China After Mao

"The Great Transformation

By Odd Arne Westad and Chen Jian

Yale, 424 pages, $38

Mao Zedong died in the early hours of Sept. 9, 1976. He had led the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for more than four decades and served as head of state since the establishment of the People's Republic of China on Oct. 1, 1949; he was the only leader a significant portion of China's population had ever known. Heralded as "the people's great savior" and "the reddest reddest red sun in our heart," Mao occupied a godlike status that had been fostered for years through propaganda and political campaigns. His death, at the age of 82, was no surprise to Mao's inner circle, who had witnessed his long physical and mental decline, but left a void at the center of China's government. Replacing the legendary founder of the country would be a daunting task.

As Odd Arne Westad and Chen Jian detail in "The Great Transformation: China's Road From Revolution to Reform," Mao's passing posed even greater difficulty because it followed the decade of political upheaval, party infighting and social conflict known as the Cultural Revolution. Launched by Mao in 1966 to purge the CCP of those whom he considered revisionists, the Cultural Revolution also furthered Mao's desire for "the complete transformation of all modes of thinking among China's youth." Students organized into bands of Red Guards and turned against their teachers, destroyed works of art and culture, and terrorized anyone with interests they considered old or feudal. Although Mao brought an end to the most violent period of the Cultural Revolution by 1968, chaos lingered and society remained in disarray into the 1970s.

Messrs. Westad and Chen focus on what they term "the long 1970s" in China, which extends from approximately 1968 to 1984. The first part of their book covers Mao's final decline, as younger cadres began jockeying for position, though they had to do so with caution. "Aspire to too much power," the authors write, "and Mao would turn against you, even from his sickbed, sometimes with fatal results." The second half of the narrative details the power politics that followed Mao's death, as China faced perhaps its greatest pivot point of the 20th century. Would the country continue to follow the pattern that Mao had established, of continuous revolution and politics above all? Or would the next generation of CCP leaders seek a balance, one that emphasized the importance of politics but also pursued economic growth and improved standards of living for China's people?

By choosing to begin with Mao's final years, Messrs. Westad and Chen build a strong case for their account of how and why events played out after the leader's death. As he aged, the authors explain, Mao appeared to take pleasure in toying with the loyalties of those who surrounded him, "setting one group against another, noting his displeasure with someone only to laud the very same person to the skies the next day." He elevated his wife, Jiang Qing, to a leading role in the Cultural Revolution, but at times also refused to see her. Lin Biao, the minister of national defense and Mao's chosen successor in the late 1960s, exhibited signs of what might have been bipolar disorder, and by 1971 was mired in depression and conflict with those around him, including Mao. In September of that year Lin made an apparent attempt to defect to the Soviet Union. His plane crashed in Mongolia, causing "a shock to the Chinese political system even beyond the purges and killings of the Cultural Revolution."

Lin's betrayal of the chairman, who had publicly supported him, invited questions about Mao's ability to identify a proper successor who could lead the CCP and the country after his death. A political seesaw ensued and continued for the five years between Lin's death and Mao's. Cadres on the left, including Jiang, fought for influence against the aging Premier Zhou Enlai and other moderates. Deng Xiaoping, a Mao loyalist who had been purged but not expelled from the party earlier in the Cultural Revolution, enjoyed a brief elevation to the inner circle before once again finding himself on the outside in the final months of Mao's life. Palace politics were constantly in flux, with an increasingly feeble Mao at the center of it all.

Into this high-stakes game of musical chairs entered Hua Guofeng, whom the authors describe as "taciturn but amiable," and who seemed to bridge the two camps by expressing support for Maoist ideology while also laying out plans for the economic growth that China badly needed. Upon Mao's passing, Hua assumed the role of chairman and quickly moved against the most far-left members of the leadership, including Jiang and her Gang of Four colleagues. Like so many others throughout the country, Hua wanted to see the chaos and confusion of the preceding decade brought to an end. It was time to get China back on track.

Hua, however, would not be the person to do so. He had not sufficiently distanced himself from Mao and the disasters of the Cultural Revolution; meanwhile, Deng had generated enough support to enjoy another political resurrection. Bit by bit, he maneuvered himself back into a position of power and by late 1978 had sidelined Hua, bringing the long tail of the Mao era to a conclusion.

After decades of state control and relative isolation under Mao, China was now headed for an era of "reform and opening," the key refrains of Deng's time at the top. While Mao had received U.S. President Richard Nixon in 1972, Deng pressed for formal relations with the United States and, in 1979, embarked on a well-received visit to the country. Chinese officials fanned out on inspection tours around the world, intent on identifying and bringing back ideas that might facilitate China's economic modernization. At home, economic experiments came from below, with ambitious farmers seizing the opportunity to sell excess yields and budding entrepreneurs founding companies that built the private sector at a remarkable rate.

Within five years, the pace and scale of China's "great transformation" had reached a level that must have stunned anyone thinking back on what the country looked like at the end of Mao's rule. Messrs. Westad and Chen credit these changes to "a combination of leadership compromises, security needs, and pressure from below for faster economic growth," as well as the skill of Deng in guiding the CCP back to a position of legitimacy after the chaos and privations of the late Mao years. "By the end of 1984," the authors note, "China had reached a phase in which it would remain for the next generation. It had left the period of revolutionary dislocation and open terror behind and moved into a stage of authoritarianism combined with high economic growth driven by market mechanisms."

Yet looming over the later chapters of "The Great Transformation" is the shadow of what would come in 1989, when Beijing and other cities saw mass protests that provoked a violent crackdown ordered by Deng. Messrs. Westad and Chen mention the protests only briefly, a thorough treatment of those months beyond the scope of their work. Thinking ahead, however, casts the events of this book in a different light. China changed in remarkable ways during the long 1970s, but the upheaval of the late Mao years left a desire for strength and stability that Deng and other party leaders then pursued at a terrible cost. What might be the greatest transformation -- a true reckoning with the past and a thorough re-evaluation of CCP ideology -- is one that has yet to take place.

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Ms. Cunningham is a writer and historian of modern China in Ann Arbor, Mich." [1]

1. REVIEW --- Books: China After Mao. Cunningham, Maura Elizabeth.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 16 Nov 2024: C.7