of their story includes time spent together in exile . In 1966 , Deng proposed major reforms including free markets for farmers and incentive bonuses . He was quickly denounced as a `` capitalist roader , '' a Maoist term used for people embracing capitalist ideals . He was under house arrest for two years , paraded in a dunce cap through the streets of Beijing and forced to wait tables at a Communist Party school . In 1969 , Deng , Zhuo and several of their children were exiled to Jiangxi province in southeastern China . Deng later said only a personal security team supplied by Chinese leader Mao Zedong protected him from being killed . As Xinhua reported , Zhuo was Deng 's companion `` through thick and thin . '' When he ascended to power in 1978 , Deng argued that `` poverty is not socialism '' and encouraged the creation of a market economy and capitalist-like enterprises . By the early 1990s his reforms had helped lift an estimated 170 million peasants out of extreme poverty . But he refused to abolish the power of the Communist Party over the lives of China 's citizens .
BEIJING , China -LRB- CNN -RRB- -- Chinese leaders Monday mourned the death of Zhuo Lin , wife of former national leader Deng Xiaoping . Zhuo Lin , center , mourns at husband Deng Xiaoping 's funeral in 1997 . Zhuo , a former consultant of the Central Military Commission General Office , died July 29 at age 93 and was cremated Monday , state-run news agency Xinhua reported . She was `` an excellent Communist Party of China member and time-honored loyal communist fighter , '' the party said in a written statement . Zhuo stood by Deng through decades of what CNN once described as `` amazing comebacks '' from `` political purges . '' Though a committed Communist revolutionary , Deng also was a chief architect of some key reforms that reshaped China 's economy . Zhuo met Deng in 1939 when they were young revolutionaries . She became his third wife and mother of his two sons and three daughters . When Deng rose to prominence as the most powerful leader of China , the family became China 's `` first family . '' Zhuo and Deng remained together until his death in 1997 . Part