ABSTRACT
Notified of a summons by the Party Center, Deng Xiaoping and his family left Jiangxi by train on February 20, 1973, and arrived in Beijing the next day. But it took a few more weeks for the top leaders to work out a formal resolution of his case. There were debates over Deng’s work assignment. Some suggested appointing him to a technical or research job. (Hadn’t Deng himself asked for that in his own letter to the chairman?) The final decision was Mao Zedong’s, but it is not entirely unbelievable that, as she herself later claimed, Jiang Qing showed more favor to Deng than many others. A Party Center resolution was formally passed on March 20, 1973, restoring Deng’s “party organizational life and deputy premier position.” 1
