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Chairman Liu Shaqoi 刘少奇 | |
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| Born | 24 November 1898 Ningxiang, Hunan Province |
| Died | 12 November 1969 Kaifeng, Henan Province |
| Political party | Communist Party of China |
Liu Shaoqi was a vice-chairman of the Communist Party of China (CPC) born on November 24, 1898 and served as the second Chairman of the People’s Republic of China from 1959 until 1968. Liu Shaoqi was primarily known for his labor organizing in the cities and being the key architect of the trade unions, the state-planning, and the industrial sector.[1]
Background[edit | edit source]
Liu Shaoqi was born into a peasant family in Ningxiang County, Hunan Province and received a classical Chinese education and was only exposed to revolutionary and radical political ideas when he attended Hunan Provincial First Normal School alongside his classmates Mao Zedong, Ren Bishi and Li Lisan. In 1920, he joined the Socialist Youth League, and in 1921 after the founding of the Chinese Communist Party, he became a party member. He was one of the first few Chinese students sent to Moscow for training at the Communist University of the Toilers of the East. [1]
When he returned to China in 1922, Liu applied what he learned in labor organizing which helped him lead the Anyuan coal miners' strike alongside Li Lisan. As Liu gained experience in organizing urban workers, he continued to work within the labor movement in Shanghai, Wuhan, and Guangzhou. Liu worked in the underground in the cities during the White Terror while Mao Zedong was establishing the peasant-based Red Army in the rural soviets. Liu survived this due to his organizational discipline and political caution which landed him an election to the Politburo in 1931.[1]
After the Long March and the relocation of the party’s centre to Yan'an, Liu became a leading party organizer and theoretician with his compiled lectures of "How to Be a Good Communist" becoming one of the most studied works in the party’s canon. At the Seventh Party Congress in 1945, Liu was elevated to the second-ranking position in the party as Secretary of the Central Secretariat behind Mao. He was the one to deliver the report on the new party constitution which cemented Mao Zedong Thought as the ideology of the party. [1]
After the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, Liu Shaoqi served as vice chairman of the Central People's Government and was involved with the rebuilding of the urban economy, industry and trade unions. In 1954, Liu became chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress. After the Great Leap Forward, Mao stepped down as head of state, and Liu was voted as the Chairman of the People's Republic. Liu reversed the extreme policies during the Great Leap Forward and began a path of economic recovery with focus on material incentives, technical expertise, and centralized planning. Mao admitted fault for the policy errors which occurred during the Great Leap Forward in the Seven Thousand Cadres Conference. [1]
The Cultural Revolution launched by Mao in 1966, was a mobilization of students and unemployed youth known as the Red Guards to take up arms and target those who are taking the ‘’capitalist road’’ in one mass mobilization. Mao’s inner circle and the CPC has denounced the Cultural Revolution as a mistake, unfortunately this mistake led to Liu Shaoqi being denounced as a capitalist roader and by 1967 Liu Shaoqi ending with him being expelled from the party and stripped of roles for all time, not long after he was imprisoned and held indefinitely leading to his death of pneumonia on November 12, 1969. [1]