Liu Shaoqi

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Liu Shao-ch'i (1899?-1969?) was a leading organizer of the Chinese Communist party. Named chairman of the People's Republic (1959) and recognized as heir apparent to Mao Tse-tung, he became a major target of the Cultural Revolution in 1966 and was expelled from the party.

Liu Shao-ch'i was born in Hunan Province, China, to a landowning peasant family. In 1916, after a traditional education, he entered the Provincial First Normal School, where he was a schoolmate of future revolutionaries Mao Tse-tung, Jen Pi-shih, and Li Li-san. The school was an important center of radical activities, and Liu became interested in political activism. In 1919, he may have worked with Mao in editing the radical magazine Hsiang River Review. He also studied French in hopes of going abroad for further education.

In 1920, Liu joined the Socialist Youth League, a Communist auxiliary organization, and began to study Russian. He was arrested in 1920 and left for Shanghai after being released. Lui spent 1921 in Moscow with a small group of league members, where he studied at the University for the Toilers of the East.

Rise in the Labor Movement

After his return to China early in 1922, Liu was assigned to work with labor organizations in Shanghai. Transferred to the Anyuan coal mines as an assistant to Li Li-san, Liu organized a successful strike in 1922. The following year, he replaced Li in charge of strike activities and then went to Canton to work with unions under the nationalist Kuomintang (KMT)-Communist coalition.

In 1925, Liu was named vice-chairman of the All-China Federation of Labor. In Shanghai that year, he organized anti-British activities, but by late 1926 he was in Wuhan, where the new national government of the Kuomintang was established.

When the Kuomingtang purged the Communists in 1927, Liu directed the labor movement from underground. He became secretary general of the Hupei provincial labor union and organized an important demonstration in Hankow. In April, Liu was elected for the first time to a significant Communist party office, becoming a member of the Central Committee. In May, he was named general secretary of the All-China Federation of Labor.

Clandestine Operations

Between April and July 1927, a fragile alliance between the Communists and the KMT collapsed, leaving Liu and his comrades in a precarious situation. Liu's activities over the next few years are obscure. In 1928, he was made head of the Workers' Bureau of the party and in 1929, provincial secretary of party organization in Manchuria. By 1930, he was in Shanghai, where the official headquarters of the party were located. Two years later, he was sent to the Kiangsi Soviet base that Mao and Chu Teh had constructed and took charge of production activities in the supply workshops. While in Kiangsi, he was made chairman of the All-China Federation of Labor and was recognized as a major party leader in 1934 by his promotion to the power-holding Politburo.

Liu is reported to have left Kiangsi with the main detachment of Communist forces on the Long March to northwestern China, but he separated from the others to perform underground work in northern China. From then until 1942, he headed the party's guerrilla warfare activities in northern and central China. During that time he began to stress the necessity of maintaining party organization at all costs.

Major Party Member

Liu's emergence as a major figure in the Communist party was marked in 1939 by the publication under his own name of a book that was later translated into English as How to Be a Good Communist. He stressed the importance of studying Marxism-Leninism and self-cultivation through participation in revolutionary work.

From 1939 to 1942, Liu played a major role in the organization of guerrilla units in central China and of the New 4th Army. After an army incident in January 1941 that ruptured relations between the Communists and the government in the anti-Japanese united front, Liu became the political commissar of the New 4th Army. By early 1943, he had become one of the top party leaders as a member of the Central Committee Secretariat. His report to the Seventh National Congress in 1945, translated under the title "On the Party, " reflected his position as a leading authority on Chinese communism.

At the congress, Liu became the third-ranking party member after Mao and Chu Teh. During Mao's trip to Chungking for negotiations in 1945, Liu acted as his deputy at Yenan. When the Communists were forced to evacuate Yenan in 1947 due to resumption of the civil war, Liu headed a team that would assume leadership of the revolution if Mao and his group were killed or captured. With the creation of the People's Republic in 1949, Liu became second vice-chairman after Chu Teh as well as general secretary of the Central Committee.

Liu's public pronouncements during the 1950s appear to have reflected the general policies of the party and the government. He emphasized the necessity of collective leadership under Mao Tse-tung and held that Mao's thoughts and ideas were crucial to party principles, as well as being an important guide to revolutionaries in Southeast Asia. In October 1952, Liu attended the Nineteenth Congress of the Russian Communist party in Moscow, returning to China in January. In 1957, he acted for Mao when the leader paid a visit to the Soviet Union.

