ABSTRACT
In a speech at a national conference on ideological and political work in January, Hu Yaobang said the notion of the inseparability of modernization and reform was an extremely important guiding ideology. Hu defended the leadership against charges that it had abandoned Mao's ideology by redefining that ideology and placing at its center Deng Xiaoping's slogan "Seek truth from facts." The conservatives had a strong official rationale for their approach—the 12th congress resolution's insistence that Communist ideology must remain the core of China's spiritual civilization. Immediately after the plenum closed, however, a major ideological campaign burst forth, launched by Deng Liqun with the backing of party and army veterans who gave speeches at various forums calling for the eradication of spiritual pollution. Deng Xiaoping's steady policy interventions in 1984 were intended to break through the ideological and political wrangling that had delayed the next stage of rural reforms and the launching of urban reforms.
