A report on Deng Xiaoping, Paramount leader and Chinese Communist Party

Deng Xiaoping at age 16, studying in France (1921)

Deng's name is spelled Teng Hi Hien on this employment card from the Hutchinson shoe factory in Châlette-sur-Loing, France, where he worked on two occasions as seen from the dates, eight months in 1922 and again in 1923 when he was fired after one month, with the bottom annotation reading "refused to work, do not take him back"

Site of the first CCP Congress, in the former Shanghai French Concession

Flag of the HistoryChinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army

Mao Zedong declared the establishment of the People's Republic of China on 1 October 1949.

Deng Xiaoping with He Long (middle) and Zhu De (right) (1949)

Chinese communists celebrate Joseph Stalin's birthday, 1949.

Deng Xiaoping (left) met with the 14th Dalai Lama (right) in 1954

A temporary monument displayed in Changsha, Hunan Province, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the CCP's founding

Deng Xiaoping (left) with future president Li Xiannian (center) and Premier Zhou Enlai in 1963

A monument dedicated to Karl Marx (left) and Friedrich Engels (right) in Shanghai

Deng Xiaoping (centre) with U.S. president Gerald Ford (left), 1975

A billboard advertising Xi Jinping Thought in Shenzhen, Guangdong

The 18th National Congress, convened in November 2012

Deng Xiaoping (left) and his wife Zhuo Lin (right) are briefed by Johnson Space Center director Christopher C. Kraft (extreme right)

Front cover of the Constitution of the Chinese Communist Party

Deng Xiaoping billboard in Lizhi Park, Shenzhen, one of China's first special economic zones and is regarded as China's Silicon Valley

Xi Jinping (second from left) with Enrique Peña Nieto (second from right), the former President of Mexico and a leading member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party

A model reconstruction of Deng Xiaoping's 1984 meeting with UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Shenzhen

A patrol boat in use during Deng Xiaoping's southern tour of 1992

Deng Xiaoping's ashes lie in state in Beijing whose banner reads "Memorial Service of Comrade Deng Xiaoping", February 1997

Deng Xiaoping billboard in Shenzhen, Guangdong

Deng Xiaoping billboard in Qingdao, Shandong

Deng Xiaoping billboard in Dujiangyan, Sichuan

Deng Xiaoping (22 August 1904 – 19 February 1997), also known by his courtesy name Xixian (希贤), was a Chinese revolutionary leader, military commander and statesman who served as the paramount leader of the People's Republic of China (PRC) from December 1978 to 1992.

- Deng Xiaoping

The paramount leader, also named supreme leader of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Government and People's Liberation Army (PLA) of the People's Republic of China (PRC) is an informal term for the most prominent political leader in China.

- Paramount leader

Born in the province of Sichuan in the Qing dynasty, Deng studied and worked in France in the 1920s, where he became a follower of Marxism–Leninism and joined the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1924.

- Deng Xiaoping

The term gained prominence during the era of Deng Xiaoping (1978–1989), when he was able to wield political power without necessarily holding any official or formally significant party or government positions at any given time (head of state, head of government or CCP General Secretary).

- Paramount leader

During the 1980s, Deng Xiaoping directed the CCP away from Maoist orthodoxy and towards a policy of economic liberalization.

- Chinese Communist Party

Because of these posts, the party leader is seen as the country's paramount leader.

- Chinese Communist Party

7 related topics with Alpha

Hu Jintao

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Retired Chinese politician who served as General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 2002 to 2012, President of the People's Republic of China (PRC) from 2003 to 2013, and Chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC) from 2004 to 2012.

Hu Jintao with Leaders of the BRICS countries, from left, Singh, Medvedev, Rousseff and Zuma in April 2011

Hu with George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush in Beijing, 10 August 2008

Hu talks with U.S. President Barack Obama at the 2009 Pittsburgh G-20 Summit

Hu was the paramount leader of China from 2004 to 2012.

