Editing Deng Xiaoping (section)

=== Political rise in Beijing ===
{{Main|Anti-Rightist Movement|Great Leap Forward}}
[[File:Dalai-dengxiaoping1954.jpg|thumb|Deng Xiaoping (left) met with the [[14th Dalai Lama]] (right) in 1954]]

In July 1952, Deng came to Beijing to assume the posts of Vice Premier and Deputy Chair of the Committee on Finance. Soon after, he took the posts of Minister of Finance and Director of the Office of Communications. In 1954, he was removed from all these positions, holding only the post of Vice Premier. In 1956, he became Head of the Communist Party's Organization Department and member of the [[Central Military Commission (China)|Central Military Commission]].

After officially supporting Mao Zedong in his [[Anti-Rightist Movement]] of 1957, Deng acted as [[Secretariat of the Chinese Communist Party|Secretary-General of the Secretariat]] and ran the country's daily affairs with President [[Liu Shaoqi]] and Premier Zhou Enlai. Deng and Liu's policies emphasized economics over ideological dogma, an implicit departure from the mass fervor of the Great Leap Forward. Both Liu and Deng supported Mao in the mass campaigns of the 1950s, in which they attacked the bourgeois and capitalists, and promoted Mao's ideology.<ref name=":3">{{Cite web |title=The Man Who Re-Invented China |url=https://origins.osu.edu/review/man-who-re-invented-china |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190725131635/https://origins.osu.edu/review/man-who-re-invented-china |archive-date=25 July 2019 |access-date=27 July 2019 |website=origins.osu.edu|date=17 September 2012 }}</ref> However, the failure of the [[Great Leap Forward]] was seen as an indictment on Mao's ability to manage the economy. [[Peng Dehuai]] began openly criticizing Mao, while Liu and Deng maintained a more cautious tone, ultimately taking charge of economic policy as Mao ceased to be involved in the day-to-day affairs of the party and state. Mao agreed to cede the presidency (the de jure [[head of state]] position) to Liu, while retaining his leadership positions in the party and army.

In 1955, he was considered as a candidate for the PLA rank of [[Marshal of the People's Republic of China]] but he was ultimately not awarded the rank.

At the [[8th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party]] in 1956, Deng supported removing all references to "Mao Zedong Thought" from the party statutes.<ref name=jac/>

In 1963, Deng traveled to Moscow to lead a meeting of the Chinese delegation with [[Joseph Stalin|Stalin]]'s successor, [[Nikita Khrushchev]]. Relations between the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union had worsened since the death of Stalin. After this meeting, no agreement was reached and the [[Sino–Soviet split]] was consummated; there was an almost total suspension of relations between the two major communist powers of the time.<ref>Jacques Guillermaz, ''The Chinese Communist Party in Power, 1949–1976'' (1976) pp. 320–331.</ref>

After the "[[Seven Thousand Cadres Conference]]" in 1962, Liu and Deng's economic reforms of the early 1960s were generally popular and restored many of the economic institutions previously dismantled during the Great Leap Forward.<ref name=":3" /> Mao, sensing his loss of prestige, took action to regain control of the state. Appealing to his revolutionary spirit, Mao launched the Cultural Revolution, which encouraged the masses to root out the right-wing capitalists who had "infiltrated the party". Deng was ridiculed as the "number two [[capitalist roader]]".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Henry He |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YCm3DAAAQBAJ&pg=PT713 |title=Dictionary of the Political Thought of the People's Republic of China |publisher=Taylor & Francis |year=2016 |isbn=9781315500430 |page=713 |access-date=3 October 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210308070316/https://books.google.com/books?id=YCm3DAAAQBAJ&pg=PT713 |archive-date=8 March 2021 |url-status=live}}</ref>

Deng was one of the primary drafters of the [[Third five-year plan (China)|Third Five Year Plan]].<ref name=":05">{{Cite book |last=Meyskens |first=Covell F. |url= |title=Mao's Third Front: The Militarization of Cold War China |date=2020 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |isbn=978-1-108-78478-8 |location=Cambridge, United Kingdom |doi=10.1017/9781108784788 |oclc=1145096137 |s2cid=218936313}}</ref>{{Rp|page=29}} In draft form, it emphasized a consumer focus and further development in China's more industrialized coastal cities.<ref name=":05" />{{Rp|page=7}} When Mao argued for a massive campaign to develop basic and national security industry in China's interior as a [[Third Front (China)|Third Front]] in case of invasion by the United States or Soviet Union, Deng was among the key leadership that did not support the idea.<ref name=":05" />{{Rp|page=7}} Following increased concerns of attack from the United States after the [[Gulf of Tonkin incident]], Deng and other key leadership ultimately supported the Third Front construction, and the focus of the Third Year Plan changed to industrialization of the interior.<ref name=":05" />{{Rp|page=7}}