14
Running China
(January 1975)
In 1975 I took charge of the day-to-day business of the Central Committee.1
The Fourth National People’s Congress (NPC), the first since 1964 and thus the first after the Cultural Revolution, met in Beijing from 13 to 17 January 1975. The NPC is the nearest that China has to a parliament but it is not openly elected or representative of the population as a whole. Zhou Enlai delivered the ‘Report on the work of the government’ and set out plans for the development of the Chinese economy based on the modernisation of agriculture, industry, national defence and science and technology. These ‘four modernisations’, as they became known, were Zhou’s legacy and the foundation of the reform programme that Deng was to implement after Zhou’s death. The congress elected what was effectively a ‘cabinet’ of Zhou Enlai, Deng Xiaoping and other like-minded politicians, frustrating Jiang Qing’s ambitions to control the government. As Premier, Zhou Enlai was responsible for the day-to-day business of government but he was so frail that Deng Xiaoping had to deputise for him. Mao’s formal approval had to be acknowledged, but for all practical purposes Deng was now running China although his success was not a foregone conclusion.
Jiang Qing remained Deng Xiaoping’s most vociferous opponent. Following her conviction, imprisonment and death in prison in 1991 (presumed to have been suicide), she has been condemned, almost unanimously, as a vindictive and divisive individual who tried to use her position as Mao’s wife to seize power. Even bearing in mind the common prejudice against women exercising political power in China (the most notable example being the Empress Dowager Cixi) it is difficult to argue that she made any positive contributions to Chinese political life. Towards the end of Mao’s life her support metamorphosed into manipulation and she became his political gatekeeper. It was difficult for anyone to know whether instructions genuinely originated with Mao or with his wife.2
Conversations with Hu Qiaomu and comprehensive reorganisation
Jiang Qing may have been Deng’s most unpleasant antagonist after his return to Beijing from internal exile but she was not his most serious political opponent. The political opposition that caused Deng most difficulty was from established Communist Party intellectuals, respected figures able to argue rationally but resolutely on the basis of Marxist theory, theory that Deng had also studied although he was no theorist. Two of the most implacable were Hu Qiaomu and Deng Liqun, both influential in propaganda and the media. Hu Qiaomu (Mao’s secretary from 1941 to 1966) and Deng Liqun (Liu Shaoqi’s former secretary) were adamantly opposed to Deng Xiaoping’s plans for economic reform and they represented a considerable body of opinion in the leadership of the Communist Party, nationally as well as in Beijing. Although Deng Xiaoping was able to secure the agreement of the Third Plenum of the Eleventh Central Committee on the need for economic reforms in 1978, it was not until the conclusion of his Southern Tour of 1992 that the opposition of Hu Qiaomu, Deng Liqun and their supporters was finally overcome.
Deng’s disagreements with these two theorists, Hu Qiaomu in particular, were on a different level from those with Jiang Qing. Their opposition was based on their genuine but different understanding of Marxist theories: it was not vindictive and there was little personal antagonism. Between January 1975 and January 1976 Deng Xiaoping had 24 ‘conversations’ (tanhua) with Hu Qiaomu and other members of what would eventually become the State Council Political Research Office (Guowuyuan zhengzhi yanjiushi), 15 of these conversations were with Hu alone. Records of these discussions were published by the editorial group for the biography of Hu Qiaomu which was led by Deng Liqun, and they illustrate in detail the struggle that Deng Xiaoping had in reorganising (zhengdun) the Communist Party and overcoming resistance to reform. The establishment of the Political Research Office was formally ratified by the State Council in June 1975 and became operational at the beginning of the following month. Deng Xiaoping had effectively taken over the day-to-day running of the Central Committee, following the formal approval of the Second Plenum of the Tenth Central Committee and the Fourth National People’s Congress (Beijing, 13–17 January) and with the support of Zhou Enlai and (at least nominally) the ageing and infirm Mao Zedong. Deng’s ascent to power continued to be a slow and tortuous affair and would still take many more months of both delicate negotiations and bitter battles.
