Hu Yaobang

Youth League Leader and Reformer

Hu Yaobang was born in 1915 in Hunan province, joined the Communist Party at fifteen, and rose through the Communist Youth League to become one of Deng Xiaoping's closest political allies. After the Cultural Revolution — during which he was subjected to years of persecution and forced labour — he was rehabilitated alongside Deng. He was appointed head of the Party's Organisation Department in 1977, where he oversaw the rehabilitation of hundreds of thousands of cadres unjustly persecuted during the Cultural Revolution. In February 1980, at the Fifth Plenum of the 11th Central Committee, he was elected to the Politburo Standing Committee and made General Secretary of the Secretariat, ranking sixth in the Party hierarchy; in June 1981, at the Sixth Plenum, he succeeded Hua Guofeng as Chairman of the CCP Central Committee, becoming the Party's paramount leader. When the 12th Party Congress revised the Party constitution in September 1982, abolishing the posts of Chairman and Vice-Chairman and making General Secretary the Party's top office, Hu continued in that role until 1987.

The Liberal Reformer

As General Secretary, Hu Yaobang was consistently the most liberal voice in the Party's top leadership. He championed intellectual freedom, pushed for press liberalisation, and supported the rehabilitation of many Cultural Revolution victims. He expressed sympathy for Tibetans and travelled to Tibet — unusual for a top leader. He proposed that China could consider abandoning chopsticks and switching to forks as part of modernisation, a remark that became a minor scandal. He was a genuine believer in the possibility of a more open, humane Chinese socialism, and was widely admired by students and intellectuals.

Forced Resignation

In late 1986 and early 1987, student protests erupted on university campuses demanding greater political freedoms. Conservative Party elders, including Deng Xiaoping, blamed Hu Yaobang's liberal inclinations for creating conditions that had emboldened students. In January 1987, Hu was summoned to a Politburo meeting and accused of "mistakes on major issues of political principle." He submitted his resignation. The process — conducted without a formal Central Committee plenum, in violation of Party norms — was widely seen as a humiliation. He was replaced as General Secretary by Zhao Ziyang.

Death and Tiananmen

Hu Yaobang died of a heart attack on 15 April 1989 while attending a Politburo meeting. His death became the catalyst for the protests that would become the Tiananmen Square Movement. Students who gathered to mourn him were expressing grief for a leader they associated with openness and reform; their mourning quickly transformed into demands for the rehabilitation of his reputation and, more broadly, for political reform. On 18 November 2005, the CCP held a memorial meeting at the Great Hall of the People marking the 90th anniversary of Hu Yaobang's birth, pushed through by then General Secretary Hu Jintao over the objections of some Party elders, with Premier Wen Jiabao in attendance; the event did not, however, come with any formal reversal of his political verdict, nor did it signal any softening of the official characterization of the June Fourth events. Hu Yaobang's name cannot be freely discussed in China today, but he is remembered by many as the CCP leader who most genuinely embodied the possibilities of a more open Chinese political culture.