Liu's rise to power in the Chinese Communist party was capped in 1959 when he replaced Mao Tse-tung as chairman of the People's Republic. Mao, however, retained chairmanship of the party. Liu publicly supported the Great Leap Forward (1958-1960), Mao's grand plan to organize the huge Chinese population. Later evidence suggests, however, that Liu soon came to consider Mao's policies in error, especially after the economic setbacks from 1960 to 1962. Liu also supported the policies of economic and social retrenchment that followed.

Policy differences developed between Mao and Liu. Mao emphasized rapid development based on the political consciousness of the Chinese masses. Liu's apparantly favored a slower growth, placing economic reliance on a small core of highly trained technical experts. Liu pushed for tighter central control of society through party authority, whereas Mao wanted less hierarchical structure with greater scope for mass activity.

Decline to Obscurity

Although it was not evident at the time, Liu's decline in power probably began in 1965, with the opening of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. An attack on Wu Han, a playwright and journalist, broadened into an attack on party officials associated with Wu Han, although Liu was not apparently involved. In April 1966, he made a state visit to Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Burma.

At a Central Committee meeting that August, Liu came under heavy attack, although there was no official announcement. Instead, at an August 18 meeting, he appeared on the rostrum in eighth position rather than second. It was at this meeting that the Chinese Red Guard, Mao's aggressive paramilitary units formed as part of the Cultural Revolution, were first noticed publicly. Liu was soon denounced in Red Guard publications and posters, although not in the official press. That changed in 1967 when the official press began to refer ominously to Liu as the "top person in authority taking the capitalist road" and then as "China's Khrushchev." Soon he ceased to be mentioned by name at all in the press or to appear in public, except perhaps at meetings where he was denounced.

Liu remained in his official post and in 1967, three documents appeared that were said to be self-criticisms made by Liu Shao-ch'i. They admit to errors on his part, but reject charges that he was not loyal or a true Communist in spirit.

In October 1968, a Central Committee report declared Liu guilty of "counterrevolutionary crimes." He was expelled from the party and dismissed from all party and government posts. The resolution expressed the committee's intention "to continue to settle accounts with him and his accomplices." Shortly after, newspaper editorials suggested that his crimes were great enough to warrant death.

Although Liu's whereabouts remained unknown, he was apparantly imprisoned and probably died, or was killed, there, perhaps as early as 1969. In 1974, the Chinese Communist press acknowledged his death, but did not stipulate when. Late in that year, the New York Times carried his obituary. By 1980, the post-Mao Communist party in China apparently had second thoughts about Liu Shao-Ch'i and hailed him as a "great Marxist."

Further Reading

There is no standard biography of Liu. The Collected Works of Liu Shao-ch'i (3 vols., 1969) were published in Hong Kong. His most famous publication is How to Be a Good Communist (1952). See also Quotations from President Liu Shao-ch'i with an introduction by C. P. Fitz Gerald (1968). Background on Liu's life is in Donald Klein and Anne B. Clark, Biographic Dictionary of Chinese Communism 1921-1965 (2 vols., 1971), and in the chapter on him in Chün-tu Hsüeh, Revolutionary Leaders of Modern China (1971). See also Edgar Snow, The Other Side of the River: Red China Today (1961).

Quotes:

"There is no such thing as a perfect leader either in the past or present, in China or elsewhere. If there is one, he is only pretending, like a pig inserting scallions into its nose in an effort to look like an elephant."

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Liu Shaoqi 刘少奇
2nd President of the People's Republic of China
In office 27 April 1959 – 31 October 1968
Preceded by	Mao Zedong
Succeeded by	Dong Biwu and Song Qingling (acting) Li Xiannian
1st Chairman of the NPCSC
In office September 15, 1954 – April 28, 1959
Succeeded by	Zhu De
Born	24 November 1898(1898-11-24) Ningxiang, Changsha, Hunan, Qing Dynasty
Died	12 November 1969 (aged 70) Kaifeng, Henan, People's Republic of China
Nationality	Han Chinese
Political party	Communist Party of China
Spouse(s)	Wang Guangmei
Children	Liu Yuan Liu Ting

Liu Shaoqi
Traditional Chinese	劉少奇
Simplified Chinese	刘少奇
Transliterations Mandarin - Hanyu Pinyin Liú Shàoqí - Wade–Giles Liu Shao-ch'i

An anti-Liu Shaoqi poster, possibly created by Mao's officials, in 1968. It reads, "The renegade, traitor and scab Liu Shaoqi must forever be expelled from the Party!". (Note that the characters that form Liu Shaoqi's name are crossed out.)

