The Weight of History

👤 Hua Guofeng

9 min read

🇨🇳 Communist China

  • 👤 Mao Zedong – Supreme Chairman of the Party
    • selected as his successor
  • 👤 Ye Jianying – a senior vetaran with ==gravitas==, aka developed guanxi and connections
    • Hua relied heavily upon him following Mao’s death
  • 👤 Wang Dong Xin – Mao’s private security chief
  • 👤 Deng Xiaoping
    • had military support
  • 👤 Chen Yun
    • had the military’s ear

”Political generalist” tendencies

  • Hua spent 20 years in Hunan province
  • no particular specialty other than a focus on developing the nation – similar to Mao, but with a much more moderate and realistic view
    • 1959: During the 1958-1962 Great Leap Forward, Hua reported honestly that “Paddy fields are more infertile, cattle are thinner, people are thinner, and the production cannot be so high”; Mao praised him as “an honest person” in speaking the truth
  • 1971: Worked for State Council – constantly handling concrete issues as a "problem solver"
  • upon arriving in Beijing, Hua worked on the economy: agriculture, finance, and trade under 👤 Zhou Enlai
    • in this way, Hua was also Zhou’s successor
  • 1975: Deng initiated “consolidation”
    • Hua as Vice Premier played a key role in the First Dazhai Conference on Agriculture + made key report focusing on organisational rectification & economic development
  • 1976: Hua had cooperative relationships with veterans → their betrayal blindsided him

​Rise to power

  • 1976 September: Mao dies; chaos amongst the elite on how to govern the country without the charismatic leader
    • the “with you in charge, I am at ease” angle was played up heavily in propaganda
    • he was the Chosen One – not Deng Xiaoping
  • 1976: appointed Mao’s successor, takes on the three most powerful positions in China: Chairman of the Central Committee of the CCP, Premier of the State Council, Chairman of the Central Military Commission
    • indisputably China’s supreme leader
  • A Fork In The Road; either a) continue with Mao’s revolution or b) find a new course
    • Hua, as the top leader, chose a new course of transformation while upholding Mao’s revolution
    • a centrist compromise – perhaps similar to Deng

The most important demographic to court

  1. Party
    • the government is the Party – any policies passed go through the Party
    • they are ==**the Kingmakers
  2. Government
  3. Society
    • mass appeal isn’t really relevant in an Authoritarian State
    • Hua was a nobody from Hunan – no one knew him like they knew Deng

Use of Mao’s words to effect change

  • partial “de-Maoisation”
  • the nation was still entrenched in Mao’s cult of personality; Hua had to walk the line between respecting Mao and effecting change

Important

A lot of this is to ensure his “Two Whatevers” policy would truly just be lip service – if not, he would have tied his own hands in beginning to develop China.

“We will resolutely uphold whatever policy decisions Chairman Mao made, and unswervingly follow whatever instructions Chairman Mao gave.”

  • Todo

Hua Guofeng as initiator of transformation in post-Mao China

  • the thesis underscoring his policy was to “bring order out of chaos”
    • usually used to describe Deng and Hu Yaobang’s post-1978 initiatives; however, Deng and Hu succeeded and enlarged Hua’s initial politiacl direction
    • Wang Huning also used these words to praise Hua in the 2021 speech
  • under Hua’s leadership, China began heading towards stability and development

Transformation can be broken down into:

  1. Purge of the “Gang of Four” and their followers.
  2. Rehabilitation of veteran cadres.
  3. Institutionalisation.
  4. Relaxation of restraint on thinking.
  5. Transition of the party’s key task.

Purge of the “Gang of Four” and their followers

  • 1976 October 6: emergency Politburo meeting held + decided Hua would assume Party's Chairmanship; four ultra-leftists arrested in a single night under Hua’s initiative
    • according to memoirs of participants in the operation (primary sources), it was Hua's decision to purge them Hua directly declared “investigation in solitary confinement” to the Gang of Four
    • Ye Jianying devised the tactics for execution
    • Wang Dongxing ordered the soldiers to act
  • the Gang of Four controlled official media
  • (strategic/political) purging them enabled Hua to have a freer hand in ideological issues
    • the Gang of Four were the staunchest supporters of the principles behind the 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution; removing them = loss of support for the Revolution

Rehabilitation of veteran cadres

  • veteran cadres: cadres purged during the Cultural Revolution, who were to be brought back into the fold
  • under the CCP traditional narrative, Hua “procrastinated and obstructed the work of reinstating veteran cadres in their posts” ==but this was FALSE==
    • 1977 July: Tenth Third Plenum, where Deng was declared rehabilitated with Hua’s approval
      • significant because Deng is an oft-cited example of Hua’s “reluctance” – but his reinstatement came less than a year after Hua’s promotion
      • Hua also declared that cadres were "invaluable assets to our party" and “should be handled judiciously, promptly, and properly”; those who were “able to work but have not been given jobs should be suitably assigned as soon as possible”
  • Eleventh Central Committee membership clearly reflected this rehabilitation
    • 📈 out of 68 new members, more than 20 were rehabilitated cadres
  • 1977 second half: rehabilitation of Hu Yaobang; enlargement of scale of rehabilitation
    • on this issue, Hu and Hua were cooperative and conversed to a consensus on cadre policy
  • 📈 1976 October – 1978 December: 4600 cadres who fell during the Cultural Revolution were rehabilitated

Info + Analysis

Hua aimed to stabilise the party by cooperating with rather than suppressing veteran cadres – who had the institutional experience and political knowhow to usher in his new era.

