The Gang of Four was a Maoist political faction composed of four Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials. They came to prominence during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) and were later charged with a series of treasonous crimes due to their responsibility for the excesses and failures in the Cultural Revolution. The gang's leading figure was Jiang Qing. The other members were Zhang Chunqiao,Yao Wenyuan,and Wang Hongwen.
Zhou Enlai was a Chinese statesman,diplomat,and revolutionary who served as the first Premier of the People's Republic of China from September 1954 until his death in January 1976. Zhou served under Chairman Mao Zedong and aided the Communist Party in rising to power,later helping consolidate its control,form its foreign policy,and develop the Chinese economy.
Hua Guofeng was a Chinese politician who served as Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party and Premier of China. The designated successor of Mao Zedong,Hua held the top offices of the government,party,and the military after the deaths of Mao and Premier Zhou Enlai,but was gradually forced out of supreme power by a coalition of party leaders between December 1978 and June 1981,and subsequently retreated from the political limelight,though still remaining a member of the Central Committee until 2002.
The 1976 Tiananmen incident or the April 5 Tiananmen incident was a mass gathering and protest that took place on April 4–5,1976,at Tiananmen Square in Beijing,China. The incident occurred on the traditional day of mourning,the Qingming Festival,after the Nanjing incident,and was triggered by the death of Premier Zhou Enlai earlier that year. Some people strongly disapproved of the removal of the displays of mourning,and began gathering in the Square to protest against the central authorities,then largely under the auspices of the Gang of Four,who ordered the Square to be cleared.
The Politburo Standing Committee (PSC),officially the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China,is a committee consisting of the top leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Historically it has been composed of five to eleven members,and currently has seven members. Its officially mandated purpose is to conduct policy discussions and make decisions on major issues when the Politburo,a larger decision-making body,is not in session. According to the party's constitution,the General Secretary of the Central Committee must also be a member of the Politburo Standing Committee.
Peng Dehuai was a Chinese general and China's Minister of National Defense from 1954 to 1959. Peng was born into a poor peasant family,and received several years of primary education before his family's poverty forced him to suspend his education at the age of ten,and to work for several years as a manual laborer. When he was sixteen,Peng became a professional soldier. Over the next ten years Peng served in the armies of several Hunan-based warlord armies,raising himself from the rank of private second class to major. In 1926,Peng's forces joined the Kuomintang,and Peng was first introduced to communism. Peng participated in the Northern Expedition,and supported Wang Jingwei's attempt to form a left-leaning Kuomintang government based in Wuhan. After Wang was defeated,Peng briefly rejoined Chiang Kai-shek's forces before joining the Chinese Communist Party (CCP),allying himself with Mao Zedong and Zhu De.
Yang Shangkun was a Chinese Communist military and political leader,president of the People's Republic of China from 1988 to 1993,and one of the Eight Elders that dominated the party after the death of Mao Zedong.
Chen Yun was a Chinese revolutionary leader who was one of the most influential leaders of the People's Republic of China during the 1980s and 1990s and one of the major architects and important policy makers for the reform and opening up period,alongside Deng Xiaoping. He was also known as Liao Chenyun (廖陈云),as he took his uncle's family name when he was adopted by him after his parents died.
Generations of Chinese leadership is a term historians use to characterize distinct periods of the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and,by extension,successive changes in the ideology of the CCP. Historians have studied various periods in the development of the government of the People's Republic of China (PRC) by reference to these "generations".
Kang Sheng,born Zhang Zongke,was a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) official,best known for having overseen the work of the CCP's internal security and intelligence apparatus during the early 1940s and again at the height of the Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s and early 1970s. A member of the CCP from the early 1920s,he spent time in Moscow during the early 1930s,where he learned the methods of the Soviet NKVD and became a supporter of Wang Ming for leadership of the CCP. After returning to China in the late 1930s,Kang Sheng switched his allegiance to Mao Zedong and became a close associate of Mao during the Second Sino-Japanese War,the Chinese Civil War,and after. He remained at or near the pinnacle of power in the People's Republic of China from its establishment in 1949 until his death in 1975. After the death of Mao and the subsequent arrest of the Gang of Four,Kang Sheng was accused of sharing responsibility with the Gang for the excesses of the Cultural Revolution and in 1980 he was expelled posthumously from the CCP.
The Zunyi Conference was a meeting of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in January 1935 during the Long March. This meeting involved a power struggle between the leadership of Bo Gu and Otto Braun and the opposition led by Mao Zedong. The result was that Mao left the meeting in position to take over military command and become the leader of the Communist Party. The conference was completely unacknowledged until the 1950s and still no detailed descriptions were available until the fiftieth anniversary in 1985.
Zhang Wentian was a Chinese politician who was a high-ranking leader of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Wang Jiaxiang was one of the senior leaders of the Chinese Communist Party in its early stage and a member of the 28 Bolsheviks. Wang held a variety of high-level posts in the Party:during the Civil War he was the director of the Red Army's General Office,upon the founding of the People's Republic of China he was the first ambassador to the Soviet Union,and then became the first head of the Party's International Department.
Tao Zhu was a member of the Politburo Standing Committee of the Chinese Communist Party.
The 8th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party was in session from 1956 to 1969. It was preceded by the 7th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. It held 12 plenary sessions in this period of 13 years. It was the longest serving central committee ever held by the Communist Party.
The 7th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party was in session from 1945 to 1956. It was a product of the convening of the 7th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party. It held six plenary sessions in this 11-year period. It began in June 1945,before the end of the Second Sino-Japanese War,and the resumption of the Chinese Civil War. This committee would be succeeded by the 8th Central Committee.
Lu Dingyi was a leader of the Chinese Communist Party. After the establishment of the People's Republic of China and before the Cultural Revolution,he was credited as one of the top officials in socialist culture.
Liu Shaoqi was a Chinese revolutionary and politician. He was the chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress from 1954 to 1959,first-ranking vice chairman of the Chinese Communist Party from 1956 to 1966,and the chairman of the People's Republic of China,the head of state from 1959 to 1968. He was considered to be a possible successor to Mao Zedong,but was purged during the Cultural Revolution.
The proclamation of the People's Republic of China was made by Mao Zedong,the Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP),on October 1,1949,in Tiananmen Square in Beijing. The government of a new state under the CCP,formally called the Central People's Government,was proclaimed by Mao at the ceremony,which marked the foundation of the People's Republic of China.
The Seven-Thousand Cadres Conference was one of the largest work conferences ever of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). It took place in Beijing,China,from 11 January to 7 February 1962. The conference was attended by over 7,000 party officials nationwide,focusing on the issues of the Great Leap Forward which resulted in the deaths of tens of millions in the Great Chinese Famine. CCP chairman Mao Zedong made self-criticism during the conference,after which he took a semi-retired role,leaving future responsibilities to Chinese President Liu Shaoqi and Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping.
