A “28 Bolsheviks” returnee who became general secretary after Zunyi and sided with Peng Dehuai at Lushan in 1959
One of the “28 Bolsheviks” who replaced Bo Gu as general secretary after Zunyi, he backed Peng Dehuai at Lushan in 1959 and died in Wuxi in 1976.
A Sun Yat-sen University graduate counted among the “28 Bolsheviks”, he backed Mao against Bo Gu at the Zunyi Conference in 1935 and became the party’s general secretary. He led propaganda and theory at Yan’an and ceded real power to Mao after the rectification movement. After 1949 he was ambassador to Moscow and vice-minister of foreign affairs; at the 1959 Lushan Conference he criticised the Great Leap and was purged with Peng Dehuai as an “anti-party clique”. Exiled during the Cultural Revolution, he died of heart disease in 1976 and was rehabilitated in 1979.
Career Timeline
- 1935–1943General Secretary of the Central Committee
- 1951–1955Ambassador to the Soviet Union
- 1954–1959Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs
Related historical events
- 1927–1936From Jinggangshan to Yan’an: the soviet bases and the Long MarchGeneral secretary after ZunyiReplaced Bo Gu as general secretary and supported Mao’s military leadership.
- 1958–1962The Great Leap Forward and the Great FamineVice-foreign minister who backed Peng at LushanA speech on the Leap’s economic errors put him in the anti-party clique.