On September 28, 1956, at the First Plenary Session of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Eighth Central Committee, Deng Xiaoping was elected as General Secretary of the Central Committee. He was simultaneously elected to be a member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee; member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee; and secretary of the Central Committee Secretariat. These positions made him the sixth-ranked leader in the party. He began working on day-to-day tasks with Liu Shaoqi and Zhou Enlai, who were then the Vice-Chairmen of the Central Committee.

Deng Xiaoping joined the Chinese Communist Party in 1924, and then was one of the leaders in the successful communist uprising. After the founding of the Communist Party of China, Mao Zedong transferred Deng Xiaoping, Gao Gang, Rao Shushi, and others back to Beijing in 1952 to serve as leaders of the Central Committee. This also made sure the regional secretaries would not compete with the Central Committee.

After Deng Xiaoping took office as Central Committee General Secretary, all the leaders of the CCP Central Committee and the State Council were under his leadership. During this period, Deng Xiaoping actively assisted Mao Zedong in promoting the Anti-Rightist and Great Leap Forward movements. Deng took the lead in taking care of the Lhasa riots (the 1959 Tibetan uprising), and visited the Soviet Union. He served until March 1967, during the Cultural Revolution, when he was forced to abdicate because he was seen as a "capitalist roader" within the party.

References: "Research on the History of the Founding of the People's Republic of China"; "The World Turned Upside Down: A History of the Chinese Cultural Revolution"; 中國共產黨歷次全國代表大會數據庫 (Database of Historical Chinese Communist Party National Congress Sessions)(Chinese)