Deng was walking an ideological tightrope. Although his aim was the fundamental reform of the economy, he had to find a way of presenting it as consistent with the three basic theoretical principles laid down by Mao: ‘opposing and defending against revisionism’ (fanxiu fangxiu), ‘stability and unity’ (anding tuanjie) and ‘improving the national economy’ (ba guomin jingji gaoshangqu). Deng and Zhou drew on these principles selectively, only paying lip service to Mao’s strictures on revisionism; they also ignored much of the background rhetoric that related to class struggle and the dictatorship of the proletariat. Mao was clinging to these slogans while supporting the practical work done by Deng and Zhou: the ‘three principles’ were a useful flag of convenience as they drove through their reform proposals.3
Reorganising the military
Navigating this doctrinal minefield Deng set about his reforms, beginning with the military and the economy. Establishing his authority over the military was his top priority. On 25 January 1975, immediately after his appointment as chief of the general staff and deputy chairman of the Central Military Commission, he spoke to senior officers. He told them that the military was in a chaotic state; many valuable traditions had been lost under Lin Biao; and restoring the over-staffed and cumbersome PLA to pre-1959 effectiveness and confidence was a formidable task. The Central Military Commission convened in an enlarged session from 24 June to 15 July to discuss Deng’s reform proposals. On 14 July Deng set out what he required the PLA to do: recover the old traditions; turn their backs on the days when it was swollen, dispersed, conceited, extravagant and lazy (zhong, san, jiao, she, duo); avoid factional disputes and follow orders from the Party. This was easier said than done as it was not clear who was authorised to issue orders on behalf of the Party. Deng’s proposals met with general approval in the forces and were followed up by swift and resolute reorganisation of command in the major units and a new policy on cadres to stabilise the military.
Reviving the national economy
Once Deng had the military behind him and was in control of the State Council he could work on revitalising the economy. On 10 February 1975 he had the Central Committee issue a ‘Communiqué on the National Economic Plan for 1975’, which ‘called on the entire party to rally all those who could be rallied (yaoqiu quan dang tuanjie yiqie keyi tuanjie de ren) and muster all active elements to improve the national economy’.
The Chinese economy was in a truly parlous state: all sectors had been severely damaged during the Cultural Revolution and in the first half of 1974 many sectors and individual enterprises had not only under-performed against their planned targets but were seriously in debt. Production had dropped, revenue had also decreased, but expenditure was still increasing. There had been a slight increase in agricultural production, but industrial production had stagnated and, crucially, steel and coal production had declined. These problems were deep-seated and the result of ingrained attitudes and habits. It was difficult to know where to start, but a comprehensive overhaul (zhengdun) of the economy was imperative: piecemeal reforms would not work.
Nevertheless, there had to be priorities: industry and communications were Deng’s main concern and within that sector he rapidly identified the most urgent tasks to be the railways, iron, steel and coal. Restructuring was a daunting prospect. Deng began by examining the leading cadres in the organisations that ran these sectors, redeploying where necessary, rooting out factional plots and intrigues, and reinstating structures and rules and regulations with a proven track record.
Restructuring the railways
The railways were a high priority as the main artery of communications for the vast distances that had to be covered in China. Deng, as a Sichuanese, was conscious of the part played by railways in China’s history. Towards the end of the Qing dynasty the Railway Protection Movement in Sichuan had attempted to prevent railway development from falling into the hands of foreign banks, and their protests contributed to the downfall of the dynasty. When Deng became secretary of the South-Western Bureau, he championed the construction of a rail link between Chengdu and Chongqing, the first new line built after 1949. Sichuan was not fully connected to the national rail network until the late 1970s and Deng identified the railways as an obvious weak link in the economy.
On 28 January 1975 Deng summoned Wan Li, the minister of railways, to his office for a briefing. Wan had been deputy mayor of Beijing before the Cultural Revolution. He had only been in his new post for ten days, yet he tried to give Deng a report that was as blunt and unvarnished as possible, knowing that this was what Deng would expect. This did not come as a great surprise to Deng, but it did give him serious cause for concern. The level of freight (yunshu shengchan) being transported had fallen dramatically from 500,000 freight trucks per day in 1965 to about 400,000 by 1975. The level of accidents was alarming: there had been ten times more serious accidents in 1975 than in 1965. Damage to locomotives and rolling stock was a great cause for concern and the rate of building new locomotives was only 60 per cent of the previous figure. There were also serious blockages at important railway hubs such as Zhengzhou and Xuzhou, which adversely affected the entire network. Without railway restructuring the rest of the economy could not function.
