Hua Guofeng (born Su Zhu (苏铸); 16 February 1921 – 20 August 2008; also spelled as Hua Kuo-feng) was a Chinese politician who served as chairman of the Chinese Communist Party and the 2nd premier of China. As the successor of Mao Zedong, Hua held the top offices of the government, party, and the military after the deaths of Mao and Premier Zhou Enlai, but was gradually forced out of power by a coalition of party leaders between December 1978 and June 1981, and subsequently retreated from the political limelight, though still remaining a member of the Central Committee until 2002.

Born and raised in Jiaocheng, Hua joined the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1938, seeing action in both the Second Sino–Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War as a guerrilla fighter. In 1948, he was appointed party secretary of Xiangtan in Hunan, which included Mao's birthplace of Shaoshan. A popular local administrator, Hua rose to become Hunan's party secretary during the Cultural Revolution, and was elevated to the national stage in the early 1970s, notably assuming control of the Ministry of Public Security in 1973 and vice premier in 1975. After the death of Zhou Enlai in January 1976, Mao elevated Hua to the positions of premier and first vice chairman of the CCP, which made him Mao's designated successor.

In October 1976, a month after Mao's death, Hua arrested and removed the Gang of Four from power with the assistance of Mao's security chief Wang Dongxing, who became one of Hua's key supporters along with vice premier and chief economic planner Li Xiannian, and Luo Qingchang, head of the intelligence services. Hua also succeeded Mao as party chairman and chairman of the Central Military Commission, becoming the first to simultaneously hold the offices of party leader, premier, and commander-in-chief.

Hua reversed some of the Cultural Revolution–era policies, such as the constant ideological campaigns, but he was generally devoted to a planned economy and the continuation of the Maoist line. Between December 1978 and June 1981, a group of party veterans led by Deng Xiaoping forced Hua from his position of paramount leader but allowed him to retain some titles. Hua gradually faded into political obscurity, but continued to insist on the correctness of Maoist principles.

Born in Jiaocheng, Shanxi, the fourth son of a family originally from Fan County, Henan, Hua lost his father at the age of seven. He studied at the Jiaocheng County Commercial School and joined the CCP in 1938, during the Second Sino–Japanese War. Like many Communists of the era who took on revolutionary names, he changed his name to Huá Guófēng as an abbreviation of "中華抗日救國先鋒隊" (Zhōnghuá kàngrì jiùguó xiānfēng duì; 'Chinese Anti-Japanese Aggression National Salvation Vanguard'). After having served as a soldier in the 8th Route Army for 12 years under the command of Marshal Zhu De, he was appointed propaganda chief for the Jiaocheng County Party Committee in 1947, during the Chinese Civil War.^{[citation needed]}

Hua moved with the victorious PLA to Hunan in 1948, where he married Han Zhijun, and would remain in that province until 1971. He was appointed Party Secretary for Xiangyin County in August 1949, just before the establishment of the People's Republic of China in October of that year. In 1952, he was appointed secretary of Xiangtan Special District, which included Mao's hometown, Shaoshan. In this role, he built a memorial hall dedicated to Mao. When Mao visited the site, in June 1959, he was favorably impressed. Mao Zedong first met Hua in 1955, and was impressed by his simplicity.

Because the Governor of Hunan, General Cheng Qian, was not a communist (he belonged to the Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang, a left-wing nationalist faction of the KMT that collaborated with the CCP), Hua gradually came to exercise more and more power within the province, being named Vice Governor in 1958.

Hua participated in the 1959 Lushan Conference (an enlarged plenary session of the CCP Central Committee) as a member of the Hunan Provincial Party delegation, and wrote two investigative reports fully defending all of Mao's policies. Hua's influence increased with the Cultural Revolution, as he supported it and led the movement in Hunan. He organized the preparation for the establishment of the local Revolutionary Committee in 1967, of which he was a deputy chairman. In December 1970, he was elected Chairman of the Revolutionary Committee as well as First Secretary of the CCP Hunan Committee.