ABSTRACT
Economic recovery from the Great Leap fiasco dominated the leaders1 agenda, both at the center and in the provinces, during the early 1960s. Conservative leaders and policies took command as never before in post-1949 China. As Zhao Ziyang’s positions multiplied and increased in importance, so did his public visibility. He gave several public speeches and work reports at conferences, made a number of publicized inspection tours throughout the province, continued to publish articles in the local and central press, and met with numerous foreigners passing through Guangzhou. Zhao remained relatively inactive publicly during 1961. The first indication of his increased stature came in December 1961 at the Second Guangdong Chinese Communist Party Congress, when Zhao was assigned to give the main work report on “the situation and tasks.” In his report, Zhao endorsed the new ordering of economic priorities emanating from the center in the form of the “Sixty Articles on Agriculture” and the “Seventy Articles on Industry.”
