Can someone give me an outline of Deng Xiaopengs life in Chinese?

Question

I need to know what happened during 1904-1919, 1920-1929, 1930-1939, 1940-1949, 1950-1959, 1960-1969, 1970-1979, 1980-1989, 1990-1997, so I might need a pretty detailed site.

It does not have to be a huge essay, short bullet points would be perfect.

Also, what were some main ideas of Deng and what contributions did he give to China?

Thanks a lot

Answer 1

Deng was born Deng Xiansheng (simplified Chinese: 邓先圣; traditional Chinese: 鄧先聖) on August 22, 1904 in Paifang village in Xiexing township, Guang'an County, Sichuan Province. While in school he adopted the name of Deng Xixian (邓希贤). He was educated in France, as were many notable Asian revolutionaries (such as Ho Chi Minh and Zhou Enlai), where he discovered Marxism-Leninism.

His first wife, Zhang Xiyuan, one of his schoolmates from Moscow, died when she was 24, a few days after giving birth to Deng's first child, a baby girl, who also died. His second wife, Jin Weiying, left him after he came under political attack in 1933. His third wife, Zhuo Lin, was the daughter of an industrialist in Yunnan Province. She became a member of the Communist Party in 1938, and a year later married Deng in front of Mao's cave dwelling in Yan'an. They had five children: three daughters (Deng Lin, Deng Nan, Deng Rong) and two sons (Deng Pufang, Deng Zhifang).

In the summer of 1919, Deng Xiaoping graduated from the Chongqing Preparatory School. He and 80 schoolmates, participating in a work-study program for Chinese students, boarded a ship for France (traveling steerage) and in October arrived in Marseilles. Deng, the youngest of all the Chinese students, had just turned 15[1]. He spent most of his time in France working, first at the Le Creusot Iron and Steel plant in central France, then later as a fitter in the Renault factory in the Paris suburb of Billancourt, as a fireman on a locomotive and as a kitchen helper in restaurants. He barely earned enough to survive. He also briefly attended middle schools in Bayeux and Chatillon.

In France, under the influence of his seniors (Zhao Shiyan, Zhou Enlai among others), Deng began to study Marxism and did political propaganda work. In 1921 he joined the Chinese Communist Youth League in Europe. In the second half of 1923 he joined the Chinese Communist Party and became one of the leading members of the General Branch of the Youth League in Europe. During 1926 Deng studied at Moscow in the then-USSR. He returned to China in early 1926.

In 1928 Deng led the Baise Uprising in Guangxi province against the Kuomintang government. The uprising soon failed and Deng went to the Central Soviet Area in Jiangxi province.

He was a veteran of the Long March, during which Deng served as General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. While acting as political commissar for Liu Bocheng, he organized several important military campaigns during the war with Japan and during the Civil War against the Kuomintang. In late November 1948, Deng led the final assault on KMT forces under the direct command of Chiang Kai-shek in his native Sichuan. The city of Chongqing fell to the PLA on December 1 and Deng was immediately appointed mayor and political commissar. (Chiang Kai-shek, who had moved his headquarters to Chongqing in mid-November fled to the provincial capital of Chengdu. This last mainland Chinese city to be held by the KMT fell December 10 and Chiang fled to Taiwan on the same day.) When the PRC was founded in 1949 Deng was sent to oversee issues in the Southwestern Region, and acted as its First Secretary.

Deng gradually emerged as the de-facto leader of China in the few years following Mao's death in 1976. Prior to Mao's death, the only official position he held was that of Executive Vice-Premier of the State Council. By carefully mobilizing his supporters within the Chinese Communist Party, Deng was able to outmaneuver Mao's anointed successor Hua Guofeng, who had previously pardoned him, and then oust Hua from his top leadership positions by 1980-1981.

In contrast to previous leadership changes, Deng allowed Hua to retain membership in the Central Committee until November 2002, to quietly retire, and helped to set a precedent that losing a high-level leadership struggle would not result in physical harm.

Deng then repudiated the Cultural Revolution and, in 1977, launched the "Beijing Spring", which allowed open criticism of the excesses and suffering that had occurred during the period. Meanwhile, he was the impetus for the abolishment of the class background system. Under this system, the CCP put up employment barriers to Chinese deemed to be associated with the former landlord class, its removal therefore effectively allowed Chinese capitalists to join the Communist Party.

Deng gradually outmaneuvered his political opponents. By encouraging public criticism of the Cultural Revolution, he weakened the position of those who owed their political positions to that event, while strengthening the position of those like himself who had been purged during that time. Deng also received a great deal of popular support.

As Deng gradually consolidated control over the CCP, Hua was replaced by Zhao Ziyang as premier in 1980, and by Hu Yaobang as party chief in 1981. Deng remained the most influential CCP cadre, although after 1987 his only official posts were as chairman of the state and Communist Party Central Military Commissions.

Originally, the president was conceived of as a figurehead head of state, with actual state power resting in the hands of the premier and the party chief, both offices being conceived of as held by separate people in order to prevent a cult of personality from forming (as it did in the case of Mao); the party would develop policy, whereas the state would execute it.

Deng's elevation to China's new number-one figure meant that the historical and ideological questions around Mao Zedong had to be addressed properly. Because Deng wished to pursue deep reforms, to continue Mao's hard-line "class struggle" policies and mass public campaigns was unreasonable. In 1982 the Central Committee of the Communist Party released a document entitled On the Various Historical Issues since the Founding of the People's Republic of China. Mao retained his status as a "great Marxist, proletarian revolutionary, militarist, and general", and the undisputed founder and pioneer of the country and the People's Liberation Army. "His accomplishments must be considered before his mistakes", the document declared. Deng personally commented that Mao was "seven parts good, three parts bad." The document also stirred away the prime responsibility of the Cultural Revolution from Mao, although it did state that "Mao mistakenly began the Cultural Revolution", the "counter-revolutionary cliques" of the Gang of Four and Lin Biao were directed the majority of the blame.