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CHINA: POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS BETWEEN THE 12TH AND 13TH CCP CONGRESSES 1982-87
1-11 September 1982. 12th CCP Congress. A reformist Party
27 September 1982
December 1982
March-April 1983
Constitution adopted, which strengthened the Central Committee Secretariat and established the General Secretaryship as the leading Party post, in place of the Chairmanship, which was abolished. The Advisory Commission set up. Former Party Chairman now General Secretary, Hu Yaobang, announced in his report that a three year Party rectification campaign would begin at the end of 1983 and also the goal of quadrupling 1980 gross industrial and agricultural output value by the year 2000. The new Central Committee was younger and changes in the composition of the Politburo and Secretariat benefited the reformist position but few veterans took the opportunity to move over to the Advisory Commission created for that purpose.
Wei Guoging dismissed as Director of the PLA Political Department as a result of the publication of an article in Liberation Army Daily by Zhao Yiya on 28 August, the eve of the Party Congress. The article followed a leftist line on culture and accused "certain leaders in China's theoretical, art and literary and press circles of taking the lead in supporting and propagating the erroneous viewpoints of bourgeois liberalisation which run counter to the four basic principles." Liberation Army Daily and Shanghai's Liberation Daily, which also published the original article, published front-page self-criticisms on 27 September. Wei Guoqing retained his Politburo seat but his influence declined.
Fifth Session of Fifth National People's Congress. New State Constitution adopted, which reinstituted the position of State President, established a State Central Military Commission and abolished People's Communes as a unit of local government.
Provincial leadership changes. A major round of changes in both provincial Party and government leaderships affected almost all province-level units. As a result, leading bodies had fewer and generally younger, better educated and more reform-minded members.
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