How Did the Cultural Revolution End? The Last Dispute between Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, 1975

It is well known that Deng Xiaoping made his first steps in his post- Cultural Revolution strategy during a time of a fierce controversy with Mao Zedong in 1975-1976. Recent analyses have introduced some new elements that afford us a better understanding of that biennium as a key passage in China after the Cultural Revolution. However, the most singular feature of the dispute between Mao and Deng, that is its theoretical-political content, remains unexplored or largely ignored. This article reviews some major issues at stake in that dispute, which was launched by a series of theoretical questions raised by Mao in December 1974. Deng's project was markedly shaped by the nature and the development of that dispute, albeit through a symptomatic denegation of any value in Mao's theses.