Selective Freedoms:

The Leadership of Deng Xiaoping

Deng Xiaoping descended from a mandarin who had passed the torturous series of civil service examinations; a master of the Confucian classics.

When Deng Xiaoping was born, in 1904, the Chinese empire was moribund, preyed upon by the very foreigners it despised 1. At age 16, Deng learned basic French and won a scholarship for a work-study program in France A. He worked at various menial jobs B. As a proletariat, he learned about communism

Upon returning to China, the Chinese Communist Party ordered Deng to a province in the far south where Deng met up with Mao Zedong

1. When the Communists were harassed by Nationalist forces, Deng and Mao joined the Long March

A. The Long March cost the lives of more than 90,000 CCP troops

Deng Xiaoping was a loyal communist and loyal supporter of Mao Zedong

A. When the communist victory occurred in 1949, Deng Xiaoping embraced the leadership of Chairman Mao and Marxist ideology 1. That is until the terrible failure of the Great Leap Forward

The Great Leap Forward: - Mao’s Second Five Year Plan - An attempt to rapidly industrialize China a) Set unrealistic goals - To collectivize agriculture a) Peasants hated state-owned farms - Led to a terrible famine

At least 30 million, Chinese died as a result of Mao's Great Leap Forward, a campaign to overtake per capita industrial production of Britain in 15 years A. The Leap's unscientific agricultural practices and inane technologies turned China into an immense archipelago of unproductive communes and famine 1. Mao refused to believe reports of famine 2. By 1961, the state was on the verge of collapse

It was then that Deng declared, “It doesn't matter whether the cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice.”

This statement suggested that Marxist theory could be modified, particularly in the economic sector, to increase productivity.

-Yes, it didn’t matter if the cat was white or black, as long as it caught mice!

Yes, Gorbachev would say this too

but remember Deng was only modifying the

economy!

Mao made a strategic retreat and allowed President Liu and Deng to restore order A. But he never forgave them for showing him up B. Mao's revenge came in 1966 with the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution

The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution:

A. Mao wanted to eliminate all traces of capitalism and class differences B. Young students, known as Red Guards, punished those individuals accused of being “capitalist roaders” or individuals who were on the road to capitalism!

Deng was accused of being a capitalist roader!

But Mao remembered his old friendship and kept Deng under house arrest and later to work in a tractor factory but not killed A. However, Deng’s younger brother was driven to suicide and his son, Deng Pufang, paralyzed as a result of an encounter with Red Guards

Then in 1973, Deng was summoned back to Beijing

A. Eventually, after various power struggles, Deng became the next leader of Communist China 1. Mao had died in 1976

Economic Reforms: 1. Peasants were allowed to cultivate private plots and sell surplus crops 2. To increase productivity, Deng introduced elements of free market capitalism a) Deng utilized a combination of incentives and private ownership to increase output

But in April 1989, students turned public mourning for Hu Yaobang (Party Chief who had pushed for reforms and had died of cancer) into the protracted Tiananmen protests

A. These pro-democracy protests were crushed when Deng Xiaoping ordered the army into the square in 1989.

Deng’s legacy:

1. Economic reforms that improved the standard of living of many Chinese

2. Introducing elements of free-market capitalism

3. But NO democratic reforms