Editing Deng Xiaoping (section)

=== Boluan Fanzheng ===
{{Main|Boluan Fanzheng}}
Deng repudiated the Cultural Revolution and, in 1977, launched the "[[Beijing Spring]]", which allowed open criticism of the excesses and suffering that had occurred during the period, and restored the [[National College Entrance Examination]] (Gao Kao) which had been cancelled for ten years during the Cultural Revolution. Meanwhile, he was the impetus for the abolition of the class background system. Under this system, the CCP removed employment barriers to Chinese deemed to be associated with the former landlord class; its removal allowed a faction favoring the restoration of the private market to enter the Communist Party.

Deng gradually outmaneuvered his political opponents. By encouraging public criticism of the Cultural Revolution, he weakened the position of those who owed their political positions to that event, while strengthening the position of those like himself who had been purged during that time. Deng also received a great deal of popular support. As Deng gradually consolidated control over the CCP, Hua was replaced by Zhao Ziyang as premier in 1980, and by [[Hu Yaobang]] as party chairman in 1981, despite the fact that Hua was Mao Zedong's designated successor as the "paramount leader" of the Chinese Communist Party and the People's Republic of China. During the Boluan Fanzheng period, the Cultural Revolution was invalidated, and victims of more than 3&nbsp;million "unjust, false, wrongful cases" by 1976 were officially rehabilitated.<ref>{{Cite web |title=1989年6月1日 吴林泉、彭飞：胡耀邦同志领导平反"六十一人案"追记-胡耀邦史料信息网 |url=http://www.hybsl.cn/zonghe/xinwen/2008-01-23/7141.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210103094052/http://www.hybsl.cn/zonghe/xinwen/2008-01-23/7141.html |archive-date=3 January 2021 |access-date=29 April 2020 |website=www.hybsl.cn |language=zh}}</ref>

Deng's elevation to China's new number-one figure meant that the historical and ideological questions around Mao Zedong had to be addressed properly. Because Deng wished to pursue deep reforms, it was not possible for him to continue Mao's hard-line "class struggle" policies and mass public campaigns. In 1982 the Central Committee of the Communist Party released a document entitled ''[[Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party since the Founding of the People's Republic of China]]''. Mao retained his status as a "great Marxist, proletarian revolutionary, militarist, and general", and the undisputed founder and pioneer of the country and the People's Liberation Army. "His accomplishments must be considered before his mistakes", the document declared. Deng personally commented that Mao was "seven parts good, three parts bad". The document also steered the prime responsibility of the Cultural Revolution away from Mao (although it did state that "Mao mistakenly began the Cultural Revolution") to the "counter-revolutionary cliques" of the Gang of Four and Lin Biao.