In January 1962, 7,118 leading cadres met in Beijing for the largest central work conference the Party had ever held. Its main subject was the famine caused by the Great Leap Forward. On January 30, Mao Zedong told them: “Whatever mistakes the Center has made, I am directly responsible for them, and indirectly I also have a share.”
Mao and other leaders made self-criticisms at the conference. Afterwards, Mao withdrew for a time to the “second line,” and Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping ran the daily work of the Center.