Party purge plan disclosed by Hua

Press, 30 December 1976, Page 5

Party purge plan disclosed by Hua

By FOX BUTTERFIELD, of the New York Times Service, through NZPA. Hong Kong Chairman Hua Kuo-feng has disclosed that China will launch a nation-wide purge of Communist Party members and local government officials in an effort to get rid of all those who gained their positions through their connections with Mao’s widow, Chiang Ching, and the three other disgraced members of the Politburo.

In a far-ranging speech to a national farm conference in Peking, Chairman Hua said: “The Central Committee is going lo launch a movement of party consolidation and rectification throughout the party at an opportune time next year to purify the ranks of our party, and congresses will be held in the provinces and cities to elect new revolutionary committees or local government bodies.” At the same time, Chairman Hua said, the campaign against the "Gang of Four” and their supporters would continue as the central task for 1977. He indicated that there would be further important disclosures about the group’s alleged misdeeds, perhaps dating hack to their activities in the Cultural Revolution of the 19605.

Mr Hua told the conference that the defeat of Chiang's group had averted a civil war and prevented them from “directly capitulating to imperialism and socialimperialism” — Peking’s terms for the United States and the Soviet Union; but the analysts considered these references to be somewhat rhetorical. Mr Hua, who became Chairman after arresting Chiang and her colleagues, was speaking to 5000 delegates to a conference in Peking on agricultural mechanisation and development. The full text of his address was transmitted yesterday by Hsinhua, the Chinese press agency.

In an accompanying dispatch. Hsinhua disclosed that among those present at the conference was Mr Wu Teh, the First Party Secretary, or Mayor of Peking, who had failed to appear at several previous farm conferences. Mr Wti'S absence had given rise to 'speculation that he, too. might have fallen victim to the unfolding purge.

In his speech, Chairman Hua admitted that China s economic performance in 1976 had not been as great as it should have been, “mainly because of constant political turmoil.” Consequently, he said, China’s 850 million people must intensify their efforts to achieve the late Chou En-lai’s goal of modernising the country by th-' vear 2000.

Taking a tough stand for law and order, as he has done in several other public speeches, Mr Hua emphasised the need for strict organisation and discipline within the party. “The defeat of Chiang’s group will bring about great order across the land, which accords with the aspirations of the people,” he added.

Political analysts in Peking consider chairman Hua’s speech a very important one, and the clearest indication yet that Peking’s new leaders plan a reshuffle of party and Government members far beyond the ousting of the four Politburo members and their immediate followers. Chairman Hua outlined a plan for rapid economic growth through better management, tighter discipline in factories, harder work, more technical training, improved accounting procedures, and

[some higher wages. The proigramme seemed to reflect Mr Hua's experience as a career party administrator and his penchant for order and discipline. He also gave a pledge to adhere to Mao’s rigorous economic policies and the radical reforms the late Chairman introduced in the Cultural Revolution. But it did appear from parts of his speech that Mr Hua, while not offering any new policies to directly challenge Mao, was, in practice, modifying many of the late Chairman’s ideas. For Mr Hua and his allies among the country's veteran bureaucrats and army commanders, Mao remains too valuable a source of authority to simply cast aside, but the late Chairman wrote so extensively and reversed positions so often that he can be cited to prove almost anything.

Referring in his speech to the earthquake that devastated the industrial city of Tangshan last July, Mr Hua said that it “inflicted a loss of lives and property that is rarely seen in history.” China has published no figures on the damage, and Mr Hua’s statement was the strongest so far from an official on the extent of the country’s losses.