Deng Xiaoping's Reforms
How Deng's pragmatic 'reform and opening up' policies launched the world's fastest economic transformation.
Reform and Opening Up
Deng Xiaoping consolidated power by 1978 and launched what he called 'reform and opening up' (gaige kaifang). His approach was the opposite of Mao's grand visions: pragmatic, incremental, and experimental. His famous dictum — 'it doesn't matter whether a cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice' — signaled that ideological purity would yield to practical results.
The first and most transformative reform came from below. In 1978, eighteen peasants in Xiaogang village, Anhui province, secretly divided their commune's land into household plots, agreeing that each family would meet its quota to the state and keep any surplus. Their output doubled within a year. When local officials discovered the arrangement, rather than punish it, the reform-minded provincial leadership allowed it to continue. By 1982, Deng had made household farming national policy through the Household Responsibility System.