Hua Guofeng
华国锋
1921–2008
- Chairman of the Central Military Commission (1976–1981)
- Chairman of the CCP Central Committee (1976–1981)
- Premier of the State Council (1976–1980)
Biography
Mao's Chosen Successor
Hua Guofeng was born in 1921 in Shanxi province and spent his career as a provincial party official, rising to national prominence only late in his career. He was elevated to the Politburo in 1973 and appointed Premier in February 1976 after Zhou Enlai's death. When Mao Zedong died in September 1976, Hua became Party Chairman and paramount leader — a position he held not through revolutionary prestige or factional strength, but because Mao had reportedly told him "with you in charge, I am at ease." That single act of designation by Mao was, for a time, sufficient legitimacy.
Arrest of the Gang of Four
Hua Guofeng's most decisive act came within weeks of Mao's death. In October 1976, he coordinated with senior military figures including Marshal Ye Jianying to arrest the Gang of Four — Jiang Qing, Zhang Chunqiao, Wang Hongwen, and Yao Wenyuan — at a Politburo meeting. The arrest was carried out by guards loyal to Hua and Ye, with the four detained mid-meeting. The move was broadly welcomed in Chinese society after a decade of Cultural Revolution terror, and is the act for which Hua is most remembered. He is credited with ending the Cultural Revolution as a political force.
The "Two Whatevers" and Decline
Hua's political programme, however, was fundamentally conservative: he promoted the "Two Whatevers" doctrine — "we will resolutely uphold whatever policy decisions Chairman Mao made, and unswervingly follow whatever instructions Chairman Mao gave." This position made it impossible to genuinely reverse the Cultural Revolution's legacy or rehabilitate its victims, since Mao himself had launched it. It also brought Hua into direct conflict with Deng Xiaoping, whose return to power Hua had initially resisted. Deng's ideological counter — the "Truth from Facts" standard — gradually displaced the Two Whatevers. In September 1980, at the Third Session of the Fifth National People's Congress, Hua resigned as Premier and was succeeded by Zhao Ziyang; in June 1981, at the Sixth Plenum of the 11th Central Committee, he resigned as Party Chairman and Chairman of the Central Military Commission, succeeded respectively by Hu Yaobang and Deng Xiaoping, completing his exit from the top leadership.
Quiet Retirement
Hua Guofeng spent the last three decades of his life in quiet, comfortable retirement — an unusual fate for a deposed Chinese leader. He retained his Party membership and occasionally appeared at Party congresses. He died in August 2008, a month after the Beijing Olympics opened. His historical reputation has been somewhat rehabilitated in recent years: he is now more often credited for ending the Cultural Revolution and providing a stable transition than blamed for the Two Whatevers that delayed reform.
Related Events (9)
Cultural Revolution Begins
From 1966 to 1976, Mao Zedong launched the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, driven by a combination of genuine ideological conviction — fear of Soviet-style revisionism and capitalist restoration — and the political imperative to reassert control after the Great Leap Forward debacle, purging pragmatic rivals Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping. Red Guards mobilised to destroy the 'Four Olds' and attack intellectuals, officials, and perceived class enemies; the movement reached its radical peak in the January Storm of 1967. Across ten years and several distinct phases, an estimated one to two million people died from direct violence and tens of millions suffered persecution. The 1981 Party Resolution designated the Cultural Revolution a 'catastrophe' — the gravest historical error since the founding of the People's Republic.
politicalCriticize Deng, Counter the Right-Deviationist Reversal of Verdicts
In 1975, while Zhou Enlai lay gravely ill, Deng Xiaoping oversaw a "comprehensive rectification" of the country under Mao's "three directives," bringing marked improvement to Party and state work. When Deng declined to chair a resolution affirming a "seventy-thirty" assessment of the Cultural Revolution, Mao's nephew and Politburo liaison Mao Yuanxin reported his refusal to Mao, who approved a "greeting meeting" on 24 November 1975 that formally launched the "Criticize Deng, Counter the Right-Deviationist Reversal of Verdicts" campaign. After Zhou Enlai's death in January 1976, Hua Guofeng was named acting Premier, and the movement to attack Deng spread nationwide. Public mourning for Zhou at Tiananmen Square in April 1976 was suppressed as the "Tiananmen Incident," after which Deng was stripped of all his posts. The campaign effectively ended with the arrest of the "Gang of Four" in October 1976, and in July 1977 the 3rd Plenum of the 10th Central Committee restored Deng to all his positions.
