1908.2.6.–2007.1.15.
○ Natural causes
First finance minister and central figure of the “61 renegades” case, who returned in the reform era as a conservative elder
Peng Dehuai and Zuo Quan named the operation the Hundred Regiments Offensive on 26 August 1940, but its launching was later revived as a charge against Peng in his line dispute with Mao.
From Shanxi, he was one of the 61 men who on party orders signed “recantations” to leave a Kuomintang prison in 1936, an episode revived in the Cultural Revolution as the “61 renegades” case that kept him confined for twelve years. As the first finance minister after 1949 he unified taxation and currency and was criticised by Mao in the 1953 “new tax system” affair. Returning in 1979 as vice-premier and vice-chairman of the Central Advisory Commission, he was one of the “eight elders” and chaired the meeting that removed Hu Yaobang in 1987. He died in 2007 at 98; Bo Xilai is his son.
Also known as: Po I-po
Activities and affiliations
-
1925–2007
Political and party leadership
-
1956–1966
People’s Republic of China state institutionsLed the State Economic Commission
Economy, finance and planning -
People’s Republic of China state institutionsMinister of FinanceMain
Economy, finance and planning
Career Timeline
- 1925Joined the CCP
- 1931–1936Arrested and imprisoned by KMT police
- 1937–1939Organized anti-Japanese guerrilla operations in Shanxi
- 1949–1953Minister of Finance
- 1956–1966Led the State Economic Commission
- 1966Purged during the Cultural Revolution
- 1979Returned to economic and party leadership after rehabilitation
- 1982–1992Vice-Chairman of the Central Advisory Commission
Related historical events
- 1937–1945The war with Japan and the second united frontAnti-Japanese guerrilla commander in ShanxiAfter Japanese forces occupied northern Shanxi in 1937, he conducted anti-Japanese guerrilla operations in southern Shanxi.
- 1949–1956From New Democracy to socialist transformationFinance minister in the 1953 tax controversyCriticised by Mao for a new tax system that treated public and private firms alike.
- 1966–1976The Cultural RevolutionDetainee in the “61 renegades” caseDuring the Cultural Revolution, the old recantation episode was revived as a case that kept him confined for twelve years.
- 1976–1992Reform and opening: the Deng Xiaoping eraElder who chaired the meeting that removed Hu YaobangPresided over the “democratic life meeting” of January 1987.
- 1989The Tiananmen protests and the crackdown of 4 June 1989Elder who supported martial lawTook the hard line in the elders’ deliberations.
Shanxi united front and wartime command
Released from prison in late 1936, Bo Yibo returned to his home province of Shanxi to work inside the united front between the Communist Party and the Shanxi warlord Yan Xishan, who feared a Japanese invasion. Yan sent Guo Yingyi, a former classmate of Bo's and a former Communist then in Yan's service, to Beijing to win Bo's cooperation; Bo signed an anti-Communist confession with the party's tacit support and returned to Shanxi in October 1936. Yan put him in charge of the Patriotic Sacrifice League, which Bo organized as a front for promoting Communism. He also raised a "dare-to-die" corps of young volunteers and used his good relations with Yan to persuade him to release imprisoned Communists.
After the Japanese took northern Shanxi in 1937 and wiped out 90 percent of Yan's forces, Bo gathered the survivors of his unit and conducted anti-Japanese guerrilla operations in southern Shanxi. When cooperation between Yan and the Communists ended in 1939, he led the survivors loyal to him into the Eighth Route Army, and through the Japanese surrender in 1945 served as a commander and political commissar fighting in Shanxi, Hebei, Shandong and Henan. He held party posts that recognized his administrative authority over much of those areas, and his prestige and influence grew during the war years. In the later stages of the civil war, from 1946 to 1949, he worked closely under Liu Shaoqi and General Nie Rongzhen.