Cai Chang

Cai Chang

Cai Chang ( Chinese  蔡畅 ; born May 14, 1900 in Shuangfeng , Hunan ; † September 11, 1990 in Beijing ) was a Chinese politician of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). She was respectfully called "Sister Cai" and was a well-known early CCP leader and social activist. She rose within the women's movement and was one of the most important female leaders in the People's Republic of China . Cai Chang served as the chairwoman of the All-China Women's Association from 1949 to 1967 and a member of the CCP Central Committee from 1956 to 1982 . She also served as Vice-Chair of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress between 1975 and 1983, and as such was one of the Vice Presidents of the People's Republic of China.

Life

Song Qingling , Deng Yingchao and Cai Chang (from right) - Beijing, 1960

Cai Chang, who came from a lower-middle-class family, attended Changsha Zhounan Girls' School from 1916-1919. Like many young women, she was attracted to the ideas of communism and had a progressive worldview. As part of a study and work program initiated by Mao Zedong and her older brother Cai Hesen , she went to France to study with her brother and his future wife Xiang Jingyu in 1919 . During her studies there, she married Li Fuchun , who was later Vice Prime Minister and Chairman of the State Planning Commission from 1954 to 1975 and also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China from 1956 to 1959 . She believed that the Communist Party was the best instrument for making progress, especially for women who had long been oppressed in the Chinese Empire .

In 1923, Cai Chang became a member of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and in 1925, she became the deputy secretary of the Guangdong and Guangxi Women's Committee . In October 1934 she was a participant in the Long March, and after arriving in Northern Shaanxi in 1935, she became a member of the Shaanxi- Gansu Party Committee and director of the United Front Section and the Organization Department of the CCP Central Committee . In September 1937 she founded the Shaanxi, Gansu and Ningxia Women's Association , the so-called Shaan-Gan-Ning border region. In 1948 she became a member of the Executive Committee, the Standing Committee and head of the Department for Women of the All-China Trade Union Confederation at the 6th National Workers' Conference . On September 21, 1949, she became a member of the Political Consultative Conference of the Chinese People .

After the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1, 1949, Cai Chang became chairman of the All-Chinese Women's Association and held this position until the start of the Cultural Revolution in 1967. In this role, she was instrumental in setting up development programs for the traditional roles of women change. Together with Kang Keqing , the wife of Marshal Zhu De , she campaigned for equality based on the viewpoints written by Mao Zedong. In 1954 she also became a member of the National People's Congress and belonged to it from the first to the end of the fifth legislative period in 1983. During this time she was also a member of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress between 1954 and 1975. At the Eighth Party Congress in 1956, she became a member of the Central Committee of the CCP for the first time . After her re-election at the IX. Party Congress (1969), the Xth Party Congress (1973) and the XI. Party Congress (1977) until 1982.

In addition, Cai served in the fourth and fifth legislative periods between 1975 and 1983 as vice-chair of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress and, as such, was one of the vice-presidents of the People's Republic of China. After the vacancy caused by the death of the chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress Zhu De on July 6, 1976 and lasted until March 5, 1978, she belonged to the other vice chairmen Wu De , Song Qingling , Liu Bocheng , Wei Guoqing , Səypidin Əzizi , Chen Yun , Nie Rongzhen , Zhang Dingcheng , Ngapoi Ngawang Jigmê , Zhou Jianren , Xu Deheng , Hu Juewen , Li Suwen , Yao Lianwei and Deng Yingchao among the people who collectively held the office of President of the People's Republic of China.

Web links

• Entry in China Vitae
• Aiwu Song: Biographical Dictionary of the People's Republic of China , p. 22 f., McFarland, 2013, ISBN 0-7864-3582-8 ( online version )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ China: Vice-chairmen of the Standing Committee during the vacancy in Rulers

Note: This article places the family name before the person's first name. This is the usual order in Chinese. Cai is the family name here, Chang is the first name.