Despite the freshness of Deng's ideas, in truth his ideas were not really new, but merely an effort to restore China to the situation of the mid-1960s, right before the Cultural Revolution and in any case, the Politburo continued to be a gerontocracy dominated by men born in the opening years of the 20th century, all of whom had participated in the Long March and Chinese civil war. The 81 year old Ye Jianying was forced to step down as defense minister in 1978 for health reasons and even with the death of several party elders during the 1970s, the average age of the Central Committee was still around 70.