Deng called a meeting of Party secretaries responsible for industry at provincial, municipal and autonomous regional level to attack this critical issue. It ran from 25 February to 8 March 1975 and on 5 March Deng gave his keynote speech to a packed hall. Officials had arrived early, desperate for something to give them hope for the future of the railways and a boost to the economies of their regions. Deng hurried into the room and waved at the audience, but would not shake hands with the provincial leaders who rushed forward, telling them that he would only do so once the economic situation had improved. Some delegates were taken aback by the lack of opportunity for ritual sycophancy, but it helped Deng to persuade them how serious the position was and how urgently they needed to ensure that the material base (wuzhi jichu) of the economy was improved.
In the language of the Cultural Revolution, leading officials had ‘grasped revolution but had not grasped production’, creating a serious crisis. The Central Committee approved the ‘Decision on Improving the Work of Railways’ (Document No. 9) which had been drafted by Wan Li in consultation with Deng. The main provisions were the restoration of order to a chaotic network and new regulations emphasising security and punctuality. Deng’s speech and Document No. 9 were the ‘emperor’s sword’ (shangfang baojian) that confered authority on Wan Li, and he circulated them as widely and swiftly as possible. Wan led work teams to Xuzhou, Taiyuan, Zhengzhou, Changsha and other key railway towns to implement the reorganisation. It was not simply a matter of waving the new documents: tough meetings were necessary to underline the seriousness of the situation and the urgent need to combat factional strife. Miscarriages of justice had to be redressed; managers were ordered to put discipline, unity and the needs of the nation first; and pre-Cultural Revolution regulations had to be reinstated. The new order was first applied to the section that operated out of Xuzhou, and by April monthly targets were reached ahead of schedule. There was overwhelming genuine support for Deng’s reforms: employees and management were desperate to escape from the chaos and rhetorical battles and concentrate on their jobs.
Iron and steel
Iron and steel provide the basic material for industrial and consumer products, not least locomotives, rolling stock and railway track. Deng addressed the ruinous position of the industry at a symposium that ran from 8 to 29 May in Beijing that was attended by provincial industrial officials and the directors of the 11 largest iron and steel plants. Wan Li outlined his experience in reorganising the railways and Ye Jianying, Li Xiannian, Gu Mu and other senior figures lent their support. This was essential as Deng’s reform enterprise was still far from plain sailing and were not to be seen as the policy of one man. Jiang Qing and her supporters were organising a political campaign attacking ‘empiricism’, a conventional code word for pragmatism and a preference for economic reforms over ideology.
Deng’s most important contribution to the symposium was his speech on 29 May, ‘Problems that need to be resolved in the current iron and steel industry’. Realising that he was not entirely preaching to the converted he framed it around Mao Zedong’s ‘three principles’ of a Marxist approach; stability, unity and improving the national economy. He passed over the first and emphasised the practical needs of the industry, echoing his earlier thoughts on railway reorganisation. A Central Committee document based on this speech, ‘Directive on striving to fulfil the 1975 Plan for iron and steel production’ (Document No. 13), was issued on 4 June 1975 and the State Council established a specialist Iron and Steel Industry Leading Group. Within a month the industry was already showing signs of improvement, not because Deng had administered a miracle cure but because his strategy had enabled management and staff to resume their normal work without fear of constant political criticism.
Science, technology and education
The Cultural Revolution had adversely affected all areas of China’s economy and society, but in no field was it more serious than in education, science and technology. The universities and colleges had been the battleground of Red Guards all claiming to represent the true policies of Mao. Formal education simply stopped for most secondary, college and university students and was replaced by the study of Mao Zedong’s works, which was safer. As a result, an entire generation missed out on genuine education.
Many scientific and technical research institutes were closed down or paralysed, unable to carry out research for lack of funds or fear of political criticism. Some scientists had continued to carry out their work in secret as if they were criminals and the entire scientific community felt defeated and dejected. Technical advance was essential for defence projects as well as economic development. In 1975 the Seventh Ministry of Machine Building (qi jibu) was created to develop a Chinese space programme, but it lacked the necessary technical knowledge.
In September 1975 Hu Yaobang, who had been working under Hu Qiaomu at the State Council Political Research Office, produced his ‘Outline report on the work of the Academy of Sciences’ that emphasised the central role of science and technology in economic production. He rejected the idea that there could be ‘forbidden zones’ that academics should not touch and criticised the management of the Academy of Sciences for blocking specialist research. Deng Xiaoping was enthusiastic about Hu Yaobang’s report, seeing it not only as a template for running the Academy of Sciences but as a blueprint for science, technology and education more generally. He failed to secure Mao Zedong’s imprimatur as he had hoped but, although the report was never formally accepted, it formed the basis for the future direction of science and technology in China.
