Dec 16-25, 1980: CPC Central Committee holds working conference

On December 16-25, 1980, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China held a working conference in Beijing to discuss economic issues. On December 25, Deng Xiaoping delivered a speech entitled, "Implement the Policy of Readjustment, Improve the Party's Work and Ensure Stability and Unity" (the title was revised as "Implement the Policy of Readjustment, Ensure Stability and Unity" when it was included in the Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping Volume II).

"Unless we now make a genuine effort at (economic) readjustment, we shall be unable to carry out the modernization programme smoothly. Only by making sufficient cuts in some fields will we be able to gain the initiative and achieve overall stability and thus ensure the healthy growth of the economy," Deng said.

"To ensure the smooth progress of this readjustment, we must continue to firmly carry out all the principles, policies and measures that have proved effective since the Third Plenary Session (of the Eleventh Central Committee in December 1978)," Deng added.

"We should continue to carry out -- on the premise of national independence and self-reliance -- the series of economic policies for opening to the outside world that have already been adopted, and we should sum up our experience in order to improve them."

"Improving leadership by the Party means, primarily, strengthening our ideological and political work."

"Systematic measures should be adopted to institute a retirement system for cadres and abolish what is virtually a system of life tenure for leading cadres."

"The consolidation of political stability and unity is crucial to the success of the current economic readjustment. If stability and unity are disrupted, readjustment will be out of the question."