Table of Contents

Foreword, Benjamin Yang; Preface, Benjamin Yang; Chapter 1 Prologue: Why Deng?, Benjamin Yang; Chapter 2 Like Father, Like Son, 1904–1918, Benjamin Yang; Chapter 3 Bound for Abroad, 1918–1920, Benjamin Yang; Chapter 4 French Capitalists Make Chinese Communists, 1921–1925, Benjamin Yang; Chapter 5 Russia and Beyond, 1926–1929, Benjamin Yang; Chapter 6 The Unfortunate Royal Commissioner, 1929–1931, Benjamin Yang; Chapter 7 Bad Luck Turns into Good Fortune, 1932–1936, Benjamin Yang; Chapter 8 Battlefield as “Safe Haven,” 1937–1945, Benjamin Yang; Chapter 9 Battlefield as “Gold Mine,” 1945–1949, Benjamin Yang; Chapter 10 The Lord of the Southwest, 1949–1952, Benjamin Yang; Chapter 11 The Shoulders of Victims Form Rungs on the Ladder of Official Success, 1952–1956, Benjamin Yang; Chapter 12 Exuberance after Consecutive Promotions, 1956–1959, Benjamin Yang; Chapter 13 Fatigue after Leaping Forward, 1960–1965, Benjamin Yang; Chapter 14 Bornbardment from Within the General Headquarters, 1965–1972, Benjamin Yang; Chapter 15 The Capitalist Roader Back on the Road, 1973–1975, Benjamin Yang; Chapter 16 The Year of the Dragon, 1976, Benjamin Yang; Chapter 17 Back to Supreme Power, 1976–1980, Benjamin Yang; Chapter 18 The Pinnacle of Name and Fame, 1981–1984, Benjamin Yang; Chapter 19 Unsuccessful Successors, 1985–1988, Benjamin Yang; Chapter 20 Bloodshed at the Gate of Heavenly Peace, 1989, Benjamin Yang; Chapter 21 The Influential Retiree, 1990–1993, Benjamin Yang; Chapter 22 Supreme Maturity, 1994–1996, Benjamin Yang; Chapter 23 Epilogue: Communist China with or without him, Benjamin Yang;

About the Author

Benjamin Yang came in 1981 from Beijing University to Harvard, where he earned his Ph.D. in 1986. Since then he has until recently worked with Harvard’s John King Fairbank Center for East Asian Research and distinguished himself as a serious scholar and author of several influential academic writings. Yang is currently professor of international politics at the Chinese People’s University in Beijing.

Reviews

In this academic but vivid biography, Chinese scholar and Harvard research fellow Yang profiles Deng Xiaoping (1904-1995) as a shrewd, resourceful politician who came to power through his constant sharp appraisal of Mao's state of mind. Filled with ever-deepening contempt for Mao's benighted policies, Deng turned millions of landless peasants into landowners; yet, as China's absolute ruler, he lacked the hands-on control to follow through on his economic modernizations, in Yang's estimate. The author, a schoolmate of Deng's two sons at Beijing University and a Red Guard comrade of one of them during the Cultural Revolution, evinces restrained admiration for Deng's reformist drive, though he doesn't let us forget the sins and shortcomings of a dictator who, 32 years before the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, launched a massive purge that sent close to a million "rightists"‘liberals, entrepreneurs, intellectuals, pro-democracy leaders‘to labor camps and death. Besides offering a rare behind-the-scenes look at the Communist Party's internecine power struggles, this biography, written with a Chinese brand of playful irony, is peppered with dramatic personal glimpses, as when Deng's common-law wife Ah Jin denounced him before a 1933 party congress and declared that she was "cutting off relations" with him. (Jan.)