In the Communist Party's official discourse, the "generational" division and identification of the "core leader" for each of the first, second and third generations was set down during the leadership of Jiang Zemin and first publicised in 1999. This division and identification was not uncontroversial at the time, since the party had hitherto regarded his immediate predecessors as the party's General Secretary, Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang, as its leaders, and regarded Deng Xiaoping as the "power behind the throne" rather than a formal leader. The revision of party history into "generations" helped to secure Jiang's position as "core" and anointed heir. Through the invention of the concept of the "core", it also helped to de-legitimise Jiang's deposed predecessors (such as Hu and Zhao), by relegating them from party leader to mere "membership" of a "leadership collective", which also conveniently helped to legitimise their deposition.