The organiser among Yan’an’s five secretaries, dead a year after the People’s Republic was founded
Back in Yan'an from 1940, he worked in the Secretariat and Organisation Department; the 1945 Seventh Congress made him a Politburo Standing Committee member behind Mao Zedong, Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai and Zhu De. He died of a stroke in Beijing on 27 October 1950.
From Hunan, he studied at the Communist University of the Toilers of the East in Moscow and led the Communist Youth League. On the Long March he commanded the Second Front Army with He Long, and as the party’s delegate to the Comintern in 1938 he helped win recognition of Mao’s leadership. From 1943 he ran party organisation and finance as a Secretariat member, one of the “five secretaries” with Mao, Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai and Zhu De. His health failed after 1949 and he died of a cerebral haemorrhage in 1950 at 46.
Career Timeline
- 1938–1940Party delegate to the Comintern
- 1943–1950Member of the Central Secretariat
Related historical events
- 1927–1936From Jinggangshan to Yan’an: the soviet bases and the Long MarchPolitical commissar of the Second Front ArmyLed the Second Front Army with He Long to the rendezvous.
- 1945–1949The Chinese Civil WarCorrected land-reform excessesRedefined class categories and middle-peasant protection in January 1948.