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Deng Xiaoping: Seeking Truth from Facts
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| In June 1985, Deng Xiaoping declared a reduction
of one million in PLA troops, saying that China would like to
contribute to world peace by concrete deeds. |
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| Deng Xiaoping put an end to life tenure of high-ranking officials and set an example of retirement for state leaders. |
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| Deng Xiaoping on his visit to France in 1975. |
For a period, many Chinese were nostalgic about the Mao Era and longed for the return of the wealth equilibrium that Mao had created for them. However, Deng Xiaoping, Mao's successor, overrode this concept of economic equilibrium, instead upholding the theory that a cat that catches mice is a good cat, whether white or black -- a pragmatic stance. For him, politics was neither a matter of rhetoric nor class struggle. Its purpose was to provide people with material benefits.
Deng was born in 1904 in Guang'an County, Sichuan, and in 1920 he went to France to study. At the age of 23, he became secretary-general of the CPC Central Committee. During his membership in the Party, he was brought down three times, and redeemed himself three times. His optimistic attitude may be seen from his comment, "No matter if the sky caves in, there are always men tall enough to shoulder it." This talent also helped him to remain, eventually, invincible. Mao once remarked that Deng was a "rarely gifted person." Deng's great merits have made the Chinese people think of him as a figure equally important in 20th century Chinese history as Sun Yat-sen and Mao Zedong
Deng Xiaoping was among the first group of CPC members to go to the West in search of ways of national salvation. In France, he came to the realization that Marxism was the outcome of modern industrialization, and that scientific socialism was a development trend representing the most advanced productive forces of humankind. His deep understanding of Marxism enabled him to carry out and put into practice Mao's thought during a period of great social change. "Building socialism with Chinese characteristics" was his outstanding theoretical contribution to China. Meanwhile, he acknowledged science and technology as the primary productive forces, and intellectuals as an integral facet of the working class.