China’s former Communist Party propaganda chief Deng Liqun dies aged 100
A former propaganda chief fiercely opposed to Deng Xiaoping's reforms, Deng Liqun flexed his muscles in ideology and theory until the end
One was an orthodox Marxist ideologue and the other was a pragmatist and paramount leader of the world's most populous nation. Though not related by blood, Deng Liqun and Deng Xiaoping were otherwise deeply connected, with their words often providing a signal about the direction China's political wind was blowing.
Deng Liqun, a former party propaganda chief and theoretician who played a key role in purging liberal intellectuals throughout the 1980s, was the most powerful conservative critic of the late Deng Xiaoping's reform policies.
Xinhua reported he died following an illness at 4.56pm on Tuesday, at the age of 100, in Beijing. The Communist Party paid tribute, praising him as "an excellent party member, a time-tested and loyal communist soldier, a proletarian revolutionist, an outstanding leader in the party's ideological and theoretical publicity work, and a Marxist theorist".
"Little Deng" was the principal architect of the Anti-Spiritual Pollution Campaign in 1983, which essentially targeted liberal intellectuals and artists, and the Anti-Bourgeois Liberalisation Campaign in 1987, which targeted reformers.
He also played a crucial role in a conservative wing's scheme to oust Deng Xiaoping's two handpicked reformist leaders, Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang, in the late 1980s.
Xigen Li, a professor at City University's department of media and communications, said the propaganda systems of the Communist Party were governed by officials with various thoughts and styles.