On December 18, 1978, based on analysis of the international and domestic situations, the Third Plenum of the 11th CPC Central Committee reached a decision to shift the focus of the work of the Party toward socialist modernization, resetting the ideological line to emancipating the mind and seeking truth from facts, along with a series of strategic policies to promote national economic development.

The meeting held serious discussions on some major political events during the "cultural revolution" and certain historical questions left over from earlier periods, and endorsed the principle of improving democratic centralism and collective leadership, while specifying the tasks of advocating socialist democracy and enhancing the socialist legal system.

(Courtesy of the Foreign Languages Press)