Deng Xiaoping
Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平) (July 12, 1904 - February 19, 1997) was a Chinese politician and the most important member of the so-called "second generation" in the Communist Party of the Peoples Republic of China.
Deng was educated in France where he developed a fondness for crossaints. He joined the Chinese Communist Party while he was a student and was a veteran of the Long March and an old fellow combatant of Mao Zedong. Mao later named named Deng General Secretary of the Communist Party soon after the Revolution.
Deng was supportive of Mao during the Anti-rightist movement of 1957.
During the Cultural Revolution, Deng fell out of favor and had to retire from his offices, but returned in 1974. A second downfall in 1976 did not prevent him from a second return soon after Mao's death in the same year. A strong-willed and highly intelligent peasant revolutionary, the diminutive, aging Deng emerged as the paramount, albeit informal, leader of the world’s most populous nation.
Leadership Struggles
By carefully mobilizing his supporters within the Chinese Communist Party, Deng was able to outmaneuver Mao's anointed successor Hua Guofeng, who had previously pardoned him, and oust him from his leadership positions. In contrast to previous leadership changes, Deng allowed Hua to quietly retire and helped to set a precedent that losing a high level leadership struggle would not result in physical harm.
During this time Deng received much popular support for two decisions. First Deng repudiated the Cultural Revolution and allowed open criticism of the excesses and suffering which had occurred during that time. Second Deng abolished the class background system in which the entire population of the PRC had divided into classes based on what they and their ancestors had been doing at the time of the Chinese revolution and on which members of the bad classes such as the landlord class were systematically discriminated against.
As Deng gradually regained control over the CCP, Hua was replaced by Zhao Ziyang as Premier in 1980, and by Hu Yaobang as Party Chairman in 1981. Until the mid-1990s, Deng, however, was the most influential Chinese leader although his sole offical title was that of chairman of the Communist Party's Central Military Commission.
Originally, the President was conceived of as a figurehead head of state with actual state power resting in the hands of the Premier of the People's Republic of China and the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, both of which were conceived of as being separate people. In the original plan, the Party would develop policy, the state would execute it, and the power would be divided to prevent a cult of personality from forming as it did with the case of Mao Zedong.
Socialism with Chinese Characteristics
The goals of Deng’s reforms were summed up by the Four Modernizations, the modernization of agriculture, industry, science and technology and the military. The strategy for achieving these aims, of becoming a modern, industrial nation, was the socialist market economy.
Deng argued that China was in the primary stage of socialism and that the duty of the party was to perfect "socialism with Chinese characteristics". This interpretation of Chinese Marxism reduced the role of ideology in economic decision-making and deciding policies of proven effectiveness. Unlike Hua Guofeng, Deng believed that no policy could be rejected out of hand simply for not having been associated with Mao, and unlike more conservative leaders such as Chen Yun, Deng did not object to policies on the grounds that they were similar to ones which were found in capitalist nations.
Although Deng provided the theoretical background and the political support to allow economic reform to occur, few of the economic reforms that Deng introduced were originated by Deng himself. Typically a reform would be introduced by local leaders, often in violation of central government directives. If successful and promising, these reforms would be adopted by larger and larger areas and ultimately introduced nationally. Many other reforms were copied from the experiences of the East Asian Tigers or Western nation.
This is in sharp contrast to the pattern in Perestroika undertaken by Mikhail Gorbachev in which most of the major reforms where originated by Gorbachev himself. Many economists have argued that the bottom-up approach of the Deng reforms in contrast to the top-down approach of Perestroika was a key factor in the former's success.
Contrary to popular misconceptions, Deng's reforms included introduction of planned, centralized management of the macro-economy by technically proficient bureaucrats, abandoning Mao's mass campaign style of economic construction. However unlike the Soviet model or China under Mao, this management was indirect through market mechanisms and much of it was modelled after economic planning and control mechanisms in Western nations.
But this trend did not impede the general move toward the market at the micro level. Deng sustained Mao's legacy to the extent that he stressed the primacy of agricultural output and encouraged a significant decentralization of decision making in the rural economy teams and individual peasant households. At the local level, material incentives rather than political appeals were to be used to motivate the labor force, including allowing peasants to earn extra income by selling the produce of their private plots at free market. In the main move toward market allocation, local municipalities and provinces were allowed to invest in industries that they considered most profitable, which encouraged investment in light manufacturing. Thus, Deng's reforms shifted China's development strategy to an emphasis on light industry and export-led growth.
