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Senior party leaders to pay respects to Mao's fallen heir
Family and friends will hold a four-day mourning service starting today at a military hospital for former party leader Hua Guofeng ,  who died on Wednesday, aged 87.
The  service will be held  at the 305 Hospital of the People's Liberation Army - a medical enclave reserved for elite politicians - in Beijing. It will be open to the public, according to a source close to the family.
Senior Communist Party leaders will attend today's  session, the source said without elaborating.
The relatively transparent handling of a political figure who was once publicly criticised signalled the current leadership's growing confidence in its grip on power, analysts said.
Most of the mainland's major newspapers yesterday published the one-sentence statement issued by Xinhua  announcing his death, the deliberate wording of which indicated that he was regarded as an undistinguished transitional figure within the party.
The official verdict on Hua  - who was Mao Zedong's   anointed successor and at one point China's most powerful man,  simultaneously  holding top positions in the party, the government and the military - was made in 1981 in an important party resolution.
It said he had played an important role in the arrest of the 'Gang of Four' but 'made many errors' thereafter.
His dogmatic following of Mao's doctrines, epitomised by his 'two whatevers' theory, was publicly debunked by reformer Deng Xiaoping   in his famous admonition: 'Practice is the only criterion to test the truth'.
On the popular Tianya website, netizens were divided over how to evaluate Hua's political career, which had been 'insignificant except for one decisive moment, which had changed the course of the country's modern history'.
But some netizens argued that the pre-emptive strike against the party's radicals - including Mao's widow Jiang Qing ,  in 1976 after Mao's death - was not  initiated by Hua.
Rather,  it was only under heavy persuasion from Politburo members Ye Jianying   and Li Xiannian  that he reluctantly concurred, some argued.
Hua's decision to ease out of elite politics was also interpreted differently. Some said it was a great contribution because it  made a peaceful transition of power possible.
Others said it epitomised his political incompetence.
'He's a pitiful political figure, showing little vision or intelligence and unable to hold onto the power,' one netizen wrote.
'But that turned out to be a good thing for China, because it made it easy for Deng Xiaoping to easily sideline him and send the country on its path to reform.'
Additional reporting by Ng Tze-wei



Mourning service for Hua Guofeng at elite hospital