The Fourth Plenum of the 12th CPC Central Committee
The Fourth Plenary Session of the 12th Party Central Committee was held in Beijing on September 16 to pave the way for the National Conference of the Chinese Communist Party, which convened two days later.
Top leaders Hu Yaobang, Deng Xiaoping, Zhao Ziyang, Li Xiannian and Chen Yun entering the meeting hall.
According to its communique, the Central Committee discussed and adopted in principle the draft proposals for the country's Seventh Five-Year Plan. The document was submitted to the national conference for further debate.
The participants also discussed the election of new officials to China's central leading organizations.
Just before the meeting, 131 aging Party veterans, notably Ye Jianying and Deng Yingchao, widow of the late Premier Zhou Enlai, asked to be allowed to resign from the Central Committee, the Central Advisory Commission and the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection.
The communique praised "the exemplary deeds of all these veteran comrades in promoting this succession in the interests of the Party and the people." It also approved their resignations for inclusion in a report to the national conference.
The session extended a special salute to Ye Jianying for his "major historical contributions to the Party and the nation." Ye, 88, took part in the democratic revolution led by Sun Yat-sen in the 1920s. During the anti-Japanese war he was chief of staff of the Party's military commission, and did much to modernize the PLA after the founding of the People's Republic in 1949. In 1976, Ye played a major role in toppling the gang of four.
The session was presided over by Hu Yaobang, Deng Xiaoping, Zhao Ziyang, Li Xiannian and Chen Yun, all members of the Standing Committee of the Party Political Bureau.
The plenary session was preceded by four days of preliminary meetings.
(NO. 38 SEPTEMBER 23, 1985, title: "Plenum Sets Agenda for Party Conference")
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