The phenomenon of reformers in the Liaoning province (second half of the 1980s)

The article is devoted to the leadership of the Liaoning Province during the era of reform of openness. Chinese regions have considerable autonomy in the economic and administrative spheres. The author collected and analyzed the biographies of members of the VI Standing Committee of the Communist Party of the Liaoning Province. Provinkom (Provincial Party Committee was the supreme governing structure of the province. In 1985, the reform of the provincial committees was carried out, which began to rely not on the collegial, but on the sole principle of government. The leader of the Liaoning Province in this period was Quan Shuren, who gathered 12 like-minded people around him - deputies and members of the Standing Committee of the CCP. In fact, there was a whole group of reformers, who had a similar destiny and the same affirmations for reforms. Based on the traditions of management of Chinese regions, the effectiveness of the work was determined by successes in their previous work, as a rule, in the lower urban districts. An analysis of their biographies showed that in the second half of the 1980s, the composition of the Liaoning Provinkom included new people in politics, who, above all, were not “stained” by the cultural revolution. On the contrary, they were its victims. Therefore, the general beginning of the reformers was the desire to overcome the negative consequences of the cultural revolution. A significant part of the Standing Committee members were natives of the province or ones who had worked there for a long time and knew their region well. Most of them went from working to becoming factory directors, so they understood the processes of production. We can say that the VI convocation of the Standing Committee is a “board of directors of factories”. A similar situation developed for other spheres of the economy: reforming taking into account the experience of many years of practice. Reforms in the provinces coincided with the course of the central government, which provided them with additional success. The activities of the reformers were not limited to the territory of Liaoning, and many of them were appointed to senior positions in other provinces. The province had its own personnel reserve, which indicates a well thought-out management policy. The provincial leaders became “card donors” not only at provincial, but also at central level.