The Cultural Revolution and Deng's Purges
How Deng Xiaoping was purged twice during the Cultural Revolution, sent to work in a tractor factory, and survived to become China's paramount leader.
The First Purge (1966-1969)
By 1966, Deng Xiaoping was the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, one of the most powerful men in China. He had risen steadily through the Party hierarchy since the 1930s, surviving the Long March, serving as a political commissar in the civil war, and becoming a key figure in the post-1949 government. But Mao Zedong was about to tear it all down.
Mao launched the Cultural Revolution in 1966, ostensibly to purify the Party of 'capitalist roaders' who were steering China away from revolutionary socialism. In reality, it was Mao's instrument for regaining the supreme power he had partially lost after the catastrophe of the Great Leap Forward. Deng was identified as the 'Number Two Capitalist Roader' in China, second only to President Liu Shaoqi.
Red Guards ransacked Deng's home in Beijing. His children were harassed and persecuted. His eldest son, Deng Pufang, was either thrown or jumped from a window at Peking University during a Red Guard interrogation session, leaving him permanently paralyzed from the waist down. Deng himself was subjected to public 'struggle sessions' where he was denounced, forced to wear a dunce cap, and made to bow before screaming crowds.