This is a Chinese name; the family name is Liu (劉).

Liu Shaoqi (simplified Chinese: 刘少奇; traditional Chinese: 劉少奇; pinyin: Liú Shàoqí; Wade-Giles: Liu Shao-ch'i) (24 November 1898 – 12 November 1969) was a Chinese revolutionary, statesman, and theorist. He was Chairman of the People's Republic of China, China's head of state, from 27 April 1959 to 31 October 1968, during which he implemented policies of economic reconstruction in China. He fell out of favour in the later 1960s during the Cultural Revolution because of his perceived 'right-wing' viewpoints and, it is theorised, because Mao viewed Liu as a threat to his power. He disappeared from public life in 1968 and was labelled China's premier 'Capitalist-roader' and a traitor. He died under harsh treatment in late 1969, but he was posthumously rehabilitated by Deng Xiaoping's government in 1980 and given a state funeral.

Contents 1 Biography 2 See also 3 References 4 Sources 5 External links

Biography

Born into a moderately rich peasant family in Ningxiang, Hunan province,^[1] Liu attended Ningxiang Zhusheng Middle School (宁乡驻省中学), and Hunan First Normal School, where he may have met Mao Zedong (the two were one year apart at school). In 1920, Liu and Mao organized a Socialist Youth Corps, after which Liu was recruited to study at the Comintern's Sun Yat-sen University in Moscow. In 1921 he joined the newly formed CCP. He went back to China in 1922, and as secretary of the All-China Labor Syndicate, led several railway workers' strikes in the Yangzi Valley and at Anyuan on the Jiangxi-Hunan border. ^[2]

In 1925, Liu was a member of the Guangzhou-based All-China Federation of Labor Executive Committee. During the next two years, he led many political campaigns and strikes in Hubei and Shanghai. Liu worked with Li Lisan in Shanghai in 1925, capitalizing on the aftermath of the May 30 Incident. He then fled to Wuhan, was briefly arrested in Changsha and then returned to Guangzhou to help organize the 16-month long Canton-Hong Kong strike of 1925-26.^[3]

In 1927 he was elected to the Party's Central Committee, and appointed head of its Labor Department.^[4] In 1929, he worked at party headquarters in Shanghai, and was named Secretary of the Manchurian Party committee in Fengtian.^[5] In 1930 and 1931, he attended the Third and Fourth Plenums of the 6th Central Committee, and was elected to the Central Executive Committee (i.e., Politburo) of the Chinese Soviet Republic in 1931 or 1932. In that year, he went to the Jiangxi Soviet.^[6]

In 1932 Liu became the Party Secretary in Fujian Province. Two years later he accompanied the Long March at least as far as the crucial Zunyi Conference, but was then sent to the so-called "White Areas" to reorganize underground activities in North China, based out of Beiping and Tianjin. In 1936 he was Party Secretary in North China, leading the anti-Japanese movements in that area with the assistance of future leaders such as Peng Zhen, An Ziwen, Bo Yibo, Ke Qingshi, Liu Lantao and Yao Yilin. In 1939 he ran the Central Plains Bureau and in 1941 the Central China Bureau. Some Japanese sources allege his organization with sparking the Marco Polo Bridge Incident in July 1937, which gave Japan the excuse to formally launch World War II.^[7]

In 1937, Liu went to the Communist base at Yenan, and in 1941 he became political commissar of the New Fourth Army.^[8] He was elected as one of 5 CC Secretaries at the 7th National Party Congress, in 1945. Liu was thus the supreme leader of the communist forces in Manchuria and North China, ^[9] a stature frequently overlooked by historians.

From 1945 to his downfall in 1966, Liu ranked as the First Vice Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party.^[10]. In 1949, he was Vice Chairman of the Central People's Government, and later First Vice Chairman of the National People's Congress (1955-59).^[11] He succeeded Mao as Government Chairman (essentially President of the People's Republic of China) in 1958, and was publicly acknowledged as Mao's chosen successor in 1961.^[12]

Liu worked mainly in party organizational and theoretical affairs.^[13] An orthodox Soviet-style Communist, he favored state planning and the development of heavy industry. He was the first to announce the Great Leap Forward, at the Second Session of the 8th CCP National Congress, in May 1958,^[14] and together with Deng Xiaoping and Peng Zhen stood at odds with moderates led by Chen Yun and Zhou Enlai. The first indication of concern came at the August 1959 Lushan Plenum.^[15]

Amid growing disenchantment with Mao's Great Leap Forward, Deng and Liu gained influence within the CCP. They embarked on economic reforms that bolstered their prestige among the party apparatus and the national populace. Deng and Liu advocated more liberal economic policies, as opposed to Mao's radical ideas.

