1. The designated successor of Mao Zedong, Hua held the top offices of the government, party, and the military after the deaths of Mao and Premier Zhou Enlai, but was gradually forced out of supreme power by a coalition of party leaders between December 1978 and June 1981, and subsequently retreated from the political limelight, though still remaining a member of the Central Committee until 2002.
In October 1976, a month after Mao's death, Hua Guofeng arrested and removed the Gang of Four from power with the assistance of Mao's security chief Wang Dongxing, who became one of Hua Guofeng's key supporters along with vice premier and chief economic planner Li Xiannian, and Luo Qingchang, head of the intelligence services.
Hua Guofeng succeeded Mao as party chairman and chairman of the Central Military Commission, becoming the first to simultaneously hold the offices of party leader, premier, and commander-in-chief.
Hua Guofeng gradually faded into political obscurity, but continued to insist on the correctness of Maoist principles.
Hua Guofeng moved with the victorious PLA to Hunan in 1948, where he married Han Zhijun, and would remain in that province until 1971.
Hua Guofeng was appointed Party Secretary for Xiangyin County in August 1949, just before the establishment of the People's Republic of China in October of that year.
Hua Guofeng participated in the 1959 Lushan Conference as a member of the Hunan Provincial Party delegation, and wrote two investigative reports fully defending all of Mao's policies.
Hua Guofeng's influence increased with the Cultural Revolution, as he supported it and led the movement in Hunan.
Hua Guofeng organized the preparation for the establishment of the local Revolutionary Committee in 1967, of which he was a deputy chairman.
Hua Guofeng was elected a full member of the 9th Central Committee in 1969.
Hua Guofeng was called to Beijing to direct Zhou Enlai's State Council staff office in 1971, but only stayed for a few months before returning to his previous post in Hunan.
Hua Guofeng was re-elected as a full member of the 10th Central Committee in 1973 and elevated to membership in the Politburo; in the same year, he was put in charge of agricultural development by Zhou Enlai.
Shortly thereafter, Hua Guofeng was elevated to First Vice Chairman of the CCP Central Committee and Premier of the State Council.
Hua Guofeng knew that in the post-Mao power vacuum, his position vis-a-vis the Gang of Four's would be a zero-sum game.
Hua Guofeng made contact with Ye days after Mao's death to discuss plans about the Gang of Four.
Ye had grown disillusioned with the Gang before Mao's death, so he and Hua Guofeng came to a quick agreement to act against the Gang.
Hua Guofeng crucially enjoyed the support of Mao's loyal security chief, Wang Dongxing, who had command of the elite 8341 Special Regiment, as well as other leading figures on the Politburo, including Vice Premier Li Xiannian and General Chen Xilian, Commander of the Beijing Military Region, as well as Luo Qingchang, chief of the intelligence services.
Hua Guofeng had summoned Zhang Chunqiao, Wang Hongwen, and Yao Wenyuan to a meeting at Zhongnanhai, ostensibly to discuss the fifth volume of Mao's "Selected Works".
Hua Guofeng said that they had engaged in "anti-party and anti-socialist" acts and "conspired to usurp power".
At an emergency Politburo meeting the next day, Hua Guofeng was appointed as chairman of the CCP and the chairman of the Central Military Commission, the governing body of People's Liberation Army.
Hua Guofeng was not broadly known to the Chinese public at the time of his appointment.
In February 1977, the central leadership under Hua Guofeng released a new slogan: "We will resolutely uphold whatever policy decisions Chairman Mao made, and unswervingly follow whatever instructions Chairman Mao gave".
Hua Guofeng attempted reforming state protocol as a method of elevating his prestige.
In 1978 all party meetings were to hang portraits of Mao and Hua Guofeng side-by-side, including at the National People's Congress and CCP Party Congress meetings.
Hua Guofeng changed the Chinese national anthem to incorporate Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party, switching the tone from being war-rallying to purely Communist ideology; these lyrics were eventually rejected.
Hua Guofeng continued to use the terminology of the Cultural Revolution, but he criticized certain aspects of it, including the education reform, the revolutionary committees' activity and other excesses, blaming the Gang of Four.
In February 1978, the first session of the 5th National People's Congress approved a new state constitution, which Hua Guofeng was heavily involved in drafting.
Hua Guofeng worked with Li Xiannian to boost the economy, endorsing a plan to accelerate economic growth by boosting enterprises budgets and importing massive amounts of foreign technology.
Hua Guofeng introduced an ambitious ten-year economic plan which sought to create a Soviet-style economy by increasing investments in heavy industry and energy, mechanizing agriculture and using imported technology to build new manufacturing plants.
In 1978, Hua Guofeng visited Yugoslavia and Romania to study their socialist economic experiences and advanced production techniques.
In October 1979, Hua Guofeng went on a European tour, the first of its kind for a Chinese leader after 1949.
Chairman Hua Guofeng visited Derby's British Rail Railway Technical Centre to observe the development of the Advanced Passenger Train.
Chairman Hua Guofeng went to a farm in Oxfordshire and visited Oxford University.
Hua Guofeng was one of the last foreigners to visit Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, before he was overthrown in 1979.
Hua Guofeng was supported by Hu Yaobang, head of the CCP Organization Department starting from 1977, who criticized Hua as too dogmatic and contrasted him with Deng.
Hua Guofeng effectively lost power at the 3rd plenary session of the 11th Central Committee, after which Deng Xiaoping became the de facto leader of China with his idea for economic reform being adopted by the Party.
Hua Guofeng continued to hold some power, notably blocking additions critical of him to the "Historical Resolution" drafted by the CCP leadership to evaluate the Cultural Revolution.
Hua Guofeng was replaced as Premier by Zhao Ziyang in September 1980, while the Politburo issued a formal criticism of Hua in December, casting him as a figure that opposed modernization and sought simply to parrot Mao.
Hua Guofeng was demoted to the position of junior Vice Chairman; and when this post was abolished in 1982, he continued to serve as an ordinary member of the Central Committee, a position which he held until the 16th Party Congress of November 2002, despite having passed the unofficial mandatory retirement age of 70 in 1991.
Hua Guofeng was invited to the 17th Party Congress in 2007 as a special delegate and he appeared at a ceremony which was held in December 2007 in order to commemorate the 115th anniversary of Mao Zedong's birth.
Hua Guofeng's health deteriorated in 2008, and he was hospitalized for kidney and heart complications.
Economic historian Isabella Weber argues that the Hua Guofeng's upholding of the Two Whatevers policy is an overemphasized aspect of Hua Guofeng's legacy.
Hua Guofeng made national economic development a matter of the highest priority and emphasized the need to achieve "liberation of productive forces".
Hua Guofeng "combined Soviet-style big push industrialization with an opening up to the capitalist world" and under his leadership, China opened its first Special Economic Zone and launched major efforts to attract foreign direct investment.
Hua Guofeng's encouraged a local economy policy that included both planned elements and limited market freedom of the sort that Mao had previously derided as economism.
Additionally, Hua Guofeng encouraged free debates within the CCP, which aimed to promote a more reformist form of Maoism.
Hua Guofeng removed the controls that the Gang of Four had established over cultural and educational policy.
Hua Guofeng regained the loyalty of party cadre and intellectuals, who had generally been marginalized during the Cultural Revolution.
The ousting of Hua Guofeng was significant in at least two respects.
Secondly, Hua Guofeng's ousting reflected a change of policies which were initiated by Deng Xiaoping according to which disgraced party members would merely be stripped of their positions, they would not be jailed or physically harmed.