CONFIDENTIAL
1982-
1983-
Chairman of the Advisory Commission of the CCP Central Committee.
Chairman of the State Central Military Commission.
Nominally Deng ranks third in the Party leadership, but he is clearly the single most powerful figure in China. Although he is officially said to be no longer overseeing day-to-day Party and government business, he is the decisive influence on important
issues and is the driving force behind present policies.
Deng was the second most prominent official, after the late Liu Shaoqi, to be dismissed in the Cultural Revolution, being
General Secretary of the Party at the time of his disgrace. He
was rehabilitated in 1973, and reinstated as a Vice-Premier.
Thereafter, as the health of the Premier Zhou Enlai deteriorated,
Deng gradually took over his work and by 1975 he was in charge of the day to day work of the Government, Chief of the General Staff and a Vice-Chairman of the Party. However, following Zhou's
death in January 1976, he was passed over for the Premiership and
subsequently dismissed from all his posts and denounced as a "capitalist roader".
After the arrest of the "Gang of Four" in October 1976, and
against opposition from the remaining leftists in the Politburo,
he was restored to all his posts in July 1977 and subsequently
took over the Chairmanship of the Party's Military Commission from
Hua Guofeng in 1981. Since then he has steadily consolidated
his position by the promotion of his supporters to key positions and by the removal of opponents. He has been the main architect and principal political guarantor of the wide-ranging reform programme which has been pursued especially since the Third Central
Committee Plenum in 1978.
Fully aware of the vagaries of Chinese politics, Deng has
sought to ensure the continuation of his policies after his demise
by the establishment of a collective leadership through institutional
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CONFIDENTIAL
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