Chapter 37: Reassessing Hu Yaobang: A Leader Who Might Have Led the CCP Away from Maoism

Hu Yaobang (1915–1989) was a native of Ji’an, Jiangxi, born in Liuyang, Hunan. Deng Xiaoping abandoned only Mao Zedong’s emphasis on class struggle and implemented reform and opening, while at the same time putting forward the “Four Cardinal Principles,” thus not even abandoning half of Mao Zedong. Hu Yaobang was a Communist Party leader who might have completed the abandonment of Maoism, but unfortunately he was removed from office by Deng Xiaoping. Hu Yaobang’s death triggered the Tiananmen Movement, during which millions of people mourned him. Deng Xiaoping did not hesitate to mobilize 200,000 troops and hundreds of tanks, leading to the June Fourth Tiananmen suppression in which tens of thousands died.

I. Twenty-Three Years as First Secretary of the Communist Youth League

Hu Yaobang’s name was taken from the Book of Songs: “Though Zhou is an old state, its mandate is ever renewed.” He consistently ranked first academically in primary school and served as captain of the youth pioneer team. At the age of 15, he joined the Red Army. In 1934, he participated in the Long March. During the War of Resistance Against Japan, he served as deputy head of the Organization Department at the Anti-Japanese Military and Political University in Yan’an. During the Chinese Civil War, he participated in the Taiyuan Campaign and the Chengdu Campaign. In the early years after the founding of the People’s Republic, he governed northern Sichuan.

In 1952, Hu was transferred to Beijing to establish the Communist Youth League. For the next 23 years, he continuously served as First Secretary of the Youth League.

After the 1962 “Conference of Seven Thousand Cadres,” Hu was sent down to serve as Secretary of the Hunan Provincial Party Committee, concurrently serving as Secretary of Xiangtan. Hua Guofeng, who had been First Secretary of Xiangtan, became Second Secretary. The two worked together for more than a year.

In 1964, Hu Yaobang became Acting First Secretary of Shaanxi Province. Caught between Mao Zedong’s and Liu Shaoqi’s differing rural policies, Hu was placed in a difficult position and was forced to undergo criticism and self-examination. He fell ill and was hospitalized with sudden encephalitis. A military aircraft transported him back to Beijing, where Deng Xiaoping kept him in the capital.

II. Persecuted During the Cultural Revolution

When the Cultural Revolution began in 1966, Hu Yaobang was struggled against by the Youth League Central Committee and was beaten until his entire body was swollen and bleeding. In 1968, he was sent to Huanghu Farm in Xinyang, Henan, for forced labor. After the Lin Biao incident in 1971, Zhou Enlai took the opportunity to transfer Hu back to Beijing to recuperate.

In 1975, Hu Yaobang was appointed Vice President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. In November, due to criticism of Deng Xiaoping for “rightist reversal,” Hu again returned to life at home until the arrest of the Gang of Four in October 1976. Ye Jianying sent his son Ye Xuanning to visit Hu. Hu proposed three points: first, stop criticizing Deng; second, handle unjust cases; third, resume production.

III. Redressing Injustices and Restoring Order

In 1977, Hu became Executive Vice President of the Central Party School, preparing public opinion for the redress of injustices caused by the Cultural Revolution. In December, he became Minister of the Organization Department, beginning to oversee the work of restoring order, rehabilitating unjust cases nationwide, and arranging cadres.

IV. The Great Debate on the Standard of Truth

In response to Hua Guofeng’s “Two Whatevers,” Hu Yaobang published Professor Hu Fuming’s article from Nanjing University, “Practice Is the Sole Criterion for Testing Truth,” in 1978 through the Central Party School journal. Xinhua News Agency reprinted it nationwide as a front-page story. The article clarified that practice is not only the sole criterion for testing truth, but also the sole criterion for testing whether the Party’s line is correct, triggering a nationwide debate. It negated Hua Guofeng’s “Two Whatevers” (whatever Mao Zedong said was correct and must not be questioned), arguing that whether Mao was right or wrong must be tested by practice.

V. Rehabilitation of Massive Numbers of Cultural Revolution Injustices

Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution produced a vast number of wrongful cases. Hu Yaobang instructed the Organization Department to push investigations back to the 1930s and 1940s, rehabilitating those unjustly persecuted as “Trotskyists” during earlier purges, including early leaders such as Qu Qiubai, Li Lisan, and Zhang Wentian. Erroneous political movements throughout Party history were re-evaluated and overturned. Cadres seeking rehabilitation lined up all the way to Hu Yaobang’s home. Among the people it was said: “If you’ve suffered, go to the Organization Department; if you’ve been wronged, go to Yaobang.”

VI. ‘Ownership by the Whole People’ Is ‘Ownership by No One’

Hu Yaobang criticized “ownership by the whole people” as in fact “ownership by no one,” arguing that the people gained no real benefits and could not feel any advantage, and that this system needed to be changed.

VII. The People Above the Party

Hu Yaobang proposed that the people come first, that Party members must be loyal to the people, and that “the people’s nature is higher than the Party’s nature.”

Hu Yaobang cracked down on corruption among the “princeling” elite, arousing resentment among Party elders. He allowed a raid on Hu Qiaomu’s home, where large amounts of cash were found under Hu Qiaomu’s son’s bed, enraging Hu Qiaomu. In early 1987, China experienced the “1986 Student Movement,” with massive demonstrations in 17 major cities including Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Wuhan, and Tianjin, calling for democracy, freedom, human rights, opposition to official profiteering, and anti-corruption, shocking Zhongnanhai.

