Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China (70 page)

Marshal Ye was not a strong-willed person who fought for his convictions; he preferred to avoid confrontation. He accepted the Politburo's decision on Hua, and in fact engaged in a mild self-criticism for his support of Hua.
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Indeed, once Deng became head of the CMC, Marshal Ye chose not to share this responsibility with Deng but to withdraw to his home base in Guangdong, where his son Ye Xuanping was already mayor of Guangzhou and vice governor and where he could enjoy a comfortable life. Marshal Ye was present
at the beginning of the Sixth Plenum for pictures, but he did not stay for the discussions when the resolution on party history and the removal of Hua were formally passed. Later, when Marshal Ye was critically ill in 1984 and 1986, Deng did not pay a courtesy visit as he had done for Zhou. Marshal Ye died in 1986.

The Politburo resolution that finally emerged from these heated discussions was direct and forceful: “Comrade Hua Guofeng eagerly produced and accepted a new cult of personality. . . . In 1977 and 1978, Comrade Hua Guofeng promoted some leftist slogans in the realm of economic work . . . resulting in severe losses and calamities for the national economy. . . . [Although] Comrade Hua Guofeng has also done some successful work, it is extremely clear that he lacks the political and organizational ability to be chairman of the party. That he should never have been appointed chairman of the Military Affairs Commission, everyone knows.”
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Hua was finished. Although he was allowed to remain on the Politburo after the Sixth Plenum in June 1981, he was humiliated by the denunciations and rarely attended high-level party meetings.

Deng had good reason to be pleased with both the process and the results of the historical evaluation, as well as with the removal of Hua Guofeng. Hua Guofeng was removed without a public power struggle. In the historical evaluation, Deng had found a delicate balance that praised Mao enough to avoid weakening the authority of the party, while still criticizing Mao's role in the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution. The broad-based consensus among high-level party leaders that Mao had made serious errors in his later years opened the way for Deng to move in directions that Mao would not have approved of, but that Deng believed would be good for China.

Deng would not tolerate the cult of personality that Mao happily indulged in.
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In sharp contrast to the Mao era, virtually no statues of Deng were placed in public buildings and virtually no pictures of him hung in homes. Few songs and plays were composed to celebrate his triumphs. Deng never even became chairman of the party or premier. Students did learn about his policies and they could cite his best-known aphorisms, but they did not spend time memorizing quotations from his writings.

And yet, even without a cult or august titles—merely the positions of vice chairman of the party, vice premier, and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC)—Deng acquired effective control over the important levers of power. How did he accomplish this amazing feat? By fully using his reputation and moving boldly to create a well-run system capable of building a strong, prosperous country. If Mao were like an emperor above the clouds, reading history and novels and issuing edicts, Deng was more like a commanding general, checking carefully to see that his battle plans were properly staffed and implemented.

The Structure of Power

Deng worked in his home office on Kuang Street, which by car was less than ten minutes northeast of Zhongnanhai. As his hearing worsened, it was awkward for Deng to take part in group meetings. His hearing problem resulted from an untreatable, degenerative nerve disease, occasional tinnitus, which led to nerve deafness and a ringing in the ears.
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As his hearing deteriorated in the late 1980s, a speaker had to speak loudly in his left ear. Deng also found it a better use of time to read documents than to attend meetings. He preferred
to read reports of the meetings and hear about them from his office director, Wang Ruilin, who attended the meetings on his behalf and knew the views of other high officials by meeting with their office directors.

Deng kept a regular schedule. He ate breakfast at home at 8 a.m. and at 9 a.m. went into his office. Deng's wife, Zhuo Lin, and Wang Ruilin prepared materials for him to read, including some fifteen daily newspapers, reference materials with translations from the foreign press, a large stack of reports from the ministries and from provincial party secretaries, internal memoranda collected by the New China News Agency (Xinhua), and drafts of documents sent for his approval. For understanding the latest developments, Deng relied most on the summaries of major activities produced by the party Secretariat and the party General Office. Deng took no notes when he read. Documents were to be delivered to his office before 10 a.m., and he returned them the same day. He left no papers around his office, which was always clean and neat.

Chen Yun had ordered that his office director select five of the most important items for him to read each day, but Deng wanted to see the entire pile so that he could decide for himself what he would look at more carefully. After he had read the materials and made brief comments on some of them, he would pass the whole pile back to Wang and Zhuo Lin, who would pass on those with his circles of approval or his comments to the appropriate officials and place the rest in the files. Deng's circle of approval and his comments on such documents constituted his way of guiding the overall work of the party. On some documents, he simply gave final approval; other documents he sent back for more work, clarification, or with suggestions for new directions to explore.

Deng rarely met visitors during his three hours of morning reading, but for twenty to thirty minutes in the middle of the morning he would take a brisk walk around the garden next to his house. After lunch at home, he generally continued reading materials but sometimes would ask various officials to meet him in his home office. When important foreign visitors came, he would meet them in one of the rooms of the Great Hall of the People and sometimes dine with them.

Early in his career, Deng acquired a reputation for being able to distinguish between major and minor issues and to focus his efforts where they would make the biggest difference for China: devising long-term strategies, evaluating policies likely to determine the success of his long-term goals, winning
the support of fellow officials and the public, and publicizing models that illustrated the policies he wished to pursue. In some important but complex areas like economics or science and technology, Deng relied on others to think through the strategies and present him with the options for the final decision. On other issues, like national security, relations with key foreign countries, and the selection of high-level officials, Deng spent more time finding out what he needed to know to devise the strategies himself. When Wang Ruilin, Deng's office director since 1952, explained Deng's views to the outside, he was very circumspect in what he said and avoided adding his own interpretation. Many officials believe that, in contrast, when Mao Yuanxin, in late 1975 and early 1976, explained his uncle's views to the outside world, he allowed his own strong convictions to color and even supplement his explanations of what Mao wanted conveyed to other officials. But Wang Ruilin avoided giving his personal interpretations of any matter concerning the party or government, even though his long relationship with Deng made him more like a member of the family. It was important to Deng that Wang Ruilin not embellish what he wanted to transmit to the outside. Sometimes, to ensure that on important matters others received his views precisely, Deng would write down his key points and then tell Wang to pass those written comments along.

