April 10

Deng Xiaoping sent a letter to Hua Guofeng, Ye Jianying and the CPC Central Committee. He pointed out that it was essential to have a precise and full understanding of Mao Zedong Thought to guide the Party, the army and the people for generations to come, a viewpoint which ran counter to the erroneous ideas of the “Two-Whatevers” approach. On May 3, the CPC Central Committee distributed this letter.

July 16–21

The 3rd Plenary Session of the 10th CPC Central Committee was convened. The Session endorsed a resolution confirming the appointment of Hua Guofeng as chairman of the CPC Central Committee and the CPC Central Military Commission, and decided to restore Deng Xiaoping to his previous posts such as vice-chairman of the CPC Central Committee and the CPC Central Military Commission and vice-premier of the State Council.

August 12–18

The 11th CPC National Congress was convened. It announced the conclusion of the “Cultural Revolution,” and re-affirmed the task of building China into a powerful modernized socialist country within the 20th century, but failed to rectify the root causes of the mistakes of the “Cultural Revolution.”

August 19

The 1st Plenary Session of  the 11th CPC Central Committee elected Hua Guofeng chairman of the CPC Central Committee and Ye Jianying, Deng Xiaoping, Li Xiannian and Wang Dongxing vice-chairmen.

September 18

The CPC Central Committee issued the Notice on the Convening of the National Science Congress, requiring efforts be made to accelerate the implementation of the Party’s policies towards intellectuals, quickly restore the research institutions that had been revoked, reinstate professional titles of the scientific research personnel, establish a performance evaluation system, and implement an accountability system for people holding technical posts. Later on, the Chinese Academy of Sciences recruited Chen Jingrun as a research fellow for his world-leading achievements in “Goldbach’s conjecture.”

October 12

The State Council approved and distributed the Opinions on the Enrollment Work of Institutions of Higher Learning in 1977 submitted by the Ministry of Education. It was decided that starting from that year, institutions of higher learning should adopt the methods of  voluntary participation, unification of examination and excellence-based enrollment, and that the college entrance examination system that had been abolished during the “Cultural Revolution” should be restored. From November to December, around 5,700,000 people across the country took part in a nationwide unified examination organized by each province, autonomous region and municipality, with 273,000 people enrolled.

From: Chronicle of the People's Republic of China (October 1949 — September 2019) ,edited by The Institute of Party History and Literature of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, PP87-89