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Hua Guofeng, leader of China for a short time in the wake of Mao's death, died yesterday. Xinhua issued a short obituary (Hecaitou notes that there are 101 characters, including punctuation).

A commenter on a Xinhuanet thread memorializing Hua succinctly sums up his place in Chinese history:

laorwhy: At one stroke you smashed the Gang of Four and ended the Cultural Revolution; bringing China's period of chaos to a close showed your courage and resolve. Carrying out a peaceful transition between the first and second generation of leaders is proof of your great vision. Thank you for opening up for us the door to peace. The people will forever remember you.

He Weifang, a law professor at Peking University, assessed Hua's legacy in a short blog post:

For people of our generation, Hua Guofeng was an important name, but it was also one that passed from celebration into silence with incredible speed. Because previous potential successors had all met with failure, when Mao knew his days were numbered, Hua won a chance for a rapid promotion (this may have been related to the fact that Hua was head of Mao's home province of Hunan). Because he did not have much of a high-level base and was relatively uninvolved in the power struggles at the time, he became an important symbol in the uncertain post-Mao period.

Intertia from the cultural revolution was still a potent force on thinking at the time. I remember that when people held meetings, the hall would usually have big photos of Mao and Hua hanging front and center. Mao was called "great teacher" (伟大导师) and Hua was the "wise leader" (英明领袖). The official statement on the arrest of the Gang of Four was "The Party Central Committee led by Chairman Hua smashed the Gang of Four." Singers performed a song praising him: "In Jiaocheng's mountains, Jiaocheng's rivers, Jiaocheng has brought forth a Commissar Hua." His thick Jiaocheng, Shanxi accent and his calligraphy (said to be in the style of Yan Zhenqing) made the biggest impression on people, and the nameplates of newspapers and even institutions like Renmin University were written in Hua's Yan script.

But Hua was destined to play just a transitional role. This was partly due to his shallow power base, but also because he had neither the ability nor the inclination to lead China out of the Mao era. His position as supreme leader was quickly taken over by the intrepid and forceful Deng Xiaoping. And while his ouster was somewhat murky, it was fairly peaceful. Aside from the inscription on Mao's Memorial Hall, all the rest of Hua's Yan script has disappeared. It is said that every year on the date of Mao's birth and death, he went to the hall to pay his respects; perhaps that was a chance to see one of his rare remaining inscriptions. People were still able to get a glimpse of him on certain occasions, but he no longer openly expressed his views on any political issues.

Today, Hua Guofeng passed away at 87, after a fairly long life. The official Xinhua News Agency gave him this appraisal: "an outstanding CPC member, a long-tested and loyal Communist fighter and a proletarian revolutionary." If, in the next world, he has the chance to see Mao again, how will he describe China over the past thirty years?