1915.11.20.–1989.4.15.
↓ Removed 1987 · heart attack
The reformist general secretary who rehabilitated the Cultural Revolution’s victims and freed thought; his death sparked the 1989 protests
He died on 15 April 1989, days after a heart attack; a day later unofficial mourners demanded the state reassess him, and within a week about 100,000 students marched on Tiananmen Square.
From Hunan, he joined the Red Army at fourteen, marched on the Long March and led the Communist Youth League after 1949. Persecuted in the Cultural Revolution, as head of the Organisation Department from 1977 he reviewed and reversed millions of unjust cases and in 1978 organised the “criterion of truth” debate that underpinned Deng Xiaoping’s return. Party chairman in 1981 and general secretary from 1982, he drove reform and opening, but after the student protests of late 1986 he was forced to resign in January 1987 for laxity toward “bourgeois liberalisation”. He died of a heart attack on 15 April 1989, and the mourning gatherings grew into the Tiananmen protests.
Also known as: Hu Yao-pang
Activities and affiliations
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1933–1989
Political and party leadership
- Chairman, CCP Central CommitteeHeads of state, government and party of China1981–1982
- Chairman of the Central Committee → General SecretaryHeads of state, government and party of China1981–1987
- General Secretary, CCP Central CommitteeHeads of state, government and party of China1982–1987
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People’s Republic of China state institutionsMain
Political and party leadership
Career Timeline
- 1933–1989CCP member
- 1952–1966Led the Communist Youth League
- 1977Rehabilitated again and returned to party leadership
- 1977–1978Head of the Central Organisation Department
- 1981.06.29–1982.09Chairman, CCP Central Committee
- 1982.09–1987.01.15General Secretary, CCP Central Committee
Related historical events
- 1927–1936From Jinggangshan to Yan’an: the soviet bases and the Long MarchRed Army soldier on the Long MarchHe joined the Red Army as a boy and took part in the Long March.
- 1956–1957From the Hundred Flowers to the Anti-Rightist CampaignOrganisation chief who pushed through the “correction” of rightistsThrough the Yantai conference and Document No. 55 of 1977–1978 he led the rehabilitation of rightists, and ordered Lin Xiling’s rehabilitation three times.
- 1966–1976The Cultural RevolutionVictim persecuted in the Cultural RevolutionHe was persecuted during the Cultural Revolution.
- 1976–1992Reform and opening: the Deng Xiaoping eraGeneral secretary of rehabilitation and the emancipation of thoughtOrganised the criterion-of-truth debate; resigned in 1987 over “bourgeois liberalisation”.
- 1989The Tiananmen protests and the crackdown of 4 June 1989Whose death sparked the protestsDied on 15 April; the mourning became the movement.
Ethnic policy and the 1980 Tibet visit
After the Cultural Revolution, Hu Yaobang judged that earlier policy toward the Tibet Autonomous Region had been mistaken and pressed a pragmatic line there. Following a May 1980 visit to the region he ordered thousands of Han Chinese cadres withdrawn, holding that Tibetans and Uyghurs should be empowered to administer their own affairs. Han officials who remained were required to learn Tibetan and Uyghur, and he set six requirements to improve conditions, among them increased state funds, better education, and efforts to revive Tibetan and Uyghur culture, while insisting that "anything that is not suited to Tibet's conditions should be rejected or modified". On that visit he also explicitly apologised to Tibetans for China's misrule of the region. In Xinjiang he declared the Bingtuan (soldier-farmers) cancelled, but Wang Zhen's opposition defeated the move. The line drew criticism from high-level officials such as Deng Liqun and from Han nationalists who held that he had given ethnic minorities too many social privileges. The episode shows both the reach and the limits of reform-era ethnic policy: initiatives from the centre that stalled against resistance inside the Party itself.