By Richard Baum, Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles
The rise of Deng Xiaoping to the status of paramount leader was confirmed in December of 1978 at the Third Plenum of the Eleventh Central Committee. This particular meeting has been widely hailed within China as a major turning point in the modern history of the country. It closed out the era of Mao and ushered in the era of reform.
Pursuit of Economic Growth, Marketizing China’s National Economy, Abandonment of Class Struggle
At the Third Plenum, five major new policies were introduced. The first was the declaration by the party leaders for an immediate end to the Maoist imperative of deepening class struggle and a corresponding shift toward the all-out pursuit of economic growth and modernization.
Second, in support of this new developmental priority, it was decided, in principle, to begin rationalizing and marketizing China’s national economy.
The third policy was closely related to the abandonment of class struggle. It included the party’s commitment to abandon Maoist-style mass mobilization campaigns in favor of more low-key, routinized methods of policy implementation.
Learn more about the Cultural Revolution.
Rehabilitation of Party Leaders and Strengthening Collective Leadership
Fourth, large numbers of party officials who had been toppled during the Cultural Revolution were now rehabilitated under the fourth policy. Among those whose verdicts were reversed were Peng Dehuai, Peng Zhen, Lo Ruiqing, and Bob Yibo.
These and other revolutionary heroes had been humiliated, brutally beaten, and incarcerated by Red Guards and revolutionary rebels during the Cultural Revolution. Now they were cleared of all wrongdoing. In some cases, it came too late as they were already dead.
Fifth, and finally, in an effort to prevent a repetition of uncontrolled autocratic leadership and Cultural Revolution-style chaos, the Third Plenum committed the Communist Party of China to strengthening the basic institutions of collective leadership, socialist democracy, and socialist legality.
This is a transcript from the video series The Fall and Rise of China. Watch it now, on Wondrium.
Reversal of Policies
The policies introduced at the Third Plenum of the Eleventh Central Committee were a bold sweep and far-reaching in their implications. These reforms represented a wholesale reversal of the policies of the previous two decades.
At some level, they were a near- perfect reflection, we might say, of Newton’s second law of motion—every action produces an equal but opposite reaction. It was as though the great chaos of the previous two decades had called forth its exact antithesis. By almost any measure, the Third Plenum was an historic meeting.
Deng Xiaoping’s Ascent to Power
As an illustration of Deng’s new popularity with the masses, around the time of the Third Plenum, the streets of Beijing were spontaneously decorated with thousands of small bottles draped from fences and lampposts around the city. The small bottles were a sign of welcome, hailing the return of the diminutive Deng Xiaoping.
Deng Xiaoping’s ascent to power in 1978 was aided immeasurably by his ability to skilfully tap into deep-seated anger and resentment over the nightmarish Cultural Revolution.
But equally important in Deng’s ascent was his uncanny ability to connect with the hopes and aspirations of hundreds of millions of ordinary Chinese, the laobaixing.
Learn more about Mao’s political “rehabilitation” of Deng Xiaoping.
Deng Xiaoping and Bottles
Deng was only a shade under 4’11”, and his given name—Xiaoping—meant ‘small peace’, but could also be read as a homophone for ‘small bottle’. So the small bottles that decorated the streets of Beijing around the time of the Third Plenum were welcoming the small peace, Deng Xiaoping.
In a rather unfortunate historical footnote to this episode, in the aftermath of the bloody Tiananmen crackdown a decade later, in June of 1989, thousands of small broken bottles were hung from fences and light posts around Beijing, signifying that Deng Xiaoping had broken the trust of the people.
But that is about things in future. For the moment, at the end of 1978, Deng enjoyed an enormous wave of popularity. He was the closest thing to a Chinese rock star.
Common Questions about How the 1978 Third Plenum Changed Things for China
Deng Xiaoping’s ascent to power in 1978 was aided immeasurably by his ability to skilfully tap into deep-seated anger and resentment over the nightmarish Cultural Revolution, and his uncanny ability to connect with the hopes and aspirations of hundreds of millions of ordinary Chinese, the laobaixing.
Deng Xiaoping was only a shade under 4’11”, and his given name—Xiaoping—meant ‘small peace’, but could also be read as a homophone for ‘small bottle’. So the small bottles that decorated the streets of Beijing around the time of the Third Plenum were welcoming the small peace, Deng Xiaoping.
The fifth policy sought to prevent a repetition of uncontrolled autocratic leadership and Cultural Revolution-style chaos. The Third Plenum committed the Communist Party of China to strengthen the basic institutions of collective leadership, socialist democracy, and socialist legality.
