Editing Two Whatevers (section)

== History ==
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 [[Chinese economic reform|market reform]].

On a 7 February 1977 editorial titled "Study the Documents Well and Grasp the Key Link"<ref>{{cite web |date=3 September 2008 |title=华国锋承认"两个凡是"错误 邓小平终上台 |url=http://www.china.com.cn/aboutchina/zhuanti/dsrw/2008-09/03/content_16383434.htm |accessdate=21 January 2011 |publisher=中国网}}</ref> which appeared in ''People's Daily'', ''Red Flag'', and ''People's Liberation Army Daily'', Hua articulated the "Two Whatevers" slogan: "We will resolutely uphold whatever policy decisions [[Mao Zedong|Chairman Mao]] made, and unswervingly follow whatever instructions Chairman Mao gave".<ref name=":Wang">{{Cite book |last=Wang |first=Frances Yaping |title=The Art of State Persuasion: China's Strategic Use of Media in Interstate Disputes |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |year=2024 |isbn=9780197757512}}</ref>{{Rp|page=111}}

It proved a trigger for Deng's manoeuvre in 1978 to implement economic reform policy in China, and eventually led to Hua being demoted from the party leadership in 1980.<ref>{{cite web|title=华国锋提两个"凡是"阻挠邓小平出山|url=http://news.163.com/08/0612/08/4E7O2Q5400011247.html|publisher=新闻午报|accessdate=22 January 2011}}</ref> Even before he was fully rehabilitated, Deng described the "Two Whatevers" as being contrary to the essence of [[Marxism]].<ref name=":Wang" />{{Rp|page=111}} On 11 May 1978, ''[[Guangming Daily]]'' published a front-page editorial criticizing the "Two Whatevers".<ref name=":Wang" />{{Rp|page=111}} In June 1978, Deng endorsed the perspective of the editorial at an All-Army Political Work Conference.<ref name=":Wang" />{{Rp|page=111}} Deng stated that [[Chinese Marxist philosophy|Marxist theory]] should not be "lifeless dogma" and cited Mao's method of [[Seek truth from facts|seeking truth from facts]], contrasting the "Two Whatevers" with the view that "only through practice can the correctness of one's ideas be proved, and there is no other way of testing truth."<ref name=":Wang" />{{Rp|page=111}}

The coalition of Hua's political supporters, referred to as the "whateverist faction",<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Fontana|first=Dorothy Grouse|date=1982|title=Background to the Fall of Hua Guofeng|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2644028|journal=Asian Survey|volume=22|issue=3|pages=237–260|doi=10.2307/2644028|jstor=2644028|issn=0004-4687|url-access=subscription}}</ref> also lost its power after Deng's political manoeuvre: [[Wang Dongxing]], [[Ji Dengkui]], [[Wu De]], and [[Chen Xilian]], the so-called "[[Gang of Four#"Little Gang of Four"|Little Gang of Four]]", were relieved of all their Party and state posts during the 5th Plenum of the [[11th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party|11th Central Committee of the CCP]], 23–29 February 1980.