I’m not a huge fan of the RFA and I rarely, if ever, link to it but this piece written by Bao Tong is an interesting take on the events of the pivotal 3rd Plenary Session of the 11th Party Congress. Bao Tong’s account departs from the triumphalist narrative of Deng Xiaoping kicking open the doors of reform and launching the country on a trajectory of modernization and development. According to Bao Tong’s version, reform was not on Deng’s original agenda, rather what made this moment truly special was the way in which the rank-and-file members of the Central Committee, following the lead of Hu Yaobang and Chen Yun, upset the apple cart.
We were looking ahead to modernization. But after Chen Yun and Hu Yaobang caused trouble, the members of the Party Central Committee kicked up a fuss en masse, overturning Hua and Deng’s planned framework. Pretty soon, everyone had turned their attention to talking about the past, and then the debates came thick and fast. What were they talking about? They were talking about the Cultural Revolution, the Lushan meeting, the unresolved “political cases,” and Mao Zedong.
From the point of view of Chairman Hua and vice-chairman Deng, this was a loss of control. It was hard for them to endure because it made them look passive. But from the point of view of those Party Central Committee delegates sitting in the hall, it was the revolution they had never had. At least, it was the first taste they had had of liberation since Mao Zedong became the “core” of the Party, particularly since he had punished Peng Dehuai and harried Liu Shaoqi and Lin Biao to their deaths.
Finally, they were able to debate the rights and wrongs of Mao Zedong, and to put the case of the ordinary Chinese people without fear or shame. This was where the true creativity and life-force of the Third Plenum lay! This was how it differed utterly from previous meetings
Bao Tong traces the origins of this mini-’revolution’ at the 3rd Plenary session to the 1976 demonstrations commemorating the death of Zhou Enlai. Bao suggests that Hua Guofeng and Deng would have been perfectly happy to not to “get tangled up in the problems of history” but were unable to ignore the demands of the membership.
We can perhaps imagine what might have transpired if the meeting had truly gone ahead according to the carefully laid plans of Chairman Hua and 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 Mao made had been covered up, and the Central Committee delegates hadn’t been allowed to talk about them so freely. If that had happened, and they had stuck rigidly to Deng’s theme of “Turning our attention to the work of modernization,” what sort of ending would we have seen then? It is fairly obvious that we would have seen another power struggle and another political coup of the kind that both Mao and Deng knew so well how to do.
Bao Tong’s larger point is that the success of the session was due to Deng’s (and Hua’s) willingness to throw out the old script when it was clearly opposed to the will of the rank-and-file membership who were, in turn, reflecting deep currents within the society. This, for Bao, was the most important lesson of this historical turning point, one he feels today’s CCP leadership would do well to remember.
On the whole, I found Bao’s account fascinating, though I have to retain a certain sense of detachment and skepticism. Bao Tong’s role in the political infighting of the 1980s is well known though I have no reason to dispute his account. Hopefully, as more documents and memoirs from this period become widely available historians and students of history can gain a fuller understanding of this important moment in China’s modern history.
More on Bao Tong’s remembrance of 1978 can be found on the Time China Blog and at WSJ’s China Journal.
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Image top right: Bao Tong
In case the link to the essay is blocked, the above passages were written by Bao Tong for broadcast on RFA’s Mandarin service. Translated and produced for the Web in English by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Sarah Jackson-Han.
h/t Rebecca MacKinnon via Twitter.
Bao Tong: 30 Years after a “uniquely lively” party congress: I’m not a huge fan of the RFA and.. http://tinyurl.com/9u5zyy
What does he mean when he says Lin Biao was “harried” to death in the manner of Liu Shaoqi? Does this suggest a story other than the airplane crash after the attempted coup?
According to Bao Tong’s version, Lin Biao called for an end to the policy of “permanent revolution” in 1969 thus causing him to fall from grace with Mao.
[...] for an English translation of Bao Tong’s essay, here for the Chinese original, or here for insightful commentary), and that he could state his opinion without direct repercussions (of [...]
What makes you tend to “not be a big fan” of RFA? If it weren’t for RFA, it’s likely Bao wouldn’t even have a forum for his dissent and he’d simply be residing under house arrest in Beijing, and you would have never heard of this heroic Chinese fellow.
The Ant:
RFA has its place as does Xinhua. But the relentlessness of RFA’s coverage, as is the case with Xinhua, makes it necessary to gird my brain with a couple of Advil before wading through.
I’m not a fan of extremism in any form.