The Four Basic Principles

1. TheFour Basic Principles • In March 1979 Deng defined the new “Socialist Democracy”. In which he outlined the “Four cardinal principles or “four basic principles”: • Keep to the socialist road • Uphold the dictatorship of the proletariat. • Uphold the leadership of the Communist Party • Uphold Marxism-Leninsm and Mao Zedong Thought. If the principles were challenged the behavior wasn´t acceptable anymore.

2. Problems inherited from History • After the 3rd plenum the CCP had to face “problems inherited from history” . they had two main issues at the time: • The decision that the CCP was going to do with The Gang of Four • To reassess the Cultural Revolution by the reinforcement of Maoism. • The implementations of the 3rd plenum made difficult to handle the situation with The Gang of Four, especially with HuaGoefeng because of Deng´s emphasis on democracy, which lead to a trial for educational purposes. Action that later on would make propaganda in the rejection of the Cultural Revolution and the new reforms. • Deng wanted to separate Mao Zedong personally and Mao Zedong Thought after 1958. If the two things weren´t separated then The Gang of Four would have the complete responsibility of the Cultural Revolution, rather than Mao. Then HuaGoefeng followers would take over his defense, and if Mao was blamed Hua would be out of suspicion.

3. A New Beginning • By 1980, the the Cultural Revolution was rejected and Deng thought that China needed to be reinvented. With the help of HuQiaomu drafted the “Resolution on certain questions in the history of our party since the founding of the People´s Republic of China” • The new history was finally adopted in 1981 during the 6th plenum of the 11th Central Committee of the CCP. • Deng wanted to create a membership for the victims of the Cultural Revolution, who were the previous members of the party: Bo Yibo, Peng Zhen and Yang Shangkun. All the followers of HuaGoefeng were removed from the party by 1980. However, Deng insisted that these were not purges it was “inner-party democracy”. • In 1980 Deng refused to serve as Chairman due to his old age, but he did agree to become Chairman of the Central Military Commission. • Deng wanted to create a new style of politics, and to do this he removed the Article 45, which talked about freedom of speech and was associated with Mao´s notions of democracy. • Finally in the 12th CCP Congress, the position of CCP Chairman was abolished and replaced by the post of General Secretary of the CCP

4. The “Resolution on CCP history” played an important role of Deng´s political reform because it criticized Hua leftist ideas and only took into account Mao´s views that agreed with his views. • The reinterpretation of Mao Zedong Thought was finally accepted in 1981. • Deng wanted to encourage economic modernization and good relations between the party and people. To achieve this, people will have to be restricted in their own spheres of influence and to create an administrational order. He faced three tendencies that the party had faced since 1940: • The tendency for the party to step in and replace government, which had addressed in 1940s in the Thaihang Region. • The over-concentration of authority, not only among party members but trough individuals who tempted to monopolize the CCP leadership • Bureaucracy, systems of responsibilities and administration regulations were missing.

5. China and the World • At the 12th CCP congress in 1982 he stated the open-door policy in order to bring China Into the world and the world to China • To improve economy Deng created the Special Economic Zones. Which were: Guangdong Province (Shenzhen, Zhuhai and Shantou), Fujian Province (Xiamen), and Hainan Island. • A strategy of the open-door policy was to invite countries into China. Preferably communist countries from Eastern Europe. However, Kissinger didn´t agreed with the “nasty little man” and Deng´s only option was to ally with the USA. • In 1984, was decided that Hong Kong would be part of the country, but will not follow the same laws. Actually, it become part of the PCR until 1997. • Other communist countries started to question Deng´s communist views. In response Deng tried to launch two political campaigns which were against “spiritual pollution” or “”bourgeois liberalization”. However, they weren´t successful outside China.

6. Deng´s retirement • Deng retire from daily administration in 1985. • Then, formally retired his charge as Chairman of the Central Military Commission in November 1989. Although he was a paramount leader, which meant he had a role to play as a final political and military authority. • Looking in retrospective in 1992, Deng realized one thing: “As long as we, the older generation are still around… the hostile forces know that change cannot happen. But who can guarantee this once we old people pass away?” • The two more suitable replacements of Deng were HuYaobang and Zhao Ziyang, the two General Secretaries of the CCP. However, Deng thought they weren´t suitable for the charge because they were tempted with bourgeois liberalization.

7. The National Party Conference of 1985 • Until 1985 China had been working efficiently, but as soon as Deng retirement, Political and Economic stability began to crumble until it was unbearable in 1988. • As China was already opening to the world, it felt the need to have more foreign influence, especially in technology. • In 1984 China faced a minor economic crisis, due to the fact that now their economy was based in urbanization. • Deng had not been involved in the detail of economic policy development • Chen Yun and Zhao Ziyang were in charge of economic policies and they created the Seventh Five Year Plan (1986). • Meanwhile, Deng preferred to rejuvenate the PLA and the CCP because he thought he was the only one who could do it. • Chen Yun said that it was important to focus in the importance of market regulation, and to ensure grain production remained high. • He was concerned that members of the CCP had lost their communist ideas. Even though Deng agreed with this, he didn´t care. • Leadership rejuvenation was also agreed at the conference, but that meant that the CCP was purged AGAIN! New party members replaced the old ones. • However this didn´t worked. A little afterwards the new party members got in the party divided into two: Deng and old party members and the new educated party members. ChenYun ZhaoZiyang

8. HuYaobang and Zhao Ziyang • After the separation in 1985 there were two sides: • A market-determined economy with a relatively open political system, but still following the communist path. • A planned economy, modified by market-oriented policies, but less political liberalization. The state continues to dominate economy and society. • Deng had plans to retire since 1980, yet he didn´t do it because he distrusted this two. • Hu found out about Deng plans and he started to consider himself as the successor of him. This attitude really pissed of Deng. • As Deng didn´t trusted Hu anymore he replaced him with Zhao Ziyang as General Secretary. • In the 13th Congress of the CCP Hu was re-elected as a member of the Political Bureau and Chairman of the Central Commission for Guiding Party Consolidation. • In 1988 Zhao was ready to act upon the economic reforms, more specifically the pricing system. However, his opponents highlighted the risk of a hyper-inflation. • Zhou economic reforms were to radical and China wasn´t prepared to handle them. Moreover he didn´t have the support of the party and by 1988 he had lost Deng support. BYE BYE ZHAO HuYaobang DengXiaoping

9. TheTianamenincident in 1989 • The Tianamen Square in the center of Bejing is of considerable significance in the history of the CCP. It´s where the two cultures of China met (the peasants and the elites). • In April 1989, students took over Tinamen Square in order to commemorate the death of HuYaobeng. They wanted to demonstrate the support of the urban work force. • The incident dragged international attention. • Deng saw the demonstration of manifestation as an hostile force and blamed HuYaobang for not having campaigned adequately against “spiritual pollution”. • In April 30, Zhao returned to Beijing and legalized the publications being publicized by students and include the demands in the constitution as freedom of press. • By the time Gorbachev was scheduled to arrive in Beijing, but Deng was so embarrassed by the situation that the attention had to be deviated to somewhere else. • The 3 of June there was an open fire on anyone who resisted leaving. Deng disappeared since the 20th of May and did not returned until 6 of June. • In the end Zhao was the one to blame. • The incident left them a very bad reputation around the world.

11. Retirement and history • After 1989 there were a lot of problems inside the party. • The economy was only sustained by Hong Kong and Taiwan, still the richest part was Shangai. • Deng could finally retire. • The recovery of China was really fast. They recovered in 1992. • In 1992, Deng had a heart attack and he never fully recovered.