During the Cultural Revolution, following the downfall of Liu Shaoqi, who was Chairman of the People's Republic of China, no successor was named, so the duties of the head of state were transferred collectively to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress.

* 1969 – Liu Shaoqi, Chinese revolutionary, and statesman ( b. 1898 )

* April 27 – National People's Congress elects Liu Shaoqi as Chairman of the People's Republic of China, as a successor of Mao Zedong.

In the top leadership, it led to a mass purge of senior officials who were accused of taking a " capitalist road ", most notably Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping.

Forced to take major responsibility, in 1959, Mao resigned as the State Chairman, China's head of state, and was succeeded by Liu Shaoqi.

While the Lushan Conference served as a death knell for Peng, Mao's most vocal critic, it led to a shift of power to moderates led by Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping, who took effective control of the economy following 1959.

Under the auspice of Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping, work teams-effectively ' ideological-guidance ' squads of cadres-were sent to the city's schools and People's Daily to restore some semblance of order.

This was, in effect, an open call-to-arms against Liu Shaoqi, Deng Xiaoping, and their allies.

Liu Shaoqi, once the most powerful man in China after Mao, was sent to a detention camp, where he later died in 1969.

In Beijing, Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping were once again the targets of criticism, but others also pointed at the wrongdoings of the Vice Premier, Tao Zhu.

On April 6, 1967, Liu Shaoqi was openly and widely denounced by a Zhongnanhai faction whose members included Jiang Qing and Kang Sheng, and ultimately, Mao himself.

In the same month, at the 12th Plenum of the 8th Party Congress, Liu Shaoqi was " forever expelled from the Party ", and Lin Biao was made the Party's Vice-Chairman, Mao's " comrade-in-arms " and " designated successor ", his status and fame in the country was second only to Mao.

The report was heavily critical of Liu Shaoqi and other " counter-revolutionaries ", and drew extensively from quotations in the Little Red Book.

After being confirmed as Mao's successor, Lin's supporters focused on the restoration of the position of State Chairman, which had been abolished by Mao after the purge of Liu Shaoqi.

Much like the post-Great Leap restructuring led by Liu Shaoqi, Deng streamlined the railway system, steel production, and other key areas of the economy.

Disgraced former leader Liu Shaoqi was allowed a belated state funeral.

The removal of this group from power is sometimes considered to have marked the end of the Cultural Revolution, which had been launched by Mao in 1966 as part of his power struggle with leaders such as Liu Shaoqi, Deng Xiaoping and Peng Zhen.

Liu Shaoqi had meanwhile died in prison in 1969.

* Liu Shaoqi, PRC politician

Other participants in the March also went on to become prominent party leaders, including Zhu De, Lin Biao, Liu Shaoqi, Dong Biwu, Ye Jianying, Li Xiannian, Yang Shangkun, Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping.

The initial storm of the Cultural Revolution came to an end when Liu Shaoqi was forced from all his posts on October 13, 1968.

Jiang Qing incited radical youths organized as Red Guards against other senior political leaders and government officials, including Liu Shaoqi, the President at the time, and Deng Xiaoping, the Deputy Premier.

Among the chief victims: onetime Chief of State Liu Shaoqi, whose widow Wang Guangmei, herself imprisoned during the Cultural Revolution for 12 years, attended the trial as an observer.

Moderate Party members like Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping rose to power, and Mao was marginalized within the party, leading him to initiate the Cultural Revolution in 1966.

A moderate faction within the party and Politburo member Liu Shaoqi argued that change should be gradual and any collectivization of the peasantry should wait until industrialization, which could provide the agricultural machinery for mechanized farming.

Liu was also very close to Deng Xiaoping as his modernization efforts were very much in keeping with Deng's national policies.

* Deng Zhi, minister under Liu Bei

By the early 1960s, many of the Great Leap's economic policies were reversed by initiatives spearheaded by Liu, Deng, and Zhou Enlai.

By 1962, while Zhou, Liu and Deng managed affairs of state and the economy, Mao had effectively withdrawn from economic decision-making, and focused much of his time on further contemplating his contributions to Marxist-Leninist social theory, including the idea of " continuous revolution ".

On October 10, 1966, Mao's ally, General Lin Biao, publicly criticized Liu and Deng as " capitalist roaders " and threats.

In the early 1960s, President Liu Shaoqi, Party General Secretary Deng Xiaoping, and Premier Zhou Enlai took over direction of the party and adopted pragmatic economic policies at odds with Mao's communitarian vision, and disbanded communes, attempting to rework the system to pre-Leap standards.

Deng, Zhou, and Liu all seem to have concluded that Mao's policies were irrational and so they would run things while using him as an empty symbol for the people to rally around.

Among the first targets of the Cultural Revolution were Deng Xiaoping and Liu Shaoqi.

At this Congress Liu stood together with Deng Xiaoping and Peng Zhen against those who supported Mao's policies, led by Chen Yun and Zhou Enlai.

In order to correct the mistakes of the Great Leap Forward Liu and Deng led economic reforms, which bolstered their prestige among the party apparatus and the national populace. Once he said to Mao :" People write books about cannibalism!

" The economic policies of Deng and Liu were notable for being more liberal than Mao's radical ideas.

After the Cultural Revolution was announced, most of the most senior members of the CPP who had voiced any hesitation in following Mao's direction, including Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping, were removed from their posts almost immediately ; and, with their families, subjected to mass criticism and humiliation.

Liu and Deng, along with many others, were denounced as " capitalist roaders ".

He was succeeded to this post by Liu Shaoqi, who along with Premier Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping, took on a more active role in government to curb the excesses of the Great Leap Forward and restore Soviet-based centrally planned economy.

Zhao's experiences during the Great Leap Forward led him to support moderate political and economic policies, including those supported by Deng Xiaoping and Liu Shaoqi.

Peng lived in virtual obscurity until 1965, when the reformers Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping supported Peng's limited return to government, developing military industries in Southwest China.

Most other senior leaders, including Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, and Deng Xiaoping, supported Peng's position before Mao began to attack it, indicating that they shared Peng's views and that they did not see Peng's letter as an attack on the Chairman.

Deng Xiaoping and Liu Shaoqi led Party efforts to revive the Chinese economy, and cultivated Peng's friendship as part of a wider effort to gain widespread support for their activities.

Local Red Guards in Chengdu were not enthusiastic to follow these orders: they visited Peng's house on December 22, 1966 and attempted to intimidate Peng by informing him of the recent arrests of some of his friends and comrades, and of the imminent arrests of Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping.

On the eve of the Cultural Revolution Yang was identified as a supporter of Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping, and was purged as a counter-revolutionary.

His only public appearance during this time was a photograph of him published on the front page of the People's Daily and other major newspapers on May 1, 1962, showing a somewhat emaciated Chen shaking hands with Chairman Mao, while Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, and Deng Xiaoping ( the entire inner core of leadership of that time, with the exception of Lin Biao ) look on.

When the Campaign of the North China Plain Pocket broke out in the summer of 1946, he failed to destroyed the communist forces under Marshal Liu Bocheng and Deng Xiaoping and was relieved of his command once more.

Liu Bocheng and Deng Xiaoping in NRA uniform