Reorganising the Party
The time had come to reorganise the CCP. In a speech at a Central Committee Study Class, entitled ‘Strengthen the leadership of the party and overhaul the party’s work style’, that Deng gave on 4 July 1975, he expressed concern at the failure of local Party organisations to re-emerge after the Cultural Revolution. He insisted that unified leadership must be created at provincial level: even if two factions had been acceptable at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution they were not now and Mao’s strictures on stability and unity should be observed. The persecution and injustice of the Cultural Revolution was a running sore throughout the Party and, although Mao had accepted that ‘special cases’ of rehabilitation of wrongly purged cadres should be speeded up, overall the process was slow. At the end of April 1975 Deng and Zhou Enlai had pushed through the Central Committee measures to allow the release of people incarcerated for political reasons, with the exception of a few cases including those associated with Lin Biao. Over 300 senior cadres were released and many were reassigned jobs.4
Hu Qiaomu and the Political Research Office of the State Council
Deng and Zhou Enlai had successfully frustrated the attempts of Jiang Qing and her supporters to set up their own independent ‘cabinet’ in 1974 but in the spring of 1975 her supporters had launched a campaign under the slogan of ‘anti-empiricism’ (fan jingyan zhuyi) to obstruct the reforms. The press was under the control of Jiang Qing, who had a group of writers to act as her ‘mouthpieces [chuigushou] and weapons [gunzi]’. Deng was happiest dealing with practical policies and pragmatic decisions but he understood that he needed his own ideological special forces for close combat (duanbing xiangjie de zhengduo) with these ‘ideological commandos’ of the Gang of Four.
In early 1975 he initiated a series of discussions with Hu Qiaomu, a former secretary to Mao Zedong and expert drafter of documents. Hu Qiaomu also understood how Mao thought and reacted and, if there was any possibility that Mao Zedong Thought could be manipulated so that it appeared to permit the practical changes that Deng required, Hu’s expertise would be essential. Although Hu was to remain fundamentally opposed to Deng’s economic reforms, he was no supporter of the Gang of Four: he had been purged during the Cultural Revolution, although he was protected by Mao from the brutal treatment that had been meted out to many of Mao’s opponents. When Deng Xiaoping returned to Beijing in March 1973, Hu Qiaomu had only been ‘liberated’ for a short time and he did not appear in public for the first time until the celebrations for National Day in October 1974.
In spite of their differences Deng and Hu worked well together against the common enemy of Jiang Qing and her Shanghai clique. They decided that in light of this ideological struggle they would take the opportunity offered by the editorial work on the fifth volume of Mao Zedong’s Selected Works (Mao Zedong xuanji) to create a State Council Political Research Office (Guowuyuan zhengzhi yanjiushi) which would be led by Hu Qiaomu with the assistance of six other senior Party members – Wu Lengxi, Hu Sheng, Xiong Fu, Yu Guangyuan, Li Xin and Deng Liqun. This body was initially proposed in January 1975 but was blocked by Jiang Qing’s associates, Zhang Chunqao and Yao Wenyuan, who retained a great deal of influence over the CCP’s ideology even though they were no longer in control of the day-to-day running of the Party or the government. The proposal was finally approved by the Central Committee in June 1975.
Mao Zedong’s Selected Works were the bible for members of the Communist Party (although they were temporarily superseded by Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong during the Cultural Revolution) and the first four volumes, which contain officially approved texts of Mao’s articles and speeches up to 16 September 1949, had been published in Chinese in 1960. They are authoritative but incomplete and were heavily edited; other editions by scholars in Europe, the United States and Japan have since been compiled to produce a fuller and more accurate version of Mao’s ideas. Control over Volume 5 of Selected Works, which contained Mao’s writings after the foundation of the PRC, was important for establishing the ideological tone of the post-Mao era, which all knew was rapidly approaching, and Deng had secured this control. The fact that his Political Research Office, which was going to provide the ideological justification for his reform programme, was also responsible for Mao’s Selected Works provided political leverage, credibility, ideological cover and sufficient intellectual continuity with the Mao era for a defence against opponents who wished to argue, not without justification, that Deng was intent on overturning everything that Mao had stood for. Deng was not in a position to make a clean break from Mao and could only implement changes if he could claim the authority of Mao for them.
