Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China Read Online Free PDF Page B

years later in France, disappointed with the dirty and difficult factory work assigned to Chinese and the withdrawal of the promise of opportunities to study, Deng joined the French branch of the Chinese Communist Party. He would remain a committed Communist until his death more than seven decades later.
     
    From his five years in France and one year in the Soviet Union, Deng acquired a far better understanding of developments around the world and far more perspective on China than Mao had garnered. Deng had a chance to see industry and commerce in a modern country, and his year in the Soviet Union gave him a chance to see how the first Communist country had tackled modernization.
     
    Already while in France, Deng had an opportunity to take part in the small groups of intellectuals considering overall strategy for the Communist youth movement. From that time on, Deng's association with the grand strategists of the Chinese revolution gave him a unique view, from “commanding heights,” of how these theories took hold and influenced events on theground. In France, Deng quit his factory jobs and did odd jobs around the tiny Chinese Communist Party office led by Zhou Enlai, who was six years older than Deng. Deng, known then as “Dr. Mimeograph” for his role in producing the simple propaganda pamphlets that publicized the leftist cause to Chinese students in France, became in effect an apprentice where he could observe how Zhou Enlai, already a leader among fellow Chinese youth, with experience in Japan and England, went about building an organization. Though one of the youngest in the group, Deng soon was on the executive committee of the Communist youth organization in Europe. At Sun Yat-sen (Zhongshan) University in Moscow where the Soviets were just beginning to train Chinese for the international communist movement, Deng was selected for Group No. 7, in which the highest level of Chinese leaders were trained for the international Communist movement. At Sun Yat-sen University Deng had an opportunity to understand how the Soviets had built their Communist movement and to learn their views on how to build a movement in China.
     
    For his entire career, with brief interruptions, Deng had been close enough to the top seat of power that he could observe from the inside how the top leaders responded to different situations. Not long after he returned to China in 1927, he was again under Zhou Enlai, in the Shanghai underground, as the party tried to devise survival strategies while Chiang Kai-shek, their former colleague, tried to wipe them out. Not only did Deng take part in the planning to create urban insurrections, but at age twenty-five he was sent to Guangxi province to lead urban insurrections. As Mao began to build up the Jiangxi Soviet base, Deng went there where as head of the party in Ruijin county, he learned how Mao was building up his rural base. On the Long March, Deng got to attend the crucial Zunyi conference where Mao began to emerge as leader. Before the Long March had ended Deng had the opportunity to become a confidante of Mao's. Not long after Mao set up his base in northwest China, Mao entrusted Deng with major responsibilities as a political commissar, providing political leadership within the military. Later in the civil war, he was given responsibility for taking over Shanghai and guiding the transition to Communist rule and was then sent to the Southwest where he was given responsibility for leading one of the six major regions of the country.
     
    Above all, it was at the center of power in Beijing, from 1952 to 1966, that Deng had the opportunity to work closely with Mao to consider strategies for China's development and for dealing with foreign countries. Mao had identified Deng as one of his potential successors, and Deng had taken part inPolitburo meetings and after 1956 in its Standing Committee, along with the other five highest-ranking officials in the country. Deng also became a central