Deng Xiaoping
 |
| Deng Xiaoping |
Chinese leader
Written By:
Deng
Xiaoping, Wade-Giles romanization Teng
Hsiao-p’ing, (born August 22, 1904, Guang’an, Sichuan
province, China—died February 19, 1997, Beijing), Chinese communist leader who
was the most powerful figure in the People’s
Republic of China from the late 1970s until his death in 1997.
He abandoned many orthodox communist doctrines and attempted to incorporate
elements of the free-enterprise system and other reforms into the Chinese
economy.
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Early life and career until the Cultural Revolution
Deng was the son of a
landowner and studied in France (1920–24), where he became
active in the communist movement, and in the Soviet
Union (1925–26). He then returned to China and later became a
leading political and military organizer in the Jiangxi
Soviet, an autonomous communist enclave in
southwestern China that had been established in 1931 by Mao
Zedong. Following the ouster of the communists by Nationalist forces under Chiang Kai-shek in 1934, Deng
participated in the arduous Long
March (1934–35) of the Chinese communists to a new base in Shaanxi
province, northwestern China. From 1937 to 1945 he served as the commissar
(political officer) of a division of the communists’ Eighth Route Army, at which time he was
appointed a secretary of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Deng
also acted as chief commissar of the communists’ Second Field Army during the Chinese Civil War (1947–49). After the
communist takeover of China in 1949, he became the regional party leader of
southwestern China. In 1952 he was summoned to Beijing
and became a vice-premier. Rising rapidly, he became general secretary of the
CCP in 1954 and a member of the ruling Political
Bureau in 1955.
From the mid-1950s Deng was
a major policy maker in both foreign and domestic affairs. He became closely
allied with pragmatist leaders such as Liu
Shaoqi, who stressed the use of material incentives and the
formation of skilled technical and managerial elites in China’s quest for economic
development. Deng thus came into increasing conflict with Mao,
who stressed egalitarian policies and revolutionary enthusiasm as the key to economic growth, in opposition to Deng’s emphasis on
individual self-interest.
Deng was attacked during
the Cultural Revolution (1966–76) by
radical supporters of Mao. He was stripped of his high party and government
posts sometime in the years 1967–69, after which he disappeared from public
view. In 1973, however, Deng was reinstated under the sponsorship of Premier Zhou
Enlai and made deputy premier, and in 1975 he became
vice-chairman of the party’s Central Committee, a member of its Political
Bureau (Politburo), and chief of the general
staff. As effective head of the government during the months
preceding the death of Zhou, he was widely considered the likely successor to
Zhou. However, after Zhou’s death in January 1976, the Gang
of Four—the pro-Mao radical elite during the Cultural
Revolution—managed to purge Deng from the leadership once again. It was not
until Mao’s death in September 1976 and the consequent fall from power of the
Gang of Four that Deng was rehabilitated, this time with the assent of Hua Guofeng, Mao’s chosen successor to the
leadership of China.
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Rise to preeminence
By July 1977 Deng had
returned to his high posts. He soon embarked on a struggle with Hua for control
of the party and government. Deng’s superior political skills and broad base of
support soon led Hua to surrender the premiership and the chairmanship to
protégés of Deng in 1980–81. Zhao Ziyang became premier of the government, and Hu
Yaobang became general secretary of the CCP; both men looked to
Deng for guidance.
Deng Xiaoping; Carter,
JimmyChinese leader Deng
Xiaoping with U.S. Pres. Jimmy Carter at the White House, Washington, D.C.,
January 1979.National Archives, Washington, D.C. (183157)
From that point on, Deng
proceeded to carry out his own policies for the economic development of China.
Operating through consensus, compromise, and persuasion,
Deng engineered important reforms in virtually all aspects of China’s
political, economic, and social life. His most important social reform was the
institution of the world’s most rigorous family-planning program—the one-child policy—in order to control
China’s burgeoning population. He instituted decentralized economic management
and rational and flexible long-term planning to achieve efficient and
controlled economic growth. China’s peasant farmers were given individual
control over and responsibility for their production and profits, a policy that
resulted in greatly increased agricultural production within a few years of its
initiation in 1981. Deng stressed individual responsibility in the making of
economic decisions, material incentives as the reward for industry and initiative, and the formation of cadres
of skilled, well-educated technicians and managers to spearhead China’s
development. He freed many industrial enterprises from the control and
supervision of the central government and gave factory managers the authority
to determine production levels and to pursue profits for their enterprises. In
foreign affairs, Deng strengthened China’s trade and cultural ties with the
West and opened up Chinese enterprises to foreign investment.
Deng eschewed the most conspicuous leadership posts in the
party and government. But he was a member of the powerful Standing Committee of
the Political Bureau, and he retained control of the armed forces by virtue of
his being chairman of the CCP’s Central Military Commission. He was also a
vice-chairman of the CCP. Owing both to his posts and to the weight and
authority of his voice within the party, he remained China’s chief policy maker
throughout the 1980s. In 1987 Deng stepped down from the CCP’s Central
Committee, thereby relinquishing his seat on the Political Bureau and its
dominant Standing Committee. By so doing he compelled similar retirements by
many aged party leaders who had remained opposed or resistant to his reforms.
Deng faced a critical test
of his leadership in April–June 1989. Zhao had replaced the too-liberal Hu as
general secretary of the CCP in 1987. Hu’s death in April 1989 sparked a series
of student demonstrations in Tiananmen Square in Beijing demanding
greater political freedom and a more democratic government. After some
hesitation, Deng supported those in the CCP leadership who favoured the use of
force to suppress the protesters, and in June the army crushed the
demonstrations in the Tiananmen Square Incident with
considerable loss of life. Zhao was replaced as party leader by the more authoritarian Jiang Zemin, to whom Deng yielded his chairmanship
of the Military Commission in 1989. By then Deng lacked any formal post in the
communist leadership, but he still retained ultimate authority in the party.
Although his direct involvement in government declined in the 1990s, he
retained his influence until his death in 1997 from complications of Parkinson disease and a lung infection.
Per Deng’s wishes, some of his organs were donated, his body was cremated, and
his ashes were scattered at sea.
Legacy
Deng restored China to
domestic stability and economic growth after the disastrous excesses of the
Cultural Revolution. Under his leadership, China acquired a rapidly growing
economy, rising standards of living, considerably expanded personal and
cultural freedoms, and growing ties to the world economy. Deng also left in
place a mildly authoritarian government that remained committed to the CCP’s
one-party rule even while it relied on free-market mechanisms to transform
China into a developed country.
With affection,
Ruben
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