Files 'closed' on catastrophes of past, top party historian Xie Chuntao says

The Communist Party is unlikely to ever open all the files on its recent painful past, including the Cultural Revolution and Great Leap Forward, and sees no need to reassess those periods, a senior party historian said yesterday.

The 1958-1961 Great Leap Forward, when millions starved to death in Mao Zedong's botched industrialisation campaign, and the 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution are two of the country's most sensitive historical events in modern times.

During the Cultural Revolution, children turned on parents and students on teachers after Mao declared class war, convulsing the country in chaos and violence.

While recent years have seen increased public discussion of both events, certain topics remain almost completely off-limits, including the death of Lin Biao , once handpicked to succeed Mao but killed in a mysterious plane crash in 1971 while fleeing the country after he was accused of plotting a coup.

Xie Chuntao, director of the Party History Teaching and Research Department at the Central Party School, which trains rising officials, said the party had reflected deeply on its mistakes.

But former paramount leader Deng Xiaoping's conclusion that Mao made mistakes remained the correct way to broadly view the period, Xie told a news conference.