Hu rose to power through the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), notably as Party Committee Secretary for Guizhou province and the Tibet Autonomous Region, where his harsh repression of dissent gained him attention from the highest levels.

Influential sponsors from the older generation promoted his rapid rise, including Song Ping, Hu Yaobang, Deng Xiaoping, and Jiang Zemin.

Jiang Zemin

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Chinese retired politician who served as General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party from 1989 to 2002, as Chairman of the Central Military Commission of the Chinese Communist Party from 1989 to 2004, and as President of the People's Republic of China from 1993 to 2003.

Graduation photo of Jiang, taken in 1947.

Jiang Zemin with U.S. President Bill Clinton in 1999.

Jiang Zemin with his wife and George W. Bush with his wife in Crawford, Texas, 25 October 2002.

Jiang Zemin's inscription engraved on a stone in his hometown, Yangzhou

Jiang represented the "core of the third generation" of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leaders since 1989.

As the involvement of the "Eight Elders" in Chinese politics steadily declined, Jiang consolidated his hold on power to become the "paramount leader" in the country during the 1990s.

At the age of 95 years, 350 days, Jiang is the longest-living paramount leader in the history of the PRC, surpassing Deng Xiaoping on 14 February 2019.

Hu Yaobang

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High-ranking official of the People's Republic of China.

Hu Yaobang, Zhu De, and Liao Chengzhi at the National Youth Congress in 1953 (left to right)

(from left) Zhao Ziyang, Deng Xiaoping and Li Peng at Hu Yaobang's memorial service in the Great Hall of the People, on 22 April 1989

He held the top office of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 1981 to 1987, first as Chairman from 1981 to 1982, then as General Secretary from 1982 to 1987.

Hu joined the CCP in the 1930s, and rose to prominence as a comrade of Deng Xiaoping.

Hu Yaobang's rise to power was engineered by Deng Xiaoping, and Hu rose to the highest levels of the Party after Deng displaced Hua Guofeng as China's "paramount leader".

Zhao (top left) pictured with Mao Zedong in Wuhan, January 1966

Zhao Ziyang

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Chinese politician.

Zhao was hosted by US president Ronald Reagan at the White House on 10 January 1984 as part of a broader effort to improve China's relations with the West.

Zhao Ziyang's final burial site in 2019, with his son on the right.

He was the third premier of the People's Republic of China from 1980 to 1987, vice chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 1981 to 1982, and CCP general secretary from 1987 to 1989.

He emerged on the national scene due to support from Deng Xiaoping after the Cultural Revolution.

After ousting Hua Guofeng as China's "paramount leader" in 1978, Deng Xiaoping recognized the "Sichuan Experience" as a model for Chinese economic reform.

Cultural Revolution

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Sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976.

People in the countryside working at night to produce steel during the Great Leap Forward

The purge of General Luo Ruiqing solidified the Army's loyalty to Mao.

Mao waved to the "revolutionary masses" on the riverside before his "swim across the Yangtze"

A struggle session of Wang Guangmei, the wife of Liu Shaoqi.

Mao Zedong and Lin Biao surrounded by rallying Red Guards in Beijing. Source: China Pictorial

Tiananmen Square on September 15, 1966, the occasion of Chairman Mao's third of eight mass rallies with Red Guards in 1966. Source: China Pictorial

The remains of Ming Dynasty Wanli Emperor at the Ming tombs. Red Guards dragged the remains of the Wanli Emperor and Empresses to the front of the tomb, where they were posthumously "denounced" and burned.

The Cemetery of Confucius was attacked by Red Guards in November 1966.

Propaganda oil painting of Mao during the Cultural Revolution (1967)

Marshal Lin Biao was constitutionally confirmed as Mao's successor in 1969.

Graffiti with Lin Biao's foreword to Mao's Little Red Book, Lin's name (lower right) was later scratched out, presumably after his death.

