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SCMP Reporter

THE Communist Party's conservative faction has been shocked by revelations about the ''liberal'' will left by former politburo member Mr Hu Qiaomu, who died in Beijing last September.

  Chinese sources said yesterday that Mr Hu, the secretary of the late Chairman Mao Zedong, had urged his comrades to ''update their ideas according to the times''.

  The sources said the Maoist ideologue had asked his relatives to tape his ''political will'' shortly before his death at the age of 81.

  Because he was then extremely feeble, however, the relatives and party authorities had to call on acoustic experts to make out parts of the recording.

  ''Some of our ideas in the past have proved to be either incorrect or obsolete,'' Mr Hu, once ''godfather'' of the remnant Maoists, said.

  ''Others need to be fine-tuned or rephrased to suit the requirements of the times.''   The sources said most shocking for the leftists was the fact that Mr Hu had cast doubt on the supreme importance of the four cardinal principles of socialism, Marxism, party leadership and the dictatorship of the proletariat.

  Mr Hu, who left the politburo in 1987, hinted the party should put more emphasis on reform and the open door policy.

  ''It is perhaps inappropriate to give as much priority to the Four Cardinal Principles as to reform and the open door,'' he said.

  ''I hope this question can be addressed at the 14th party congress [of October last year].''   Analysts said that in the last years of his life, Mr Hu, who had played a role in persecuting ''bourgeois-liberal'' intellectuals, had shown signs of ''repentance''.

  In mid-1992, he published an article on how the party had committed ''leftist'' mistakes for 20 years.

  The analysts said that while some Maoist ideologues had disparaged Mr Hu's last statement as the incoherent thoughts of a dying man, the liberal nature of the will had demoralised the capital's leftists.

  Meanwhile, the hardliners have been encouraged by the conservative leanings of the new head of the Propaganda Department, Mr Ding Guan'gen.

  Mr Ding, a politburo member who had been in charge of Taiwan affairs, has retained the staff who used to work for the liberal politburo member, Mr Li Ruihuan, his predecessor as ideology tsar.

  An informed source said a couple of Mr Li's aides had been scolded by Mr Ding for expressing support for liberal writers and thinkers.

  At a recent meeting of the retired cadres of the Propaganda Department, Mr Ding seconded the views of leftist commissars such as Mr Tian Dan.

  At the conclave, Mr Tian upbraided the authors of two avant-garde books - Tides of History and Memorandum on Anti-Leftism - for fomenting bourgeois values.

  ''I support comrade Dan's ideas,'' Mr Ding reportedly said.

  ''Veteran cadres like him are able to take the long-term perspective.''      Mr Ding has instructed his staff to adopt a ''play safe'' stance in policies affecting ideology and culture.



Hu's liberal will shocks hardliners