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on "major issues of political principle in violation of the Party's principle of collective leadership". Zhao Ziyang was unanimously elected to replace him as acting General Secretary while remaining Premier.
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Campaign against Bourgeois Liberalisation. This began in the wake of Hu Yaobang's fall and was promoted most vigorously by veteran conservative leaders such as Bo Yibo, Peng Zhen and Deng Liqun who may have been instrumental in Hu's removal. The campaign was aimed at alleged decadent Western influences which threatened Party leadership. Zhao Ziyang was instrumental in confining the campaign to political debate within the Party despite the danger that it might spill over into the economic realm. He enunciated the policy of upholding "the two basic points"
(simultaneously upholding the four basic principles the socialist road, the people's democratic dictatorship, leadership of the Communist Party, Marxism-Leninism- Mao Zedong Thought and upholding the policies of economic reform and opening to the outside world). Notable victims in this campaign and for their part in the student demonstrations were Zhu Houze, head of the CCP Propaganda Department, Ruan Chongwu, Minister of Public Security, Fang Lizhi, Vice-President of the University of Science and Technology in Hefei, Wang Ruowang, a writer, and Liu Binyan, a journalist.
Speech by Zhao Ziyang to propaganda workers. This speech together with a reported direct confrontation between Zhao and veteran conservatives, in which Zhao had the support of Deng Xiaoping, marked the return of the initiative to the reformers. The campaign against bourgeois liberalisation died out and the main object of criticism became "ossified thinking". 'Leftism' was restored as the principal danger. Reformist ideas - political reform as well as economic returned to the fore.
Party Rectification campaign. Its offical conclusion marked by a summing-up meeting in Peking
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