The Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping(Vol. II)contains 60 important talks given by Comrade Deng Xiaoping between 1975 and 1982 on issues concerning politics, economics, science, education,literature and art, the united front and the strengthening of the Party and the armed forces. The talks can be divided chronologically into three parts. The first part consists of nine pieces from 1975, which bear witness to DenS Xiaopings determined efforts to put an end to the turmoil of the ""cultural revolution"" and to rectify work in all fields. They reflect the struggle he waged in diametrical opposition to the Gang of Four in order to achieve stability and unity and to promote Chinas economic development. The second part presents 16 pieces from 1977 to 1978. These demonstrate Deng Xiaopings great courage after his return to the leadership in correcting past errors, breaching ideological taboos as he guided and propelled work in bringing order out of chaos that had thoroughly beset the Party, strongly advocating the reinstallation of the free tradition of seeking truth from facts. This laid the theoretical groundwork for defining afresh the Partys Marxist ideological line and realizing the historic changes decreed at the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. The third part contains 35 works produced between the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party in 1978 and the Twelfth National Congress of the Party in 1982. These speeches prove the outstanding contributions Deng Xiaoping has made as a polieymaker in promoting and directing the Partys work in corzecting past errors and bringing about the great, historic transformation in working out the suiding principles and policies for achieving socialist modernization in accordance with the basic concepts of Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thousht and in light of Chinas specific condidons. This collection, along with Volume III of the Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping, includes Deng Xiaopings major works produced during the period of the socialist construction. Viewed together, the contents of the individual pieces form a single corpus, integrating as a complete system. These talks are important not only because they form the foundation of the theory of constructing socialism with Chinese characteristics, the basis of todays Chinese Marxism, but also because they supply the more authoritative source for those who wish to research or understand the policy of reform and opening to the outside world that China has been pursuing since the late 1970s.