(significance) Pragmatism won over dogmatic adherence to ideology – again, a trait commonly associated with Deng’s administration.

Institutionalisation

  • Hua clearly recognised the flaws in China’s political system and repeatedly brought up the need to improve + made efforts to build effective political institutions
  • 1978: new Constitution introduced at First Session of the Fifth National People’s Congress
    • clearly aimed to institutionalise political organs
    • restored some articles of 1954 Constitution
    • regulated effective rules of political institutions
    • criticised today; retained concepts from the Cultural Revolution like “continuous revolution” and “four kinds of great democracy”
  • Hua’s effort was the first step in the post-Mao era

Relaxation of restraint on thinking

  • Mao was intolerant of free thinking and severe to political rivals; Hua encouraged people to "let others speak out and let others criticise"
  • 1977: Central Work Conference; Hua reversed verdict on the April Fifth Incident
  • 1978: Hua allowed a debate over the “criterion for judging truth” even though he clearly disliked the outcome
    • some in attendance assessed Hua as a democratic and open-minded leader
  • 1978: Central Work Conference (again); Hua accepted criticism directed at him and offered a self-criticism

Relevance

Hua’s moderate attitude promoted a relaxed atmosphere allowing people to expres their views honestly → should be considered an attempt at the liberation of thinking.

Transition of the party’s key task

  • 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution and after: key task for the CCP was class struggle
    • Hua succeeded this direction initially post-Mao
    • but Hua clearly sought change
  • 1977 onwards: Hua continuously refers to the “Four Modernisations”
    • he sent a large number of delegates to visit Japan and Western countries to learn their experiences and models
    • Hua was the first leader to concretely approve measures that became the 1979 SEZ policy
  • 1978: clearest transition; Hua declared transition to "development of socialist modernisation"

Important

Hua’s modernisation programme, the Western Leap Forward, failed – BUT it was a party consensus from many policymakers including Deng and Hu; it was not Hua's arbitrary decision.

Fall from power; 1978 Watershed Theory (official CCP line)

Historiographies

  • Weatherley’s biographical study including Hua’s early years
  • 1978: Third Plenum of CCP’s Eleventh Central Committee; Deng Xiaoping establishes his leadership, ousting Hua, pioneering “reform and opening”
  • Deng is the “general designer of ‘reform and opening’” + Hua has no positive role
  • long-believed by Chinese and foreign scholars

Note

This is no longer considered a fair view; Hua’s contributions are undervalued.

  • 2008: 30th anniversary of the Eleventh Third Plenum + Hua passes away → CCP changes attitude to assess Hua more positively
  • 2021: 100th anniversary of Hua’s birth → meeting to commemorate Hua + current Politburo Standing Committee member Wang Huning gives a speech praising Hua

Counterpoints

Historiographies that reconsidered the 1978 watershed theory

  • Key facts on Hua + posited that Hua and Deng’s relationship was not a pure power struggle, focus on historical facts:
    • Han Gang
    • Teiwes
    • Sun
  • Biographical study including Hua’s early years – however, follows 1978 watershed theory:
    • Weatherley
  • Hua was NOT incompetent or suppressive; he was highly motivated to open a new age for China

To Organize

Actions

  • (+) initiated China’s transformation post-Mao
    • basically set the stage for China’s economic transformation
  • (+) brought order and stability to China
    • evidence: removed ‘Gang of Four’
  • (+) had Gang of Four, his most potential political opposition, arrested as his first major move
    • removed the radicalism of the Cultural Revolution (C.R.) faction → stopped descent into anarchy/chaos within the party specifically, also to the government and Chinese society at large
    • went against Mao’s pre-mortem blessing of the Gang of Four
      • perhaps motivated by fear of the Gang of Four seizing his power
  • (+) changed direction of the Party – departed from ideological obsession/radicalization, took on a more grounded realistic and pragmatic view
  • revised the Constitution – made it important again
    • previously, the institution was the Constitution – no separation whatsoever
  • (+) supported the rehabilitation of veteran cadres like Deng Xiaoping who were unfairly purged under the C.R.
    • (–) would later lead to his loss of power
  • (+) opened up political space – specifically encouraging political discussions over the C.R.
    • in doing so, he removed the stigma and fear over political consequences in the discussion of the C.R.’s impact
  • (+) attempted to bolster his legitimacy and power via establishing a cult of personality
    • it was a political juggle, to distance himself from Mao’s excesses but also paint himself as a dutiful student, aka Mao’s Chosen One
    • (–) associated himself too closely with Mao as a follower rather than someone breaking free to reform and transform China into the future

Beijing Spring

  • a liberalization of political discourse – spring is a reference to the blooming flower of discourse
  • used by Deng to criticize Hua
  • it’s basically the 1956 Hundred Flowers Campaign

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