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Deng Xiaoping
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Just as Deng Xiaoping was the first to articulate the Four Cardinal Principles, he was the first to propose and insist that China undertake reform, adopt an open policy and invigorate the economy. Ever since the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee, he has been actively promoting the reform. Because 80 per cent of China's population lives in the countryside, it was there that the reform was to begin. It was tried first in the provinces of Sichuan and Anhui, and on the basis of the successful experience in those two places, it was soon introduced throughout the country. The result was that when the initiative of 800 million peasants was aroused, the productive forces expanded greatly, a large number of enterprises run by villages and townships emerged and the peasants' standard of living rose. Three years later, these notable results having been achieved in the countryside, reform was begun in the cities.
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Deng Xiaoping was born Deng Xixian in Guangan, Sichuan Province, on August 22, 1904. His parents were Deng Wenming, a relatively well-to-do landowner, and the second of his four wives, Deng Danshi. Deng grew up with one sister, two brothers, and the children of his father's other wives. He joined the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1924 while on a high school work-study program in France. (Communism is a political system where goods and services are controlled by the government.) Before returning to China in 1926 he went to Moscow, where he studied for several months.
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Although post-Mao pronouncements by the Chinese Communist Party officially emphasized collective leadership, Deng Xiaoping clearly occupied center stage and acquired unique political stature in the party hierarchy (without even holding the titular number-one position). Following the consolidation of Deng's power at the Twelfth National Party Congress in 1982, the party issued The Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping. The book was intended to provide authoritative ideological backing for the reform program in progress and became required reading for party members. Another volume, entitled Building Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, issued in 1985, contained speeches and writings on economic policy, ideological questions, and foreign policy written by Deng after the Twelfth National Party Congress. A major purpose of the later work was to support the dramatic reforms introduced at the Third Plenum of that congress's Central Committee in October 1984. This book was re-released in March 1987 with additional speeches and remarks on intervening events, purportedly with the intention of providing extensive guidance for reform.
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A veteran of the Long March, Deng Xiaoping joined the Party Central Committee in 1945. A rapidly-rising pragmatist, in the Cultural Revolution he was attacked as the "Number two Capitalist Roader" after Liu Shaoqi. He was reinstated by Zhou Enlai as deputy premier in 1973, but was purged again in 1976 after Zhou's death. When the Gang of Four were purged, Deng slowly led Mao Zedong's surviving opponents to power, pushing aside the chosen successor, Hua Guofeng, and erasing the cult surrounding Mao. He dominated both the party and government throughout the 1980s, instituting a variety of economic reforms aimed at decentralising China's economy and opening the country to international trade. He resigned from his last party post in 1989, after supporting the use of suppressive military force in the upheaval of Tiananmen Square.
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Unlike Zhou Enlai and some of the other 'elder brothers', Deng Xiaoping was too young when he first came to France to have been known for any revolutionary activity beforehand. It was not until 1922 that he joined the Youth league and then in 1924 was recruited to the European branch of the Chinese Communist Party. Since 1923 he had started to help Zhou Enlai with the production of 'Red Light', the CCP's bi-monthly newsletter. Reproduction, Deng's special responsibility, was with hand cut stencils on a hand rolled duplicator. He earned the title 'Doctor of Duplication' from his friends for his skilful stencil cutting and high quality duplication.
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When Deng Xiaoping was born on August 22, 1904, China was still ruled by the Qing Dynasty, but many people longed for a new China. Although Deng was in and out of favor during his eventful life, he became one of the most powerful and influential Chinese leaders. Deng's life spans the Japanese invasion, the rise of Communism, the Long March, the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, and the Tiananmen Square confrontation. Perhaps more than any other person Deng Xiaoping is responsible for shaping modern China.
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