THE 100 MOST INFLUENTIAL WORLD LEADERS OF ALL TIME

7 The 100 Most Influential World Leaders of All Time 7

became vice chairman of the party’s Central Committee, a
member of its Political Bureau, and chief of the general
staff. As effective head of the government during the
months preceding the death of Zhou, he was widely con-
sidered the likely successor to Zhou. However, upon
Zhou’s death in January 1976, the Gang of Four managed
to purge Deng from the leadership once again. It was not
until Mao’s death in September 1976 and the consequent
fall from power of the Gang of Four that Deng was reha-
bilitated, this time with the assent of Mao’s chosen
successor to the leadership of China, Hua Guofeng.
By July 1977 Deng had returned to his high posts. He
soon embarked upon a struggle with Hua for control of
the party and government. Deng’s superior political skills
and broad base of support soon led Hua to surrender the
premiership and the chairmanship to protégés of Deng in
1980–81. Zhao Ziyang became premier of the government,
and Hu Yaobang became general secretary of the CCP;
both men looked to Deng for guidance.
From this point on, Deng proceeded to carry out his
own policies for the economic development of China.
Operating through consensus, compromise, and persua-
sion, Deng engineered important reforms in virtually all
aspects of China’s political, economic, and social life. His
most important social reform was the institution of the
world’s most rigorous family-planning program in order to
control China’s burgeoning population. He instituted
decentralized economic management and rational and
flexible long-term planning to achieve efficient and con-
trolled economic growth. China’s peasant farmers were
given individual control over and responsibility for their
production and profits, a policy that resulted in greatly
increased agricultural production within a few years of its
initiation in 1981. Deng stressed individual responsibility