The Political Research Office became the field headquarters for Deng’s ideological resistance to the Gang of Four. It has been characterised as a think tank, but that seems a tame and inadequate description in light of its pioneering and embattled role in a period of such bitter conflict. This research group was headed by the seven ‘leading cadres’ chosen to bridge the gap between Deng’s pragmatism and the theories of Mao, and had up to 40 other members of staff. In the words of Teiwes and Sun, ‘Deng not only placed high importance on the Research Office, he also personally directed its activities’.5 The day-to-day running of the office, which occupied two buildings in Zhongnanhai (one to work on Mao’s Selected Works and the other for investigation, research and policy), was the responsibility of Hu Qiaomu, but he reported to Deng and only to Deng. Within four months of starting work in early July 1975, in addition to the work on the fifth volume of Mao’s Selected Works (which was eventually published in the spring of 1977), the members of the Research Office had developed four key project areas to advise and assist the Central Committee and the State Council.
First, they reported on the negative effect that the Gang of Four were having on cultural production. They had blocked films, the publication of Lu Xun’s correspondence and a novel about the life of Li Zicheng, a rebel at the end of the Ming dynasty who became a popular folk hero. As a result of the war of attrition waged by the Political Research Office, many of these decisions were overturned on Mao’s instructions. The Political Research Office staff also supported a campaign to criticise the dominant position of ‘revolutionary model operas’, Jiang Qing’s pet project, and put her on the defensive. This campaign effectively undermined the stranglehold that Jiang and her coterie had on the arts in the early 1970s.
Second, they redrafted and revised existing crucial State Council documents, which was of course Deng Xiaoping’s forte. Among the most significant were ‘Questions on the Speeding up of Industrial Development’ (Twenty Points) and the ‘Outline Report on the Work of the Academy of Sciences’ (Outline Report). Between them, these two documents set out in detail the policies that Deng wished to follow to achieve rapid industrialisation and the scientific and educational basis that was necessary for it to succeed. The commentaries also provided an incisive critique of obstruction by Jiang Qing and her supporters.
Third, the Political Research Office rewrote a theoretical document, ‘General Principles on the Work of the Whole Party and the Whole Nation’ (General Principles), Deng Xiaoping’s manifesto for reform within the framework of Mao Zedong’s three basic theoretical principles on anti-revisionism, stability and economic development. The General Principles, which was the last straw for Jiang Qing, together with the Twenty Points and the Outline Report, were described by Jiang Qing and her clique as ‘three poisonous weeds’ (san zhu da ducao) in a new ‘campaign to criticise Deng Xiaoping and fight back the rightist attempts to reverse correct verdicts’. This began in earnest on 3 November 1975 and Deng’s reforms were opposed and undermined by fair means or foul – mostly foul.
Fourth, the Political Research Office supported the Philosophy and Social Science Department of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in establishing a new journal, Ideological Front (Sixiang zhanxian) to provide an alternative to the quasi-academic publications over which the Jiang Qing faction had control.6
Jiang Qing’s resistance
The fact that Deng was appointed to senior Party, government and military posts was a ‘heavy blow’ (chenzhong de daji) to Jiang Qing: it was a clear sign that Mao acknowledged Deng as his successor. The Jiang Qing group (Jiang Qing yihuo) opposed Deng at every possible opportunity, and succeeded in blocking or delaying many of his political initiatives.
In August 1975, the ‘Campaign to Criticise Lin Biao and Confucius’ was revived as a debate in the media about the popular and highly respected historical novel of the Ming dynasty, Water Margin (Shuihuzhuan). Jiang Qing and her acolyte Yao Wenyuan felt more comfortable arguing in a pseudo-cultural field than in direct political discussions, and the debate, based on an aside by Mao that the book was an example of political capitulation, focused on whether one of the key characters Song Jiang, the leader of an outlaw band was guilty of capitulating to imperial authority. The debate was, of course, nothing to do with Song Jiang or Water Margin but a transparent assault on the policies of the dying Zhou Enlai and his close colleague, Deng Xiaoping.
