Inter-incumbent Conflict

Following Mao's implicit repudiation of his Four Modernizations program in the drive against bourgeois right, Zhou seems to have with-drawn from the political scene; he had retired to the hospital as early as May 1974, but in view of the fact that he continued to entertain visitors and to pursue such elaborate political projects as restaffing his State Council and arranging for the NPC, the radicals considered this something of a tactical ruse.^[49] Now, however, he seems to have lapsed into political inactivity, leaving his affairs in the hands of the blunt and energetic Deng Xiaoping, whose positions as first vice-premier and acting premier gave him strong claim to Zhou's mantle.

Zhou's selection of Deng as his successor, however, also tended to bias the selection of Mao's successor in Deng's favor. The reason is that inasmuch as Zhou was senior vice-chairman of the Party as well as premier, whoever succeeded him would also be favorably situated to succeed Mao himself. The choice was limited to the three surviving vice-chairmen: Ye Jianying, Wang Hongwen, and Deng Xiaoping. But Ye was too old to come under serious consideration, and Wang had fallen from favor due to his handling of the Hangzhou incident (to be explicated in chapter 6). Thus Deng Xiaoping, as first vice-premier and sole eligible vice-chairman, stood on the threshold of total power. And just before his death on January 8, according to rumors reaching Hong Kong, Zhou left a "last will" endorsing Deng.

Zhou's plans were, however, undone by the timing and sequence of the retirements of strategic members of the older generation. At Zhou's behest, Deng delivered the eulogy at the premier's memorial service on January 15 on behalf of the CC, the State Council, and the PLA, and the text was published in all newspapers throughout the country and read repeatedly over all national and provincial broadcasting stations on January 15 and 16; a television recording of the latter half of the speech was also released for nationwide distribution on January 16.^[50] Mean-

[49] "Although Premier Zhou is seriously ill, he is 'busy' finding people to talk with," Wang Hongwen allegedly complained to Mao. "Those who often visited the Premier's residence include comrades such as Deng Xiaoping, Ye Jianying and Li Xiannian." Central Document (CD) no. 24 (1976), as translated in IS 13, no. 9 (September 1977): 80–110.

[50] N.B.: Deng made no reference in this speech to "stability and unity" (anding tuanjie ), or even to "stability"—terms for which he had come under attack by the radicals. But he also omitted reference to the campaign against the Rightist reversal of verdicts that the radicals were promoting.

while, the Politburo promptly deadlocked over Zhou's succession. That his own death should have preceded Mao's was obviously inopportune, as it gave Mao the chance to override Zhou's succession arrangements (it seems not to have occurred to Zhou to retire before his own death). With Zhou, Kang Sheng, and Dong Biwu now dead, both Zhu De and Liu Bocheng mortally ill, and six of the remaining members absent because their main work lay in the provinces, the radicals were able, with Mao's concurrence, to block Deng's selection. Roughly half the votes went to Deng and the other half to Zhang Chunqiao, second vice-premier and the radical choice. Hua Guofeng, a dark horse with relatively little experience at the national level, emerged as the compromise candidate.

On February 7 it was announced that Hua had been appointed acting premier and CC vice-chairman. When Deng was purged of "all offices inside and outside the Party" on April 7 in the wake of the Tiananmen Incident, Hua was appointed premier and first vice-chairman of the Party, placing him next in line to Mao. In view of later developments Hua is assumed also to have been groomed by Zhou, as a contingency selection. It is also true, however, that the radicals made no overtures to the new heir apparent, as they would have done had Mao made his wishes clear; on the contrary, they attempted to implicate him as a "capitulationist."