Liu Shaoqi

(1898–1969)

   A senior figure in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership under Mao Zedong, Liu Shaoqi was president of the People’s Republic of China from 1959 to 1968, and for a period was second only to Mao in the party hierarchy. Born in Hunan province, Liu joined the Socialist Youth League in Shanghai, went to Moscow to study in 1920, and returned the following year when he joined the CCP and became involved in union organizing. In 1928 he was made chair of the CCP Labor Department and in 1931 he became chair of the All-China Labor Federation in Shanghai.

   When the Japanese invaded in 1936 Liu became a leading organizer of the Chinese communist underground movement behind Japanese lines. He also helped to organize the Red Army and took part in the Long March. By 1945 he was second in command to Mao and was named as heir apparent in 1959. During the Cultural Revolution, he clashed with Mao and was denounced as a “capitalist roader.” Expelled from the party and dismissed from his state posts in 1968, he died in prison in 1969.

   Liu’s contributions to Chinese communism were largely in the realm of organization and organizational theory. He wrote How to Be a Good Communist and On Inner Party Struggle in which he combined Marxism–Leninism with Chinese (Confucian) themes. Largely an orthodox Marxist–Leninist he did adopt a less dogmatic approach in economics, which provided evidence for Mao’s accusations of “revisionist” deviations. In 1980 he was rehabilitated by the party, which now portrayed him as ideologically orthodox and economically pragmatic.