IGCSE History

• Home
• Introduction to IGCSE
• The Road to Affluence: USA 1917 - 1941 (A9)
  • 1917 - 1929
    • The impact of the First World War
    • Immigration
    • Henry Ford and mass production
    • Farming in the 1920s
    • The Stock Market Boom
  • 1929 - 1941
    • The Wall Street Crash
    • The Depression
    • The policies of Hoover
    • Roosevelt and the New Deal
    • Reactions to the New Deal
• International Relations 1919-1939 (A8)
  • Collective Security
    • The Versailles Settlement
    • The Foundation of the League of Nations
    • Strengths and weaknesses of the League of Nations
    • Successes and failures of the League of Nations
    • Locarno and the Kellogg-Briand Pact
  • Appeasement
    • Manchuria
    • The Disarmament Conference
    • Abyssinia
    • Hitler and the League
    • Appeasement in action
• Revolution in China 1949 - 1996 (A14)
  • 1949 - 1976
    • China under Mao
    • Reform under Liu and Deng
    • The reasons for the Cultural Revolution
    • The impact of the Cultural Revolution
    • China 1971 - 1976
  • 1976 - 1996
    • The defeat of the Gang of Four
    • China under Deng Xiaoping
    • Reforms of the economy
    • The Democracy Movement
    • China in the 1990s
• South-East Asia 1945 - 1900 (A15)
  • Indo-China
    • The end of the French Empire
    • Vietnam 1954 - 1965
    • US involvement in Vietnam
    • The unification of Vietnam
    • Laos and Cambodia
  • South-East Asia
    • The struggle for control of Malaya
    • The creation of Malaysia
    • Singapore
    • Suharto and Indonesia
    • Sukarno and Pancasila
• Conflict and Crisis is the Middle East 1946 - 1996 (A16)
  • Unit overview
  • 1946 - 1967
    • The creation of Israel
    • The impact of the war of 1948 - 1949
    • The Suez Crisis
    • Superpower involvement in the Middle East
    • The Six Day War
  • 1967 - 1996
    • International terrorism
    • The war of Yom Kippur
    • The Palestinian Liberation Organisation
    • Lebanon and the occupied territories
    • Successes and failures from Camp David to Oslo
• The First World War (B4)
  • The Schlieffen Plan
  • Deadlock on the Western Front
  • Gallipoli
  • The Somme and Passchendaele
  • The War at Sea
  • The defeat of Germany
• The USA 1917-1929 (B7)
  • The Roaring Twenties
  • Advertising and consumerism
  • New forms of entertainment
  • Prohibition
  • Gangsterism
  • Hollywood
• China under Mao Zedong 1949 - 1959 (B10)
  • The creation of the Communist State
  • Land Reform
  • Communist society
  • The First Five Year Pan
  • The 100 Flowers
  • The Great Leap Forward
• The Changing Nature of Warfare (C3)
  • Unit overview
  • Warfare at the beginning of the 20th Century
  • Land warfare
  • Sea and aerial warfare
  • Atomic and nuclear weapons
  • Warfare at the end of the 20th Century
• Links

The Defeat of the Gang of Four

Mao’s death in 1976 left a vacuum in China and he had no obvious successor. Zhou Enlai had died in January 1976 and Deng Xiaoping had been purged earlier in the year because he was blamed for riots in Tiananmen Square at Zhou’s funeral. Hua Gaofeng, who had succeeded Zhou as Prime Minister, was Mao’s chosen successor and gave the address at Mao’s funeral, but he was challenged in the Politburo by the Gang of Four, Jiang Qing (the widow of Mao), Zhang Chungquiao, Yao Wenyuan and Wang Hongwen. The deciding factor was the army, which supported Hua. Marshal Ye backed Hua and he remained Prime Minister and the Gang of Four was arrested in October 1976.

Hua was not very popular in China and had little mass support. He was seen as a caretaker. Hua was also seen as being too Maoist. He often said the ‘two whatevers’. ‘Whatever Mao said was right, whatever Mao did must be continued.’ This did not make him more popular. In 1977 Deng Xiaoping was rehabilitated. He had many contacts in the Party and had not lost his membership when he fell from power.
Deng was able to purge the power ranks of the Party of Hua’s supporters and his reputation as an economic reformer attracted many people. Marshal Ye gave Deng his backing, which gave him the support of the army

In 1978 Deng became chairman of the People’s Political Consultative Conference, which had not met since 1966. People purged in the 1960s and 1970s were rehabilitated and the Cultural Revolution was officially brought to an end. Peng Zheu and Bi Yibo, two of Deng’s closest supporters were among those rehabilitated. The Gang of Four was accused of suppressing the Conference and in October 1978 Mao’s Little Red Book was denounced.

The Third Plenum of the 11th Central Committee of the CCP in 1980 passed a resolution calling on the government ‘to restore Party Democracy’. Hua Gaofeng resigned in 1980 and Hua Yaobang took his place as Prime Minister. He was a supporter of Deng. Deng refused the post because he said that he was too old.
Deng’s only official post was Chairman of the Party’s Military Affairs Commission, but too all intents and purposes he was the Paramount Leader.

In the years since 1976 great efforts had been made to restore links with the West. Deng wanted to modernise the Chinese economy and signed deals with Japan and the European Community. The USA also recognised Communist China as the ‘official China’ and withdrew its ambassador from Taiwan.

news