Deng Liqun

Deng Liqun
邓力群
Deng Liqun in Yining, Xinjiang, August 1949
Secretary of the Central Secretariat of the Communist Party of China
In office September 1982 – November 1987
General Secretary	Hu Yaobang
Head of Propaganda Department of the Communist Party of China
In office April 1982 – August 1985
Preceded by	Wang Renzhong
Succeeded by	Zhu Houze
Personal details
Born	(1915-11-27)November 27, 1915 Guidong, Hunan, China
Died	February 10, 2015(2015-02-10) (aged 99) Beijing, China
Political party	Communist Party of China
Spouse(s)	Luo Liyun
Children	Deng Yingtao
Alma mater	Peking University

Deng Liqun (November 27, 1915 – February 10, 2015) was a Chinese politician and theorist who was one of the leading figures of the Communist Party of China during the 1980s, most well known for his involvement with the party's propaganda work. Deng was born in Guidong County, Hunan province, and joined the Communist Party in 1936. He came from an intellectual family and joined the party out of intellectual commitment. He was often referred to as "Little Deng", to be distinguished from Deng Xiaoping (no relation), the "Old Deng".

Purged during the Cultural Revolution, Deng emerged in the 1980s as one of the most vocal members of the leftist wing of the party in the lead-up of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. He advocated for the orthodox Communist-style planned economy and spoke out against market economic reforms and political liberalization. He retreated from active politics in 1987, after failing to secure enough internal support to gain a seat on the Politburo, which was partly attributed to his hard-line ideological stance, but continued to agitate for the leftist line.

Deng Liqun was born into a wealthy land-owning family in Guidong County, Hunan province, in 1915. His father passed the imperial civil service examination, but never became an official, instead opening the first Western-style school in the county. Deng's elder brother became the chairman of the Nationalist provincial government. Deng went to Beijing in 1935, enrolling first at the Peking Academy, then entered Peking University a year later, where he studied economics and became a devoted student activist. He took part in the December 9th Movement. He left college a year later for Yan'an, Shaanxi, the wartime base of the Communist Party, to join the party and follow Mao.

During the 1950s, Deng assisted Wang Zhen in quelling resistance to Communist rule in Xinjiang. Deng played a major role in the suppression of local rebellions and in enacting land reforms in the vast western region. However, officials of the CPC's Northwest Bureau became alarmed at the breakneck pace of the reforms and the extent to which violence and other means of coercion were used as a means to solidify the party's hold on power. Seeing the situation unfold, Mao removed both Wang Zhen and Deng Liqun from their positions in Xinjiang for fear that their tactics may alienate ethnic minorities, particularly Tibetan religious leaders, who were reluctant to embrace rule by the Communists.