As China looks back over 30 years of economic reform, spearheadedin 1978 by late former supreme leader Deng Xiaoping in the wake of thepolitical turmoil of the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), a former topofficial in the ruling Communist Party explores why this move wasneeded. Bao Tong, former aide to ousted late premier Zhao Ziyang, wrotethis anniversary essay from his Beijing home, where he has lived underhouse arrest since his release from jail in the wake of the 1989student movement. Part 2 of a series follows:
Third Plenum: What Really Happened
At the beginning of 1962, as the Party was preparing for a congressof 7,000 people amid a tide of boastful flattery, Deng Xiaoping made awry comment: "If something is so beautiful in the first place, why dowe need to put make-up on it?" This was splendid. And again, at thelively third plenary session of the 11th Party Congress [in 1978], there was noneed for embroidery, no need to "revise" history. In fact, reformwasn't discussed at the Third Plenum. Reform wasn't listed on theagenda, nor was it mentioned in the work reports. No one passed amotion calling for it, and there was no investigation into a possiblereform program.
At that time, Wan Li in Anhui was implementing his policy of"household responsibility" for farmland, while Zhao Ziyang was tryingout his policy of "reforms to expand the self-determination of farmersand enterprises" in Sichuan. But they were local leaders at that time.The word "reform" wasn't even in the vocabulary of central governmentleaders. The fact cannot be concealed or changed that reforms weren'tthe theme of the Third Plenum.
Sometimes, history resonates with itself. In 1969, as the CommunistParty was preparing for the Ninth Party Congress, Lin Biao put forwardthe view that the process of continuous revolution should be stopped,and the Party should turn its attention instead to ways to developproductivity. If Mao had been receptive to this idea, then maybe LinBiao would have gone on to become the next Deng Xiaoping.
But the opposite occurred, because the suggestion angered Maodeeply, causing the rift between them. Fast forward to 1978, and theThird Plenum, where Deng Xiaoping thought the same thing, that thecontinuous process of revolution should be stopped, and that the wholeParty should turn its attention to building a modern China. Luckily,Hua Guofeng wasn't Mao, and fortunately he accepted Deng's suggestion.
Hua and Deng agreed ahead of the Third Plenum that it would lookforwards rather than backwards and avoid getting tangled up in"problems left over by history." (By this, they meant that it wouldn'tconcern itself with debating the issue of all the trumped-up ormistaken political charges against people.) They decided that what wasneeded was "unity to face the future."
Looking ahead
But what were we facing? We were looking ahead to modernization. Butafter Chen Yun and Hu Yaobang caused trouble, the members of the PartyCentral Committee kicked up a fuss en masse, overturning Huaand Deng's planned framework. Pretty soon, everyone had turned theirattention to talking about the past, and then the debates came thickand fast. What were they talking about? They were talking about theCultural Revolution, the Lushan meeting, the unresolved "politicalcases," and Mao Zedong.
From the point of view of Chairman Hua and vice-chairman Deng, thiswas a loss of control. It was hard for them to endure because it madethem look passive. But from the point of view of those Party CentralCommittee delegates sitting in the hall, it was the revolution they hadnever had. At least, it was the first taste they had had of liberationsince Mao Zedong became the "core" of the Party, particularly since hehad punished Peng Dehuai and harried Liu Shaoqi and Lin Biao to theirdeaths.
Finally, they were able to debate the rights and wrongs of MaoZedong, and to put the case of the ordinary Chinese people without fearor shame. This was where the true creativity and life-force of theThird Plenum lay! This was how it differed utterly from previousmeetings—those scripted presentations upon which thedeadening of spirit lay so heavy. Finally, they had forced DengXiaoping to go along with this new turn of events and adapt to thechange that was in the air.
New script
So Deng tossed aside the old script that had been written for him byHu Qiaomu and asked Hu Yaobang and Yu Guangyuan to write new scriptstitled "The Liberation of Our Thought" and "Making Full Use ofDemocracy," and he sat up and took notice. The hubbub of the ThirdPlenum and Deng's ability to follow the mood of the meeting is worthyof study by later generations in the Communist Party, and it is atradition that should continue. Sadly, there are some people who singthe praises of the Third Plenum but are unable to allow themselves tospeak of its true force for life, because they don't dare face up toit, and they don't dare allow it to continue.
We can perhaps imagine what might have transpired if the meeting hadtruly gone ahead according to the carefully laid plans of Chairman Huaand Vice-chairman Deng, and gone ahead in a quiet and orderly manner;if Chen Yun and the others hadn't made a fuss, if the mistakes that Maomade had been covered up, and the Central Committee delegates hadn'tbeen allowed to talk about them so freely. If that had happened, andthey had stuck rigidly to Deng's theme of "Turning our attention to thework of modernization," what sort of ending would we have seen then? Itis fairly obvious that we would have seen another power struggle andanother political coup of the kind that both Mao and Deng knew so wellhow to do.
It's just as well, then, that the Third Plenum was a uniquely livelymeeting. It started a chain reaction. The frenzied debates in theCentral Committee led to similar discussions at local and grass-rootslevels, to a healthy hubbub within the Party and in society at large.As everyone began talking at once, initially about the [1976] TiananmenIncident and the political issues of the Cultural Revolution, thesubjects debated expanded to the communes, to the planned economy, tocollectivism, to the iron rice-bowl, and all sorts of related problems.All these subjects lost their forbidden halo of light and became thingsthat ordinary people could examine, and debate. The entire impetus forreform sprang directly out of this process of everyone talking at once.
And as for the ordinary Chinese people, who weren't allowed todebate Mao Zedong, whose mouths had to be kept shut because they hadlost the right to speak, who were unable even to solve the problems oftheir own daily existence, for them, this debate turned into a newproductivity. At a time in history when nobody dares open their mouths,a lively debate can translate into a powerful force for production.This is a truth. It is is truth proven by the Third Plenum. Would anyof our eulogists care to write a poem about that?
The Third Plenum wasn't the origin: It was the product of thesmashing of the Gang of Four. Otherwise, the meeting would probablyhave been led by the Gang of Four. But the origin didn't lie with thesmashing of the Gang of Four, either, which was itself the product ofthe April 5 movement on Tiananmen Square in 1976. The canny Chinesepeople used the occasion of a memorial for the deceased Zhou Enlai toexpress their anger at those in power at the time, namely, Mao Zedong.It was popular sentiment of this kind that heralded the beginning ofthe post-Mao era, and pointed to the direction China would take afterMao. Anyone looking for the origins of China's reform era doesn't haveto go very far. Just walk out onto Tiananmen Square, where the anti-Maosentiment was so strongly concentrated, even if was expressed incomplete silence.
Written by Bao Tong for broadcast on RFA's Mandarin service.Service director: Jennifer Chou. Translated and produced for the Web in English by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Sarah Jackson-Han.