Deng Xiaoping

In his report to the Party's Eighth National Congress in1956, Deng offered a penetrating discussion on how to strengthen the Party now that it was in power, explaining that it was confronted by new tests and must constantly guard against the danger of divorcing itself from reality and from the mass line and practice democratic centralism and that Party organizations at all levels improve collective leadership, so as to prevent individuals from acting arbitrarily and making decisions on important issues alone.

In 1957, after the Party's Eighth Congress had called for concentrated efforts to develop the productive forces, gratifying results were achieved in economic work. From this point of view, it was one of the best years since the founding of the People's Republic. But in 1958, during the Great Leap Forward and movement to establish people's communes, "Left: errors began to spread. There followed three years of great hardship. In order to analyze experience and correct mistakes, Deng Xiaoping and many other leading members of the Central Committee went on inspection tours and formulated regulations for different fields of work. Deng also directed investigations in the rural areas and suggested ways to rectify such mistakes as the institution of compulsory communal canteens and the system under which the commune was supposed to distribute necessities to all. He emphasized that in correcting past mistakes it was essential to abide by the principle of seeking truth from facts. He pointed out in1962 that the relations of production to be introduced should be of the type that would be most readily accepted by the masses and most conductive to the quick restitution and development of production. He also presided over the drafting of two important documents: the Draft Regulations on the management of State Industrial Enterprises and the Draft Provisional Regulations for Work in Institutions of Higher Learning Directly Under the Ministry of Education.

In 1962 the Central Committee convened a central working conference attended by 7,000 persons, addressing this conference, Deng Xiaoping, in light of the lessons learned from the previous years, stressed the need to adhere to democratic centralism and to carry on the Party's fine traditions. He proposed that all the cases of cadres who might have been wrongly treated in past political movements should be re-examined and the cadres rehabilitated as appropriate. On behalf of the Secretariat of the Central Committee, Deng made an earnest self-criticism in this connection at the conference.

In his tenure of office as the Party's General Secretary, Deng Xiaoping had extensive contacts with leaders of other Parties in the international communist movement. On several occasions he headed delegations to Moscow to have talks with N.Khtyshchov and other Soviet leaders and always took a principled, independent stand.