Jiang Qing (left), who was the wife of Mao Zedong and a member of the Gang of Four, received the Red Guards in Beijing with Premier Zhou Enlai (center) and Kang Sheng. They were all holding the Little Red Book (Quotations from Mao) in their hands.

Deng Xiaoping became the paramount leader of China in 1978. He started "Boluan Fanzheng" that brought the country back to order, and initiated China's historic Reforms and Opening up.

A struggle session of Xi Zhongxun, the father of Xi Jinping (September 1967). Xi Zhongxun was labelled as an "anti-Party element". However, since late 2012, Xi Jinping and his allies have attempted to play down the disaster of the Cultural Revolution and reversed many reforms since the Boluan Fanzheng period, sparking concerns of a new Cultural Revolution.

Quotations of Mao Zedong on a street wall of Wuxuan County, one of the centers of Guangxi massacre and cannibalism during the Cultural Revolution.

The Cultural Revolution Cemetery in Chongqing, China. At least 1,700 people were killed during the violent faction clash, with 400 to 500 of them buried in this cemetery.

The Tibetan Panchen Lama during a struggle session.

Struggle session of Sampho Tsewang Rigzin and his wife during the Cultural Revolution.

A 1968 map of Beijing showing streets and landmarks renamed during the Cultural Revolution. Andingmen Inner Street became "Great Leap Forward Road", Taijichang Street became the "Road for Eternal Revolution", Dongjiaominxiang was renamed "Anti-Imperialist Road", Beihai Park was renamed "Worker-Peasant-Soldier Park" and Jingshan Park became "Red Guard Park." Most of the Cultural Revolution-era name changes were later reversed.

Yao Tongbin, one of China's foremost missile scientists, was beaten to death by a mob in Beijing during the Cultural Revolution (1968). This caused Zhou Enlai to order special protection for key technical experts.

Remnants of a banner containing slogans from the Cultural Revolution in Anhui.

The ballet The Red Detachment of Women, one of the Model Dramas promoted during the Cultural Revolution.

Posters from the Cultural Revolution period

Buddhist statues defaced during the Cultural Revolution.

The central section of this wall shows the faint remnant marks of a propaganda slogan that was added during the Cultural Revolution, but has since been removed. The slogan read "Boundless faith that in Chairman Mao."

Meanwhile, tens of millions of people were persecuted: senior officials, most notably Chinese president Liu Shaoqi, along with Deng Xiaoping, Peng Dehuai, and He Long, were purged or exiled; millions were accused of being members of the Five Black Categories, suffering public humiliation, imprisonment, torture, hard labor, seizure of property, and sometimes execution or harassment into suicide; intellectuals were considered the "Stinking Old Ninth" and were widely persecuted—notable scholars and scientists such as Lao She, Fu Lei, Yao Tongbin, and Zhao Jiuzhang were killed or committed suicide.

In December 1978, Deng Xiaoping became the new paramount leader of China, replacing Chairman Hua Guofeng, and started the "Boluan Fanzheng" program which gradually dismantled the Maoist policies associated with the Cultural Revolution, and brought the country back to order.

Mao and many other members of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) opposed these changes, believing that they would have negative repercussions for the worldwide Communist movement, among whom Stalin was still viewed as a hero.

General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party

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The general secretary of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party is the paramount leader of China.

The general secretary is the head of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the highest-ranking official within the People's Republic of China (PRC).

Since its revival in 1982, the post of general secretary has been the highest office in the CCP, though it did not become the most powerful post until Deng Xiaoping's retirement in 1990.

Leadership core

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In modern Chinese politics, a leadership core or core leader refers to a person who is recognized as central to the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party.

Four individuals so far have been given this designation: Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, and Xi Jinping.

The leadership core operates as part of the Leninist-inspired framework of democratic centralism, and is intended to represent a vital center rather than a hierarchical peak, which differentiates it from the role of paramount leader.