- Zhang Wentian
Zhang Wentian (zh-stp|s=张闻天|t=張聞天|p=Zhāng Wéntiān) (1900–
July 1 ,1976 ), also known as Luo Fu, was theGeneral Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) from 1935 toMarch 20 ,1943 .Biography
A native of Pudong
Shanghai , Zhang joined the CPC in 1925 and was sent to study atMoscow Sun Yat-sen University inMoscow , which was set up underKuomintang 's founderSun Yat-sen 's policy of alliance between theSoviet Union and CPC to train Chinese revolutionaries and named after him. It was there Zhang came to knowWang Ming and play an active role in the following group28 Bolsheviks .Around 1930 Zhang and his fellows in 28 Bolsheviks such as Wang and
Bo Gu returned to China to take charge of the CPC with support from their mentors inMoscow , and they won the power struggle withLi Lisan who was in charge of the CPC at that time. Zhang was appointed as Minister of the Propaganda Department, Interim Member and then Standing Member of thepolitburo of the CPC. Owing to28 Bolsheviks being immature and extremists in revolution, the CPC suffered from great losses in cities under their direction, which resulted in Zhang and other prominent figures retreating to the CPC base inJiangxi in 1933. As they applied the same policy, defeat was inevitable and theLong March began.Perhaps witnessing too many heavy casualties made Zhang turn over to think about the right way of revolution in China, and as a result he and
Wang Jiaxiang andYang Shangkun , other prominent figures of 28 Bolsheviks, defected toMao Zedong 's camp inZunyi Conference during theLong March . It was at this conference thatBo Gu and military advisor fromComintern Otto Braun or Li De were discharged from their command in the military to Mao. As a compromise, Zhang was appointed as General Secretary of the CPC to replaceBo Gu although Mao received support from most senior party and military leaders.When Zhang reached
Yan'an , he was in charge of ideology and propaganda work for which in 1938 he wrote a book, "Youth Accomplishment" (zh-stp|s=论青年修养|t=論青年修養|p=lùn qīngnián xiūyǎng), which greatly influenced the youth. Although most of the time he acted like a puppet, and he pledged his allegiance to Mao during Mao's power struggle withWang Ming andZhang Guotao , this could not change his fate of removed from the standing committee and his position taken by Mao Zedong in the 7th National Congress of the CPC in 1945.After the end of Chinese anti-Japanese War, Zhang was sent to
Manchuria withLin Biao ,Gao Gang andChen Yun to set up a base for CPC resistance toKuomintang .After the establishment of the
People's Republic of China , he became the Chinese Ambassador toSoviet Union and Under Secretary of the Foreign Ministry. He was disgraced in theLushan Conference in 1959 because he criticized Mao Zedong'sGreat Leap Forward . Zhang and Defence MinisterPeng Dehuai , Chief of Staff Huang Kecheng and CPC General Secretary ofHunan Province Zhou Xiaozhou were labelled as an anti-CPC group and stripped of CPC membership. Zhang did not survive the persecution of theCultural Revolution and died in 1976 in exile. He wrote to Mao asked permission to go to Beijing for Medical treatment while he had heart disease and was hospitalized in a a hospital even did not have oxygen in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province. Mao refused his petition to go to Beijing. He was posthumously rehabilitated in 1978.Zhang was a versatile scholar, expert in
Marxism , western history and philosophy, and wrote and translated many articles in these fields.
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