China

Readjustment and recovery

Mao’s death and the purge of the Gang of Four left Hua Guofeng, a compromise candidate elevated to the premiership by Mao following the purge of Deng Xiaoping, as the chairman of the CCP and thus the official leader of China. Hua tried to consolidate his position by stressing his ties to Mao and his fidelity to Mao’s basic ideas, but many others in the top leadership wanted to move away from these issues, and Hua’s position eroded over the remainder of the decade. Furthermore, Hua’s successor as party chairman, Hu Yaobang, helped abolish the chairmanship in 1982 in response to concerns that one person might again become too powerful within the party; however, he remained as general secretary.

The ambivalent legacies of the Cultural Revolution were reflected in the members of the Political Bureau chosen just after the 11th Party Congress had convened in August 1977. Like Hua Guofeng, almost half of the members were individuals whose careers had benefited from the Cultural Revolution; the other half were, like Deng Xiaoping, the Cultural Revolution’s victims. While a balance between the two groups would be reached only after a period of years, in the short run the tide quickly shifted in favour of the latter group.