The Third Plenum of the 11th Central Committee was the decisive political breakthrough that redirected the Chinese Communist Party from class struggle toward economic modernization. Held in November and December 1978, it endorsed tentative experiments in agricultural reform while reflecting the changing balance of power between Hua Guofeng and Deng Xiaoping. Its significance lay not simply in new policy proposals, but in the political contest that made those proposals possible.

Political Contest Before the Plenum

After Mao Zedong’s death, Hua moved against the Gang of Four, arresting them within a month, and reinstated Deng in March 1977. Deng then built influence by encouraging public criticism of the Cultural Revolution and placing people who had suffered during it in important party positions. Hua, unable to repudiate the Cultural Revolution, was weakened; unlike Deng, he also lacked an extensive network of connections within the centers of power.

Deng challenged Hua’s policies in a series of speeches. In September 1978, he explicitly criticized the Two Whatevers and argued that policy should instead follow the principle of “seek truth from facts.” Deng also brought public pressure to bear on Hua. The Democracy Wall movement in Beijing, where people posted complaints about the country in 1978, became a prominent expression of that pressure.

The Reform Proposals

In July 1978, Deng supporter Hu Qiaomu presented principles for economic reform. Firms, he argued, should have greater initiative and authority over their production decisions. Prices should help bring supply and demand together rather than simply be set by the government, and state regulation of the economy should generally be reduced. These proposals challenged existing arrangements, but Deng was gaining political influence as the debate unfolded.

Decisions and Immediate Direction

At the plenum in November and December 1978, the party made its breakthrough decision: over Hua’s objections, it shifted its focus from class struggle to economic modernization. It also announced tentative experiments with a household responsibility system in some provinces, seeking to roll back collective agriculture and give farmers stronger economic incentives.

The plenum’s agricultural experiments were an initial step, not the full extent of the subsequent changes. By the following year, the Central Committee acknowledged the principle of “truth from facts” and declared the Cultural Revolution a great calamity for the Chinese people. Deng continued to secure key positions for his supporters in the party, army, and government, building parallel bases of power while moving gradually against Hua’s supporters.

Political Consequences and Reform

The plenum’s decisions formed part of a broader transfer of influence toward Deng and the reformers, rather than an uncontested change initiated by a unified leadership. By 1980 Hua had been forced to step down as premier, replaced by Zhao Ziyang; by 1982 Hua had been removed from the Central Committee. Deng’s personnel reshuffle continued through the Twelfth Party Congress in 1982 and the National Party Conference in September 1985. Comparing 1980 with 1985, twenty-one of the twenty-six Politburo members, eight of eleven Communist Party secretariat members, and ten of eighteen vice-premiers had changed.

Once Deng and the reformers controlled the state, policy changes extended beyond the tentative provincial experiments announced at the plenum. By 1983 the household responsibility system had been adopted universally. In 1985 mandatory state grain purchases gave way to more voluntary contracts, administrative control of agricultural prices was greatly relaxed, state enterprises received more autonomy, and fourteen open cities were designated to attract foreign investment. The plenum thus stands at the point where a political struggle over leadership and direction became a shift in the party’s governing priority, opening a route to extensive economic reform without making that outcome inevitable in advance.