ABSTRACT
Deng Xiaoping viewed the economic reform program not only as necessity for national well-being but as survival kit for the Chinese Communist party and a means of ensuring his own personal imprint on history. Deng and his chosen successors, Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang, used every opportunity to speed up changes in policy, personnel, and institutions in order to expand their political coalition and cement its hold on power by the time of the 13th Party Congress in 1987. There was an informal division of labor within the troika of senior reformers: Deng Xiaoping concentrated on the reforming and restaffing of the military, Hu Yaobang gave his attention to rural affairs and to the party's personnel and propaganda apparatus, and Zhao focused on the economic development sectors. Deng Xiaoping made great gains during 1985 in national security and military affairs, with the help of Yang Shangkun, a close associate since the 1930s and Deng's chief deputy on the military commission.
