Two Whatevers

The "Two Whatevers" (Chinese: 两个凡是; pinyin: Liǎng gè fán shì) refers to the statement that "We will resolutely uphold whatever policy decisions Chairman Mao made, and unswervingly follow whatever instructions Chairman Mao gave" (凡是毛主席作出的决策，我们都坚决维护；凡是毛主席的指示，我们都始终不渝地遵循).

This statement was contained in a joint editorial, entitled "Study the Documents Well and Grasp the Key Link", printed on 7 February 1977 in People's Daily, the journal Red Flag and the PLA Daily.^[1]

Content

The policy was advocated by the Chinese Communist Party chairman Hua Guofeng, Mao's successor, who had earlier ended the Cultural Revolution and arrested the Gang of Four. However, this policy proved unpopular with Deng Xiaoping and other party leaders advocating market reform.

It proved a trigger for Deng's manoeuvre in 1978 to gain control of economic policy in China, and led eventually to Hua being demoted from the party leadership in 1980.^[2]

The coalition of Hua's political supporters, referred to as the "whateverist faction",^[3] also lost its power after Deng's political manoeuvre: Wang Dongxing, Ji Dengkui, Wu De, and Chen Xilian, the so-called "Little Gang of Four", were relieved of all their Party and state posts during the 5th Plenum of the 11th Central Committee of the CCP, 23–29 February 1980.

References

1. "华国锋承认"两个凡是"错误 邓小平终上台". 中国网. 3 September 2008. Retrieved 21 January 2011.
2. "华国锋提两个"凡是"阻挠邓小平出山". 新闻午报. Retrieved 22 January 2011.
3. Fontana, Dorothy Grouse (1982). "Background to the Fall of Hua Guofeng". Asian Survey. 22 (3): 237–260. doi:10.2307/2644028. ISSN 0004-4687. JSTOR 2644028.