ABSTRACT
The introduction of economic reform in the late 1970s was part of a desperate attempt by Deng Xiaoping to resurrect the legitimacy of the CCP. The devastation of the Cultural Revolution brought the party to the brink of collapse, forcing it to re-invent itself as a force for economic prosperity rather than revolutionary change. After Mao’s death in 1976 the Maoist legitimation techniques of mass mobilization and charismatic authority were abandoned and replaced with a new performance oriented paradigm under which the party’s legitimacy was measured by reference to its ability to achieve ambitious economic goals. Based on the crude logic that improvements in the economic welfare of the individual would revive the popular fortunes of an ailing party, the 1980s saw the intensification of the economic reform process which by the end of the decade had gone well beyond the scope originally intended.
