Bump!
Just read about this assination attempt earlier. So, rather than starting a new thread I looked to see if one, or more, had already been started. There was only this one that I could find.
So let's go with the idea that Zhou doesn't know about the assination attempt, gets on the plane as planed, and gets killed with the others.
Who steps into his position as premeire?
And as Hendryk stated, would Deng Xiaoping amount to anything more than First Secreatry of the SouthWest region? Would he become General Secreatary of the Communist Party 1956 As in OTL?