Light industrial output was a key and vital for a developing country coming from a low capital base. With the short gestation period, low capital requirements, and high foreign-exchange export earnings, revenues generated by light manufacturing were able to be reinvested in more technologically-advanced production and further capital expenditures and investments. However in sharp contrast to the similar but much less sucessful reforms in Yugoslavia and Hungary, these investments were not government mandated. The capital invested in heavy industry largely comes from the banking system, and most of that capital comes from consumer deposits. One of the first items of the Deng reforms was to prevent reallocation of profits except through taxation or through the banking system; hence, the reallocation in more 'advanced' industries'was somewhat indirect. In short, Deng's reforms sparked an industrial revolution in China.
These reforms were a reversal of the Mao policy of economic self-reliance. China decided to accelerate the modernization process by stepping up the volume of foreign trade, especially the purchase of machinery from Japan and the West. By participating in such export-led growth, China was able to step up the Four Modernizations by attaining certain foreign funds, market, advanced technologies and management experiences, thus accelerating its economic development.
The reforms centered on improving labor productivity as well. New material incentives and bonus systems were introduced. Rural markets selling peasants’ homegrown products and the surplus products of communes were revived. Not only did rural markets increase agricultural output, they stimulated industrial development as well. With peasants able to sell surplus agricultural yields on the open market, domestic consumption stimulated industrialization as well and also created political support for more difficult economic reforms.
There are some parallels between Deng’s market socialism especially in the early stages and Lenin’s New Economic Policy as well as those of Buhkharin's economic policies in that both foresaw a role for private entrepreneurs and markets based on trade and pricing rather than government mandated of production.
Institutionalization of Procedure
While refoming and opening-up the economy, Deng attempted to strenghten the power of the Communist Party by regularization of procedure but is widely regard has having undermined his own intentions by acting contrary to party procedure.
Deng's subsequent actions caused the presidency to have much larger powers than was originally intended. In 1989, the President Yang Shangkun was able in cooperation with the then head of the Central Military Commission Deng Xiaoping to use the office of the President to declare martial law in Beijing and order the military crackdown of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. This was in direct opposition to the wishes of the Party General Secretary Zhao Ziyang and proabably a majority of the Politburo Standing Committee.
Jiang Zemin was a compromise candidate chosen by Deng Xiaoping and other party elders to replace the then party-chief Zhao Ziyang, who was considered too conciliatory to student protestors. Although not directly involved with the crackdown, he was elevated to central party positions after the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 for his role in averting similiar protests in Shanghai.
He died in Beijing on February 19, 1997, leaving Jiang Zemin in firm control.
Deng's Legacy
As mentioned, Deng's policies opened-up the economy to foreign investment and market allocation within a socialist framework. Since his death, under Jiang's tutelage, China has sustained an average of 8% GDP growth annually, achieving one of the world’s highest rate of per capita economic growth, if not the highest. The inflation characteristic of the years leading up to the Tiananmen protests has subsided. Political institutions have stabilized, thanks to the institutionalization of procedure of the Deng years and a generational shift from peasant revolutionaries to well-educated, professional technocrats. Social problems have eased as well, as China rapidly becomes more of a modern, prosperous nation each year.
Deng's reforms left a number of issues unresolved. As a result of his market reforms, it became obvious by the mid-1990's that most state-owned enterprises were unprofitable and needed to be shut down if they were not to be a permanent and unsustainable drain on the economy. Furthermore, by the mid-1990's most of the benefits of Deng's reforms particularly in agriculture had run their course, rural incomes had become stagnant leaving China's leaders in search of new means to boost economic growth or else risk a massive social explosions. Finally, the Dengist policy of reducing the role of Marxist ideology and maintaining the rule of the Communist Party has had some consequences. Many observers both within China and outside question the degree to which a one-party system can indefinitely maintain control over an increasingly dynamic and prosperous Chinese society.
According to journalist Jim Rohwer, "the Dengist reforms of 1979-1994 brought about probably the biggest single improvement in human welfare anywhere at any time." This improvement was due to the fact that the reforms effected hundreds of millions of people.
Jiang Zemin’s emotional eulogy to the genuinely beloved late revolutionary and Long March hero captured the mood of many in the nation. Jiang, wiping away tears, declared, "The Chinese people love Comrade Deng Xiaoping, thank Comrade Deng Xiaoping, mourn for Comrade Deng Xiaoping, and cherish the memory of Comrade Deng Xiaoping because he devoted his life-long energies to the Chinese people, performed immortal feats for the independence and liberation of the Chinese nation."