VIII. Student Movement Blamed on Hu: Seven Days of Struggle Sessions

Party elders were furious and groundlessly blamed Hu Yaobang for indulging the movement and allowing it to spiral out of control. Hu intended to convene a Politburo Standing Committee meeting to discuss the response, but Deng Xiaoping refused and summoned Hu to a designated location for a private talk. Deng accused Hu of being ineffective in opposing bourgeois liberalization and failing to uphold the Four Cardinal Principles. Hu was notified to attend a “Party life meeting.” Presided over by Bo Yibo and attended by 20 to 30 senior cadres, it became a rectification-style, Cultural Revolution–like struggle session. Wang Zhen accused Hu of standing on the wrong political line. Deng Liqun spoke for five hours, fiercely denouncing Hu for failing to follow the guidance of senior leaders and for inaction against spiritual pollution. Only Xi Zhongxun criticized the elders for using Cultural Revolution methods to force Hu Yaobang from office, calling it abnormal and a violation of Party principles, angrily pointing at Bo Yibo.

After the meeting, Hu Yaobang left last. Unable to walk further, he sat on the steps and wept. Ultimately, after seven consecutive days of struggle sessions, Hu Yaobang was approved to resign as General Secretary, retaining his position on the Politburo Standing Committee but ranked last. Hu Qiaomu and Deng Liqun, who worked hardest to bring Hu down, received the fewest votes at the 13th Party Congress and failed to enter the Central Committee.

IX. Humiliated at a Standing Committee Meeting, Hu Suffers a Heart Attack

On April 8, 1989, the CCP held a Politburo meeting at Huairen Hall in Zhongnanhai, chaired by General Secretary Zhao Ziyang. Li Tieying, Director of the State Education Commission, spoke for over an hour to prevent another large-scale student movement and student marches, proposing specific measures including funding to improve cafeteria food, adding cultural and recreational facilities, free movie screenings, and opening dance halls and concert halls. Hu Yaobang felt the discussion missed the core issue and raised his hand to speak. Zhao nodded, and Hu stated that the root cause of student movements lay in Party conduct and clean governance; students’ demands were anti-corruption, anti-privilege, and the implementation of political reform.

Hu had barely begun when Politburo Standing Committee member and Vice Premier Yao Yilin rudely interrupted him, saying: “Haven’t you already reflected on that student movement theory of yours? Why are you repeating the same tune? You want to talk about Party conduct; I want to talk about agriculture and grain production!”

Premier Li Peng then interjected: “Comrade Yaobang, you should correct your attitude and not anger Comrade Xiaoping again. You want to talk about Party conduct, but my urgent priorities are industrial production, fiscal deficits, foreign trade exports, and foreign exchange shortages!”

Seeing that these two men had been his subordinates just two years earlier and were now treating him this way, Hu Yaobang felt utterly humiliated. His face turned red and then pale. He clutched his chest. Zhao Ziyang was about to smooth things over and ask him to continue speaking when Hu, his face ashen, raised his hand again and said, “Comrade Ziyang, I need to take leave…” His head tilted, and he collapsed in his seat. Standing Committee member Hu Qili, seated beside him, hurriedly supported him, shouting, “Call a doctor! Call an ambulance!”

Zhao Ziyang immediately stood up and said: “Sudden heart attack. Do not move him. Lay Yaobang flat and wait for the doctors. Who has nitroglycerin?” At that moment, Shanghai Party Secretary Jiang Zemin and Defense Minister Qin Jiwei both took out medication they carried. Hu Qili placed a tablet into Hu Yaobang’s mouth.

Eight minutes later, the ambulance and medical staff arrived. Hu was resuscitated and sent to the 305 Hospital.

News that Hu Yaobang had suffered a heart attack due to humiliation at a Politburo meeting quickly spread throughout Beijing’s intellectual and cultural circles.

X. Tibet Must Have Autonomy

In 1979, Hu Yaobang allowed representatives of the Tibetan government-in-exile in India to visit Tibet. In 1980, he chaired a Tibet work conference and proposed the “Six Points on Tibet,” advocating Tibetan autonomy, self-governance by Tibetan cadres, transferring power to Tibetans, and withdrawing 80 percent of Han officials from Tibet. That same year, he proposed the “Six Points on Xinjiang,” suggesting the withdrawal of Han officials from Xinjiang, but Wang Zhen opposed it, and the proposal was not passed.

XI. A Leader Who Might Have Led the Abandonment of Maoism, Cut Short

Hu Yaobang was a senior leader genuinely able to sit down and engage in equal dialogue, whose scientific and democratic spirit could be compared to Chen Duxiu and Zhang Wentian.

In November 1988, Deng Liqun requested to meet Hu in Changsha. Hu bore no grudges, welcomed him, and spoke with him for over two hours.

After stepping down, Hu Yaobang once said to his family: “One thing I never expected was to be pushed to such a high position; another was to step down and still have such a good reputation.”

Hu Yaobang was a Communist leader who might have completed the abandonment of Maoism. Although Deng Xiaoping carried out reform and opening, he clung to Mao Zedong and Maoist thought, wielding the big stick of the Four Cardinal Principles and tolerating no freedom or democracy. Deng Xiaoping was a transitional figure. Only Hu Yaobang might have led the transition away from Mao Zedong toward a system of freedom and democracy—but unfortunately, his path was cut short halfway.