Liu Shaoqi (born November 24, 1898, Ningxiang,Hunan province, China—died November 12, 1969,Kaifeng,Henan province) was the chairman of thePeople’s Republic of China (1959–68) and chief theoretician for theChinese Communist Party (CCP), who was considered theheir apparent toMao Zedong until he was purged in the late 1960s. Liu was active in the Chinese labour movement from itsinception, and he was influential in formulating party and, later, governmental strategy. He played an important role in Chinese foreign affairs after the communists had gained control of thecountry.

Early life and career

Liu was the youngest son of a rich peasant landowner. He attended middle school, went to an army school inChangsha, and in 1919 studied French in North China. One year later, Liu joined the Socialist Youth League and subsequently journeyed toMoscow, where he enrolled in the University for Toilers of the East and became a member of the newly formed CCP. Liu’s education and his extensive experience abroad later made him one of the mostcosmopolitan of the Chinese leaders.

In 1922 Liu returned to China, where he helped organize the First National Labour Congress in May. Soon after this he was assigned to the Secretariat of the Hunan provincial party organization as an aide toMao Zedong. Late that year Liu went to the Anyuan colliery to organize miners for what was to become a successful strike. From this time onward he became increasingly more involved in the labour movement—as leader of a sympathy strike in February 1923, as vice-chairman of the All-China Federation of Labour in May 1925, and as secretary general of the Third National LabourCongress in 1926.

The year 1926 marked the high point of the Chinese labour movement. When theNationalist Party (Kuomintang) and the CCP split in April 1927, Liu and his comrades found the urban component of the Chinese communist movement decimated by Nationalist forces, and so they fled underground. In late May, Liu was elected to the Fifth Central Committee of the CCP.

After the turbulence of 1927, Liu’s ascendancy in the party was rapid; he was named director of the workers’ department in mid-1928, and in the following year he assumed the post of secretary of the Manchurian Provincial Party Committee, a post he laterrelinquished (early 1931) in order to go toShanghai. By 1931 thecentre of gravity of the Chinese communist movement had shifted away from the cities to rural areas, but Liu remained in Shanghai, underground, taking part in movements in opposition to the Japanese invasion of Manchuria (Northeast China) and encroachment in North China.

In late 1932 Liu joined Mao Zedong’s forces inJiangxi province and was named head of the All-China Federation of Labour; by 1934 he had gained a seat on thePolitical Bureau (Politburo) of the SixthCentral Committee. Shortly after his elevation to the Political Bureau, he left Mao’s forces, who had finished theirLong March, and went toTianjin to agitate further against the Japanese. In early 1936 Liu wasdesignated secretary of the party’s North China Bureau. When the war with Japan had spread to most of China, he was put in charge of the Central Plain Bureau of the CCP, and in this position he worked closely with the communist New Fourth Army operating in Central China.

In mid-1939 inYan’an (the communist headquarters), Liu delivered a famous series of lectures called “How To Be a Good Communist.” In these talks he drew upon all his organizational experience as a labour leader and underground figure to define the demands to be made upon all party members; at this point Liu began to assume the role of chief theoretician for the party. He delivered another important talk in July 1941, entitled “On Intraparty Struggle,” which furtherenhanced his position as the party’s theoretical spokesman.

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In 1943 Liu was named secretary of the Central Secretariat and vice-chairman of the People’s Revolutionary Military Council, making him one of the most powerful men in the Chinese communisthierarchy. By June 1945 he was clearly spokesman for party affairs, and at the Seventh Party Congress he delivered the major address, entitled “On the Party.” During the closing days ofWorld War II, Mao Zedong and Nationalist leaderChiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi) were engaged in talks at Chongqing, and Liu served as acting chairman in Mao’s absence. By Oct. 1, 1949, the communists controlled much of China, the People’s Republic of China had been established, and Liu had been named vice-chairman of the new government.

Experience with Soviet leadership

Once the Chinese communists had achieved power, Liu’scosmopolitan outlook and experience with the Soviet leadership enabled him to act as initial spokesman forBeijing’s new hard-lineforeign policy, and it also gave him a central role in the formation of China’s industrialization plans; both endeavours were dependent on Moscow in 1949. For these reasons Liu headed the Sino-Soviet Friendship Association in 1949–54 and led the Chinese delegation to the Soviet 19th Party Congress in October 1952.

In August 1954, at the First National People’s Congress, Liu was elected chairman of the Standing Committee. His influence was not confined to state organs, however, but extended also into the party, where in late 1953 and early 1954 he led a purge of regional power holders. Subsequently his position in the party grew, and by 1956 he was clearly Mao Zedong’sheir apparent.

During the second session of the Eighth Party Congress in May 1958, Liu outlined the strategy for the second five-year economic plan (called theGreat Leap Forward), which was to lay the foundation for the rapid industrialization of China. Shortly after the initiation of the Great Leap Forward, however, it became apparent that industrialization could not be achieved as rapidly as hoped, and a policy of retrenchment was called for. Partly as a result of the failures of the Great Leap, Mao relinquished his position as chairman of the People’s Republic, though he remained party chairman, and Liu assumed the chairmanship in April 1959. During this period, Liu tried to revitalize agriculture by initiating policies that permitted peasants tocultivate private plots and spurred them on withmonetary incentives; both were policies to which Mao later strongly objected.

In his new post as head of state, Liu began to play a more prominent role in foreign affairs, receiving state visitors from Indonesia, theSoviet Union, Pakistan, Ghana, Cuba, North Vietnam, Cambodia, andNorth Korea. In addition, he traveled abroad rather extensively during 1959–66. Upon reaching thispinnacle, however, Liu became one of the most important figures to be purged in the Great ProletarianCultural Revolution (1966–76). Many persons associated with him, such as Peng Zhen, mayor of Beijing, andDeng Xiaoping, a member of the Political Bureau, were also purged, decimating what had been viewed as a highlycohesive Chinese leadership. In October 1968 Liu was stripped of party positions and labeled China’s Khrushchev, and, by April 1969, a new constitutionally designated successor to Mao had been chosen—Lin Biao, head of the armed forces. In the autumn of 1971 Lin Biao disappeared, and it was announced that he—“a conspirator and arch-traitor”—had died in an airplane crash while fleeing from an attempt to assassinate Mao.

During 1974 rumours of Liu’s death gained wide circulation, and on October 31 a communist newspaper inHong Kong confirmed the fact. No details of date or place of death were revealed, however, until May 1980, when theBeijing Review reported that Liu had died on Nov. 12, 1969, in Kaifeng, northern Henan province.