Overall Rectification

In 1975, when Deng Xiaoping presided over the daily work of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, with the support of Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai and with the cooperation of Ye Jianying and Li Xiannian, he carried out a radical and an overall Rectification of the chaotic situation in all fronts since the “Cultural Revolution”.

In February 1975, due to Zhou Enlai's serious illness, the Central Committee of the CPC decided that Deng Xiaoping should preside over the work of the State Council. In accordance with Mao Zedong's instructions to stabilize and recover the national economy, Deng Xiaoping arranged and chaired various meetings wherein he put forward a series of measures to rectify the government work in various fronts, surmounted the chaotic situation and accelerated the economic recovery work and promoted improvements.

According to Mao Zedong's instruction that “the army work should be rectified”, Deng Xiaoping began with the Rectification of the army work, as a prelude to overall Rectification in all fronts. Subsequently, efforts were made to rectify the railway sector, as a breakthrough to reverse the chaos in the economic field, and to vigorously restore order in the production and management system in the fields of industrial transportation and logistics, finance and economics, as well as the work in the field of science and technology, which led to a good momentum of development in production and economy.

In July 1975, the “Gang of Four” was criticized by Mao Zedong, and the Central Committee of the CPC decided that Deng Xiaoping would comprehensively preside over the work of the Party Central Committee and the State Council. Under the favorable nation-wide political situation, Deng Xiaoping raised the issue of rectifying the Party organization. Later, with the Rectification of the Party organization as the core, a overall Rectification was launched and carried out including the fields such as the army, science and technology, literature and art, education, agriculture, and some other fields. As a matter of fact, such an overall Rectification work had inevitably touched upon the “Left” errors of the “Cultural Revolution” and such an overall Rectification would possibly gradually develop to a systematic correction of these errors. During the Rectification process, Deng Xiaoping took Mao Zedong's "Three Directives" as the guiding principle (study theory in order to oppose and prevent revisionism; achieve stability and unity and promote strengthening of the national economy), criticized the "Gang of Four" for splitting up Mao Zedong Thought, delivered a series of speeches, guided the formulation of various documents in an attempt to distinguish between the right and wrong in theory which were reversed and confused during the "Cultural Revolution". Therefore, the overall Rectification was fiercely opposed by the “Gang of Four”, at the same time made Mao Zedong resentful, who could not tolerate Deng Xiaoping's systematic repudiation of the errors of the “Cultural Revolution”. In November 1975, in the Political Bureau meeting of the Central Committee, Deng Xiaoping was wrongly criticized, after which Deng Xiaoping was suspended from most of his posts and a campaign of "Criticizing Deng and Launching a Counter-attack Against the Right-Deviationist Wind Which Aims to Reverse the Correct Verdicts" campaign was carried out across the whole country, and the overall Rectification was interrupted at this point. Nevertheless, overall Rectification work under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping had achieved substantial results.

The overall Rectification by Deng Xiaoping restored the normal production and social order, the national economy had turned from decline to recovery, and the social order became stable; the Rectification curbed and weakened the mistakes and influences of the “Gang of Four”, enhanced the strength of the struggle against the “Gang of Four” within the Party; the Rectification also strongly weakened the extreme “Left” trend of thought, and promoted the awakening of the people all across the country. Therefore, the overall Rectification became the prelude to bringing order out of chaos.