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Hua Guofeng (nom de guerre of
Liu Zhengrong) was born in Jiaozheng county, Shanxi Province,
in 1920 or 1921. As Mao Zedong's handpicked successor, he brought
the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) to a close and prepared China
for the process of economic reform and modernization that is usually
associated with Deng Xiaoping's 1978 proposals.
Although the information concerning Hua's youth is scant, the
details about his political carreer are well-documented. In the
late 1930s, he joined the anti-Japanese guerrilla forces in his
native county. By the mid 1940s, Hua had already become propaganda
chief of the county Party committee. In the following years, he
occupied ever higher rungs on the carreer ladder, taking on such
responsibilities as the political commissariat of the county armed
forces detachment. In 1949, he joined the People's Liberation
Army troops moving southward in their liberation of China.
After his arrival in Hunan Province in late 1949, he continued
his bureaucratic and military advancement. Of great importance
for his later carreer was his posting in Xiangtan, the native
district of Mao Zedong. By personally overseeing various projects
there (including an irrigation project in Shaoshan, Mao's native
village), he was able to catch Mao's attention in an early phase.
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By the early 1970s, Hua had not only
become both first secretary of the Hunan provincial Party Committee
and political commissar of the Canton military region, he had
also joined the Party Central Committee. On the national level,
his star rose rapidly. By 1971, he had become a "leading
cadre" of the State Council with the rank of Vice-Premier.
After his election to the Politburo in 1973, he became minister
of public security in 1975. As recent history has shown time and
again, this is an ideal starting point to prepare one's claims
for the highest position of leadership. When Premier Zhou Enlai
died in January 1976, Hua was his logical replacement. In the
following months, with Mao's health deteriorating rapidly, a scramble
for power started between Jiang Qing and her Gang of
Four on the one hand, and Hua and his supporters on the other.
In the end, Hua emerged victorious. He was able to produce something
of a 'testament' in Mao handwriting, stating "With you in
charge, I can rest at ease" (Ni ban shi, wo fang xin).
Despite attempts by Jiang to have a competing 'testament' recognized,
which named her as Mao's successor, her hopes were dashed.
On 6 October 1976, within a month after
Mao's death, Hua had the Gang of Four arrested. This bold move
was supported by various old Party cadres and Army men, including
Ye Jianying, Li Xiannian, Xu Xiangqian and Nie
Rongzhen; Mao's former bodyguard Wang Dongxing also played
a major role. After the elimination of the Gang, the country rejoiced.
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The styles and themes that had been instrumental
in propagating Mao and his ideas continued to dominate
Chinese propaganda art well beyond his death and the official
end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976. Hua not only tried to
take over Mao's political legacy by uncritically adopting most
of his policies by stating that "We firmly uphold whatever
policy decisions Chairman Mao made and we unswervingly adhere
to whatever instructions Chairman Mao gave". He also claimed
some of Mao's position as object of reverence: both Mao's and
Hua's formal portraits hung side by side in rooms and offices
in the late 1970s.
Under Hua's leadership, posters were
made that showed him in identical situations as where the Great
Helmsman had demonstrated his support. For example, where Mao
had put in hard labor at the Ming Tombs in the late 1950s, Hua
was shown to do likewise at the Miyun Reservoir in the late 1970s;
where Mao was depicted on visits to Dazhai, accompanied
by Chen Yonggui and others, Hua was seen to do the same.
Hua understandably needed the artistic idiom that previously been
centred around Mao to bolster his own claims to power, and in
some cases he succeeded in stealing some of the limelight formerly
reserved for his predecessor. In other cases, Hua took over the
spot in works of art that had until then been reserved for Mao.
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Despite the indications that Mao's policies
would continue, Hua's term of office did witness the beginnings
of a massive rehabilitation of all those artists and intellectuals
who had been prosecuted during the 'ten years of chaos' and even
earlier. Many of the artists who had continued painting in the
idiom called for by the times, however, found it difficult to
shake off the style they had been forced to work in during the
Cultural Revolution. Several of them "... complained that
their eyes were ruined by the red-hued palette they used throughout
the decade".
Dissatisfaction with Hua's pseudo-alternatives
grew rapidly; his ability and wisdom were lambasted as mediocre.
By the early 1980s he had lost most of his positions to Deng Xiaoping
and the latter's supporters; Hu Yaobang replaced him as
Party secretary, Zhao Ziyang took over as Premier, while
Deng himself headed the CCP Military Commission. Until now, he
has retained his membership of the Central Committee. His calligraphy
is greatly admired by connoisseurs.