General Secretary Hu Yaobang, the executive for party matters, and Premier Zhao Ziyang, the executive for government affairs, forwarded all important matters, mostly by paper and rarely in person, to Deng for a final decision. Hu Yaobang chaired the Politburo Standing Committee and regular Politburo meetings, and Zhao chaired the State Council meetings. Chen Yun and Deng rarely attended these gatherings, but instead were represented by their office directors. In his dictated memoirs, Zhao Ziyang reports that he and Hu Yaobang were more like staff assistants than decision-makers, but they were responsible for implementation. Deng did reserve the right to make final decisions, but he was ordinarily not a micromanager; rather he set the agenda and let Hu and Zhao carry out his directives as they thought best. In making the final decisions, Deng did consider the overall political atmosphere and the views of other key leaders. He was authoritarian and bold but in fact he was constrained by the overall atmosphere among Politburo members.

In 1980, the Politburo consisted of the top twenty-five party officials and two alternates. The inner core—the powerful Standing Committee—included
seven members. It was understood that the younger members of the Politburo were potential candidates for membership on the Standing Committee, and that the memers of the Standing Committee would be chosen from among the Politburo members.
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The Standing Committee in the early 1980s consisted of Deng, Chen Yun, Li Xiannian, Marshal Ye, Hua Guofeng, Hu Yaobang, and Zhao Ziyang. The elderly Marshal Ye took little part in the actual work. Chen Yun and Li Xiannian expressed their views on major issues, but the daily party decision-making was largely in the hands of Deng, Hu Yaobang, and Zhao Ziyang. Each member of the Standing Committee and a selected group of other Politburo members had an office director (
mishu
, sometimes translated as “secretary”), located at the Secretariat, who collected materials, drafted papers, processed documents, and served as liaison between the Standing Committee and the offices of other high officials. Despite differences of view, under Deng the Politburo was a relatively disciplined organization that responded to his direction.

When Hua Guofeng was in charge as chairman of the party, he held regular meetings of the Standing Committee of the Politburo. But Deng rarely called Standing Committee meetings: when Zhao once asked him why, Deng replied, “What would two deaf people [Deng and Chen Yun] talk about?” Deng aimed to have a clear assignment of responsibilities. Deng well understood that to gain control over the levers of power, it would be easier to start with a fresh organizational structure than to send one or two leading officials to an old organization that did not match his policies. After the Secretariat was reestablished it became an entirely new organization over which Deng achieved clear control. Deng located this new nerve center for the top party leadership just inside the north gate of Zhongnanhai and put his own appointee, Hu Yaobang, in charge, to lead the daily work of the party. Politburo members had offices at the Secretariat and held their regular meetings there.
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Unlike the Communist Party General Office—a larger administrative unit responsible for drafting and distributing documents and handling communications among party units in Beijing and the provinces—the much smaller party Secretariat, which served only the highest officials, worked like an inner-party cabinet.

Hu Yaobang chaired the Secretariat meetings. Although Hu also chaired the Politburo and Standing Committee meetings, after Deng formed his own administration, the Standing Committee rarely met and the Politburo met less than once a month. Although Zhao Ziyang, as premier, sat in on the Secretariat meetings, Deng, Chen Yun, Li Xiannian, and Marshal Ye did not personally
attend them; instead their office directors went in their place. Each office director had a deep understanding of the views of the person he represented, and as a group these office directors could have frank exchanges, insulated from awkward problems or tensions that might have arisen among the leaders themselves due to concerns about rank, power, or the need to save face.

Deng's perspectives helped shape the consensus, but ordinarily he did not express a final decision until an issue had been vetted through the Secretariat. Once a consensus had been reached on an important issue, documents were drawn up and circulated to the Standing Committee members, who would draw a circle to indicate approval or jot some brief comments—in which case the document would be sent back to the Secretariat for another round of drafting. In the end, Deng would figuratively “slap the table” (
pai ban
) to signify final approval of a decision or the final wording of a document.

Several high officials, mostly just below the Politburo level, were assigned to be a party secretary (
shuji
) in the Secretariat, and they all had managerial authority. Politburo members and these party secretaries were placed in charge of a “leading small group” that was responsible for coordinating work in certain areas. Peng Zhen, for example, led the leading small group on political and legal affairs; Wan Li headed the leading group on agriculture; Song Renqiong on personnel issues; Yu Qiuli on large industrial and transportation projects; Yang Dezhi on the military; Hu Qiaomu on party history and ideology; Yao Yilin on economic planning; Wang Renzhong on propaganda; Fang Yi on science and technology; Gu Mu on foreign trade and investment; and Peng Chong on work on the Yangtze delta area (around Shanghai).
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Other top leaders sometimes disagreed with Deng's decisions and occasionally were upset by his failure to consult with them. Early on, Deng had to contend with the views of Chen Yun, who understood the economy better than Deng and whose opinions carried great authority with the other leaders. In the military field, once Marshal Ye stepped aside, Deng did not feel inhibited by anyone else's opinions. On military and foreign policy issues, Deng, confident of his own views based on his decades of experience, rarely yielded to others—though he relied on experts for the details and the drafting of documents. Even when other leaders disagreed with decisions Deng made, they accepted party discipline and did not express contrary views in public.