Deng Zihui

A group photo of prominent Chinese communist leaders. Deng Zihui can be seen in the middle of the photograph.

Deng Zihui, a native of Fujian, was born on 17 August 1896 in Longyan and he came from a family of impoverished rural scholars.[3][4] After attending secondary school in China, he decided to study in Japan,[4] however, after one year, he was forced to drop out due to lung disease and return to China.[5] In September 1923, Deng founded the Rock Sound newspaper which aimed to spread Marxist ideas.[6] Between 1917 and 1928 he briefly worked as a teacher, but mostly as an employee, and then he began working as a salesman in his family's business.[4] This experience is what made him familiar with market mechanisms and with the organic links between urban and rural economies.[4]

The revolutionary surge in the 1920s drew Deng into political action. He initially joined the Kuomintang and then, in December 1926, he joined the Communist Party of China.[3][4] In 1928, Deng Zihui began land reform experiments in Minxi.[7]^: 48 Deng's efforts included a bottom-up method of policy development through consultation with locals and adopting their practical suggestions while reserving broader policy questions and expansion for Communist Party evaluation.[7]^: 48 Some scholars view Deng (as opposed to Mao) as the first to experiment with land reform through establishing "model villages" and disseminating "model experiences."[7]^: 48 By 1930, the experiments with land reform in Minxi had been widely disseminated in Communist Party publications and became an important point of reference for the Jiangxi Soviet's land policies from 1931 to 1934.[7]^: 48

Deng organised many guerrilla strikes in his home province, Fujian.[8] Deng was put in charge of finance in the Ruijin soviet government of 1931–1933.[4] After the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War, in 1938, he became a major military leader of the newly created New Fourth Army.[8] During the course of the wars Deng participated in, he became a close associate of Mao Zedong and he belonged in the small circle of Mao's faithful comrades.[4][8]

The former site of the People's Finance Committee of the Jiangxi–Fujian Soviet in Ruijin, which Deng was in charge of.

After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Deng suffered from hepatitis and diabetes, however he continued to work with these diseases.[9] He dominated both the party's and the state's policies throughout the period 1953–1962 and he often came into various conflicts with Mao Zedong over agricultural issues.[8] Following his appointment to head the party's newfound Rural Work Department in early 1953, Deng became the Vice Premier of the People's Republic of China in 1954, overseeing agriculture, forestry, fisheries, hydraulics, trade and finance in the rural sector.[4] During the initial phases of agricultural collectivization, he supported proposals for the redistribution of lands to poor peasants from the wealthy peasants and landlords.[8] However, during the mid-1950s he reverted his early support of moderate policies. Deng became a strong defender of peasant property rights, he started opposing the radical policies of forced agricultural collectivization pursued by Mao, especially after the Great Leap Forward.[8] He relied on extensive investigations into the rural economy to support legal protection of peasant property rights while advocating against policies involving extreme egalitarianism, by opposing policies such as excessive government grain requisitions, state monopoly of agricultural pricing and the frequent and rapid transfer of property ownership.[8] Deng's proposals inaugurated major agricultural reforms, such as the 'household contract system' (包产到户, baochan daohu) concerning the country's food crisis.[8] In this system, Deng found an efficient means of resolving the recurrent difficulties that were being faced in the management of collective work.[4] The system was supported by the chief members of the politburo, such as Tian Jiaying, Chen Yun and Deng Xiaoping, however, when it was proposed to Mao Zedong, he refused to consider it because he believed that it pointed to the direction of capitalism.[4]

During the Central Committee Work Conference at Beidaihe (6 August 1962 - 24 August 1962) the agricultural questioned was placed first.[4] After Mao Zedong's speech on a general leaders' meeting in the 6th of August, the themes of class struggle, criticism of the 'winds of individual farming' (单干风, danganfeng) and 'winds of darkness' (黑暗风, hei’anfang) dominated discussions in meetings held by regional groups.[4] Mao used a central structure (中心小组, zhongxin xiaozu), comprising members of the politburo and a number of regional leaders, to centralize topics of discussion and channel the opinions expressed.[4] Deng now felt that he was being directly targeted and, on the 10th of August, he tried to defend himself against attacks by Li Jingquan, Chen Boda and Ke Qingshi. He reminded to them that the 'responsibility system for contracting work and output' (包产责任制, baochan zerenzhi) had been ratified by the Communist Party as early as 1957. This policy had been undermined after 1958, but its resumption would improve collective farming.[4] Deng stated that the 'farming responsibility system' (责任田, zerentian) could not be considered a form of individual farming.[4] However, on the following day, Mao defamed Deng, by describing him as an individual 'devoid of any intellectual predisposition in favour of the socialist revolution'. Later on, Mao's attacks took the form of comments that he implanted into speeches by other leaders. He also distributed an old document from the Rural Work Department in order to stigmatise Deng's change of position. Additionally, in one harsh handwritten note, Mao recalled some supposed 'serious and historic errors' committed by Deng at the beginning of the 1950s.[4] Shortly after, the Rural Work Department which Deng was in charge of, was accused by Mao of 'having done nothing useful for the past ten years' and dissolved.[4]

Deng was persecuted by Lin Biao and Jiang Qing and purged from all positions during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976).[8] Beset with illness and bereft of official protection, Deng died from an accident on 10 December 1972 in Beijing.[3][4] He was posthumously rehabilitated and his reputation was restored.[10] Because of his efforts to resist hasty collectivization and his pioneering advocacy of the responsibility system, Deng became a 'hero before his time' in recent historical reconstructions.[11] In 1987, the 'Deng Zihui Memorial Hall' was built in Dongxiao.[6] A statue of Deng was placed in the middle of the hall.[6] A biography of him was written in 1996.[8]