Beijing Spring
The Chinese government under Deng Xiaoping subsequently repudiated the Cultural Revolution. At the Fourth Plenum of the Eleventh National Party Congress Central Committee in September 1979, a key document was tabled that evaluated the entire 30-year period of Communist rule. At the plenum, party Vice Chairman Ye Jianying declared the Cultural Revolution "an appalling catastrophe" and "the most severe setback to [the] socialist cause since [1949]." The Chinese government's condemnation of the Cultural Revolution culminated in the "Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party Since the Founding of the People's Republic of China", adopted by the Sixth Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. It stated that "Comrade Mao Zedong was a great Marxist and a great proletarian revolutionary, strategist and theorist. It is true that he made gross mistakes during the "cultural revolution", but, if we judge his activities as a whole, his contributions to the Chinese revolution far outweigh his mistakes. His merits are primary and his errors secondary." Furthermore, Deng briefly allowed free speech to flourish, thus permitting open and public criticism of the government to take place. Known as the Beijing Spring, this led to a universal condemnation of the Cultural Revolution throughout the country.