China

The struggle for power following the death of Mao Zedong, Hua Guofeng, the reemergence of Deng Xiaoping and the defeat of the Gang of Four

Events Before 1976 

Mao was the leader of the People's Republic of China since it was created in 1949
He introduced the Great Leap Forward in 1958
The Great Leap Forward was a policy which was put in place to modernise the Chinese economy by mobilising its population, most of the population was placed on communes where they had to help with industrialisation and increase productivity, due to the lack of China's resources the plan failed and caused wide spread famine
Due to the failure of the Great Leap Forward and the Great Proletarian Cultural revolution that resulted from this failure Mao's reputation and position in the Party was damaged, although the Chinese population still had a lot of respect for him especially the youth as they had grown up with the communism propaganda at school as well at home
Liu Shaoqi succeeded Mao in 1959 and became the new Chairman of the People's Republic of China, Deng Xiaoping became the General Secretary of the Party, even though Mao was no longer the at the head of the government he was still Chairman of the Communist Party 
The new leaders of the Party wanted to find solutions to fix China's economy however these went against Mao's revolutionary policies which he had insisted upon to catch up with the West and compete for leadership in the communist world with the Soviet Union
One of the solutions implemented by Liu to restore the economy was to allow peasants to cultivate on small plots and make crafts which they could then sell at markets
Mao was against this return to capitalism and wanted to keep a revolutionary focus, even though many leaders still respected him, a lot of them questioned his leadership which angered him
Mao turned more and more to his wife for support and she became his confidant 
In 1965 Mao created the Red Guards (revolutionary youth), initiating the...