third Plenum,” listeners know exactly to which third plenum he or she is referring. In the minds of the Chinese public, the Third Plenum marked
the beginning of “Deng's reform and opening” that was to transform China. Although reform and opening had in fact begun under Hua, they were realized under the leadership of Deng.

As agreed at the time of the work conference, Hua Guofeng retained his titles: chairman of the party, premier of the government, and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC). Deng retained his titles: vice chairman of the party, vice premier of the government, and vice chairman of the CMC. But the foreign press and diplomatic community, like the Chinese public, soon understood that in fact Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping had become the paramount leader. As early as November 23, two days before Hua's November 25 speech, journalists in Hong Kong explained to Robert Novak, a visiting American columnist, that “Deng, only a vice premier, now runs the authoritarian government of China.”
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