A more tangible field of attack was a debate on the Dazhai Commune which had been held up as the model for agricultural organisation during the Cultural Revolution and was the subject of Mao’s well-known instruction, ‘in agriculture learn from Dazhai’ (nongye xue Dazhai). On 15 September 1975 a National Conference on Learning from Dahzai in Agriculture opened in Xiyang County, Shanxi where Dazhai Commune was located and later continued in Beijing. It was organised by Hua Guofeng who was vice-premier and a member of the Politburo, and was thought to be close to Zhou Enlai in his views on modernising the Chinese economy. Chen Yonggui, the Party secretary of Dazhai and Politburo member, who had been lionised during the Cultural Revolution as the ideal peasant leader, took the podium with a self-serving speech on the importance of the experience of his commune for the development of China’s agriculture. When Hua introduced Deng Xiaoping, who was due to speak on agricultural modernisation, there was thunderous applause in the hall and the more Deng tried to indicate that the clapping should stop the louder it became. In the audience were many ‘old cadres’ who had been incarcerated during the Cultural Revolution and had only recently been ‘liberated’ on the instructions of Deng and Zhou Enlai. Deng argued that agricultural reform was the key to the ‘four modernisations’ that he and Zhou were putting forward as the road ahead for China. He pointed out that in some counties and districts the amount of grain being produced was less than it had been before 1949, and this produced an angry response from Jiang Qing who interjected that he was just citing one or two atypical cases. Deng responded sharply with figures on the value of grain produced in Guizhou, the poorest province, and Sichuan the second poorest which appeared to silence his adversary temporarily. Deng outlined other problems in agriculture that required reorganisation and reform and insisted that this would only be possible with comprehensive reform of the military, local government, industry, commerce, science, technology, education and culture (which Jiang Qing regarded as her personal bailiwick). Deng called for good and capable people to be appointed to leadership positions in the rural areas and argued that any study of Dazhai should be genuine rather than a fake or partial study – it should examine Dazhai warts and all.
Jiang Qing, without waiting to be called to speak as the etiquette of the meeting required, interjected that Mao was being misrepresented, complained that agriculture was being marginalised as provincial Party first secretaries were not in attendance (although that was a decision that had been made by the Central Committee) and went on to make irrelevant remarks about the Water Margin campaign which had been used to attack Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping. She demanded that her speech be published and circulated at the conference, but Mao apparently did not authorise this.
There is little reliable evidence for what Mao thought or did at all at this time. There were no independent observers and the political actors contending for his crown, including Deng, Zhou Enlai and Jiang Qing, all claimed his support. Mao had high regard for Deng’s ability as a political leader and may have hoped that he would eventually accept that the Cultural Revolution had been necessary. Jiang Qing and her supporters, more realistically, saw that Deng was biding his time until he could safely reject the Cultural Revolution and reverse the verdict (fan’an) on its legacy and, by implication, on them and on Mao.
Mao was torn between his chosen successor and his wife and demanded a closed meeting of a small group of Politburo members to resolve the position. Mao’s nephew Mao Yuanxin, who was close to Jiang Qing’s faction, was the main contact between Mao Zedong and the Politburo as Mao’s Alzheimer’s disease worsened and on the evening of 2 November 1975 he called Deng, Chen Xilian and Wang Dongxing to a meeting. Deng was not prepared to acknowledge the ‘mistakes’ that were put to him, so a ‘courtesy’ meeting (da zhaohu huiyi) of the Central Committee was convened in Beijing for the end of November to consider a document, ‘The rightwing trend of reversing verdicts denying the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution’, that had been prepared by Mao Yuanxin and approved by Mao Zedong as a counter-attack against Deng. This attack had some credibility because it had Mao’s name behind it, but it is not possible to say whether he was really in a fit state, physically or mentally, to have approved the statement.
Jiang Qing and her supporters regarded the Political Research Office as one of the major obstacles to their ambitions and it was attacked publicly by Jiang Qing and in articles in People’s Daily, which was controlled by her acolyte, Yao Wenyuan. The documents that the office produced were attacked as recipes for bringing back capitalism and in August 1976 were criticised in pamphlets which the Jiang faction circulated nationwide. With hindsight, Jiang and her confederates were uncannily accurate in their analysis of the long-term implications of the policies that Deng was espousing, but ironically the pamphlets and the campaign may have had precisely the opposite effect to that intended as they introduced many of Deng’s ideas and policy proposals to a wider audience. The relationship between the seven leading lights of the Political Research Office was inevitably strained by the campaign of criticism and innuendo and by allegations that the office had spread rumours and falsehoods and leaked confidential Party and government documents. In spite of the pressure and serious differences of political opinion the seven held together remarkably well, recognising that their overriding priority must be to fight off the Jiang Qing clique. Hu Qiaomu later offered to apologise in writing for criticising Deng in the heat of battle but Deng insisted that no apology was necessary.7
Deng’s period as the leader of China is often said to have begun in 1975, but he was opposed and obstructed to such an extent that by the end of that year he had still not been able to implement his reforms. This situation took at least two years to resolve.