Deng Xiaoping: The Most Successful Leader Of The People's Republic Of China

In the minds of Chinese people, Deng Xiaoping is considered as one of the most powerful leader of the People’s Republic of China from late 1970’s until he died in 1997. His noteworthy efforts to bring back China’s prosperity following the consequences of the Cultural Revolution resulted in the country’s economic, cultural and social expansion. The outcome of his passion and belief in the potential of China is still noticeable today.

Deng Xiaoping was born in 1904 in Paifang, Guang’an country in Sichuan. His father, Deng Wenming, dreamed for his son to become a great high official like Deng Shimin, a member of extended family who became a high and reputed official in imperial China even so that after 1774, the village was named “Paifang” in

Deng’s father saw this as an opportunity for his son to further his education and training. In late 1918, after one year spent studying in Chongqing in a preparatory school, Xiaoping was chosen among tens of thousands of Chinese laborers to go to France where they would work part-time and attend French universities. He arrived in France when he was only 16 years old. However, shortly after his arrival, there was a significant number of French soldiers who survived and came back to their homeland which lead to the country’s inflation. (Goodman, 1994, p.25). Hence, less then 3 months after he arrived in France, Deng had to move in the city of Creusot and work in France’s largest ordinance factory: Scheinder’s & Cie. The poor life quality of Chinese workers in France lead to the amplification of Chinese pride among Chinese laborers and to the creation of their own organizations to protest against the Chinese and French governments which Deng was a part of. During the same time, Xiaoping aimed “to built a movement to replace the weak and cowardly Chinese government” (Zhao, 1996). Deng learned a lot from his discussions with his fellow workers about capitalism, imperialism and the Soviet Union. Consequently, he developed his own opinion concerning the way Europeans Imperialists treated China and more specifically, Chinese workers. Therefore, the Chinese Communist Party was founded in 1921 (Goodman, 1994, vii). In 1923, Deng took part in the congress of European young communists which was declared by its members as a part of the Chinese Communist Youth League. One year later, Xiaoping had quit his job at the Scheinder’s & Cie factory and worked at the Red Light Journal; a journal opposed to imperialism (Goodman, 1994, p.27). Working at this journal deepened his knowledge concerning Chinese Communist movement which led him to become an official member of the CCP (Zhao, 1996).