42 Facts About Hua Guofeng

Hua Guofeng, alternatively spelled as Hua Kuo-feng, was a Chinese politician who served as Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party and Premier of the People's Republic of China.

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 1948, as the Communists gained the upper hand in the civil war, Hua Guofeng was one among 50,000 party officials transferred from North to South China to take control of newly conquered territories and was assigned to Hunan, becoming Party Secretary of Xiangtan, which included Mao's birthplace of Shaoshan.

On 6 October 1976, shortly after the death of Mao on 9 September, Hua Guofeng removed the Gang of Four from political power by arranging for their arrests in Zhongnanhai, with the assistance of Mao's loyal security chief Wang Dongxing, who became one of Hua Guofeng's strongest supporters, along with Vice Premier and chief economic planner Li Xiannian and Luo Qingchang, head of the intelligence services.

Hua Guofeng reversed some of the Cultural Revolution-era policies, such as the constant ideological campaigns, but he was fully devoted to a command economy and the continuation of the Maoist line.

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 a Politburo meeting the next day, Hua Guofeng assumed the posts of Chairman of the CCP Central Committee and the Central Military Commission while in concurrent capacity as Premier of the State Council, becoming thus commander in chief of the People's Liberation Army.

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.

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 party met to approve a new state constitution, which Hua Guofeng was heavily involved in drafting.

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.

At the CCP 3rd Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee, after which Deng Xiaoping became the de facto leader of China as his idea for economic reform was adopted by the Party, Hua Guofeng was implicitly criticized for serving concurrently as Chairman of the Central Committee, Chairman of the Central Military Commission and Premier of the State Council.

Hua Guofeng gave self-criticism sessions and he eventually renounced the Two Whatevers policy as a mistake.

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 mandatory retirement age of 70 in 1991.

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.

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'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.

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.