politicalDeath of Zhou Enlai and April Fifth Movement
Zhou Enlai, Premier of the State Council for twenty-seven years, died on 8 January 1976. Official mourning was restricted, and Mao Zedong did not attend the memorial service. Around the Qingming Festival that spring, large numbers of people gathered spontaneously in Tiananmen Square with wreaths and poems to mourn Zhou, some of which criticised the "Gang of Four". The wreaths were removed on the night of 4 April; the following day large-scale protests broke out and were dispersed, and hundreds were arrested — the April Fifth Movement. The Party Centre then labelled it a "counter-revolutionary incident" and stripped Deng Xiaoping of all his posts. In November 1978 the Beijing Municipal Committee announced the rehabilitation of the Tiananmen Incident.
politicalTangshan Earthquake
At 3:42 a.m. on 28 July 1976, a magnitude-7.8 earthquake struck Tangshan, Hebei, killing an officially confirmed 242,419 people and leveling the city within seconds — one of the deadliest earthquakes of the twentieth century. The Chinese government rejected all international aid and did not disclose the death toll until 1979, more than three years later, while Hong Kong and foreign media reported far higher figures. More than 100,000 PLA soldiers took part in the rescue, and nearby Qinglong County achieved a near-zero death toll through early evacuation based on an informal earthquake forecast, an outcome later celebrated as the "Qinglong Miracle." The earthquake struck weeks before Mao Zedong's death and the fall of the "Gang of Four," and its handling has since been contrasted with China's acceptance of international aid after the 2008 Sichuan earthquake.
Death of Mao Zedong
On 9 September 1976, Mao Zedong — Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party and founding leader of the People's Republic of China — died of heart failure in Beijing at the age of eighty-two. He had held paramount power since 1949, leading China through a succession of transformative campaigns including land reform, the Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution. His death ended twenty-seven years of Maoist rule and triggered an intense succession struggle: within less than a month, the pragmatist faction led by Marshal Ye Jianying moved against the radical Gang of Four led by Mao's widow Jiang Qing, resulting in their arrest on 6 October 1976. The fall of the Gang of Four cleared the path for Deng Xiaoping's final rehabilitation and the beginning of the reform and opening-up era.
politicalArrest of the Gang of Four
Less than a month after Mao's death, Hua Guofeng and Ye Jianying orchestrated the arrest of Jiang Qing, Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan, and Wang Hongwen, ending the radical phase of the Cultural Revolution.
politicalDebate on the Criterion of Truth (1978)
On 11 May 1978 Guangming Daily published “Practice Is the Sole Criterion for Testing Truth” under the byline “special commentator”, a day after it appeared in the Central Party School’s internal journal Theoretical Trends. Drafted by the Nanjing University teacher Hu Fuming, revised by Yang Xiguang, Sun Changjiang, Wu Jiang and others and approved by Hu Yaobang, it targeted the “two whatevers” of 1977 by attacking Lin Biao’s “theory of genius”. Criticised by Wang Dongxing and others, it was publicly endorsed by Deng Xiaoping on 2 June, and the debate spread nationwide. The Third Plenum praised the debate and the 1981 Resolution said Hua Guofeng had suppressed it. Officially it is the ideological forerunner of reform and opening; some scholars argue the standard account exaggerates the differences between Hua and Deng.
politicalThird Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee
Held in Beijing from 18 to 22 December 1978, the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the CCP formally shifted the Party's central focus from class struggle to economic modernisation under Deng Xiaoping's direction, inaugurating the era of reform and opening-up.
politicalSixth Plenum of the 11th Central Committee and the 1981 Resolution on Party History
On 27 June 1981 the Sixth Plenum of the 11th CCP Central Committee unanimously adopted the "Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party Since the Founding of the People's Republic of China." Drafted over more than a year and discussed by some four thousand senior officials, it characterized the Cultural Revolution as a "domestic upheaval" initiated by a leader's error and exploited by counter-revolutionary cliques, while affirming that Mao Zedong's "merits are primary and his errors secondary" and upholding Mao Zedong Thought as the Party's guiding ideology. At the same plenum Hua Guofeng resigned as Party Chairman, Hu Yaobang was elected Chairman, and Deng Xiaoping became Chairman of the Central Military Commission.
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Chronicles of Modern China. (2026, July 22). Hua Guofeng. Retrieved July 22, 2026, from https://www.cmcarchive.org/figures/hua-guofeng
“Hua Guofeng.” Chronicles of Modern China. Last modified July 22, 2026. Accessed July 22, 2026. https://www.cmcarchive.org/figures/hua-guofeng.
Chronicles of Modern China. Hua Guofeng[EB/OL]. (2026-07-22)[2026-07-22]. https://www.cmcarchive.org/figures/hua-guofeng.