Halfway through the 1960s, however, Mao rebuilt his position in the Party and in 1966 he launched the Cultural Revolution as a means of destroying his enemies in the Party. Liu and Deng Xiaoping, along with many others, were denounced as "capitalist roaders." Liu was labeled as a "traitor," and "the biggest capitalist roader in the Party." In July 1966 he was displaced as Party Deputy Chairman by Lin Biao. By 1967 Liu and his wife Wang Guangmei were under house arrest in Beijing.

Liu was removed from all his positions and expelled from the Party in October 1968 and disappeared from view.

During his life, Liu had diabetes. Opponents allege that Liu, in his old age developed pneumonia and was refused all medicine by Mao and his officials. They further claim that on the orders of Mao's wife, he was kept alive so that the Ninth Party Congress in 1969 would have a 'living target'. (No evidence of any such plot against Liu can be tangibly demonstrated however.) At the Congress, he was denounced as a traitor and an enemy agent. Mao's detractors allege that Liu was then allowed to die in agony.^[16] Mao continuously disfavored Liu and his political aspirations during Liu's brief years in office.

The exact conditions of his death remain uncertain and contested.^{[citation needed]} One version attributes his death to "medical neglect", (untreated diabetes and pneumonia). Several weeks after his death, Red Guards discovered him lying on the floor covered in diarrhea and vomit, with a foot of unkempt hair protruding from his scalp. It was here that the former chairman of China died on 12 November 1969. At midnight, under secrecy, his remains were brought in a jeep to a crematorium, his legs hanging out the back, and he was cremated under the name Liu Huihuang. The cause of death was recorded as illness, and his family was not informed for another three years after this date, and the people in China for ten years. The ashes of his body are said to be held at Babao shan.

After Deng Xiaoping came to power in 1978, Liu was politically rehabilitated (in February 1980), with a belated state funeral over a decade after his death.

Liu's best known writings include How to be a Good Communist (1939), On the Party (1945), and Internationalism and Nationalism (1952).

See also

• History of the People's Republic of China

References

1. ^ Snow, Edgar, Red Star Over China, Random House (New York), 1938. Citation is from the Grove Press 1973 edition, p.482-484
2. ^ ibid
3. ^ Dittmer, p. 14
4. ^ Chen, Jerome, Mao and the Chinese Revolution, (London), 1965, p. 148
5. ^ Dittmer, p. 15
6. ^ Snow, p. 482-484
7. ^ Dittmer, p. 17 citing Tetsuya Kataoka, Resistance and Revolution in China: The Communists and the Second United Front, 1974 pre-publication.
8. ^ ibid
9. ^ ibid
10. ^ ibid
11. ^ ibid
12. ^ Dittmer, Lowell, Liu Shao-ch’i and the Chinese Cultural Revolution: The Politics of Mass Criticism, University of California Press (Berkeley), 1974, p. 27
13. ^ Dittmer, Lowell, Liu Shao-ch’i and the Chinese Cultural Revolution: The Politics of Mass Criticism, University of California Press (Berkeley), 1974, p. 206
14. ^ Dittmer, Lowell, Liu Shao-ch’i and the Chinese Cultural Revolution: The Politics of Mass Criticism, University of California Press (Berkeley), 1974, p. 39-40
15. ^ ibid
16. ^ Glover, Jonathan (1999). Humanity : A Moral History of the Twentieth Century. London: J. Cape. pp. 289. ISBN 0-300-08700-4. 

Sources

• "Fifth Plenary Session of 11th C.C.P. Central Committee," Beijing Review, No. 10 (10 March 1980), pp. 3–10, which describes the official rehabilitation measures.

External links

• The Liu Shaoqi Reference Archive

Political offices
Preceded by None	Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress 1954 — 1959	Succeeded by Zhu De
Preceded by Mao Zedong	President of the People's Republic of China 1959 – 1968	Succeeded by Dong Biwu and Song Qingling acting
Party political offices
Preceded by Mao Zedong	President of the CPC Central Party School 1947 – 1953	Succeeded by Kai Feng
Preceded by None	Vice Chairman of the Communist Party of China Served alongside: Chen Yun, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, Lin Biao 1956 – 1968	Succeeded by Lin Biao

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