Wang Zhen (politician)

Wang Zhen

Wang Zhen ( Chinese  王震 , Pinyin Wáng Zhèn , born April 11, 1908 in Liuyang , Hunan Province , Chinese Empire ; † March 12, 1993 in Guangzhou , Guangdong Province , People's Republic of China ) was a Chinese politician .

Life

Wang Zhen became a member of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1927 and was a participant in the Long March of the Red Army from 1934 to 1935, the approximately 12,000-kilometer march from Jiangxi to flee the National Army under the orders of Chiang Kai- shek . Afterwards he was political commissar of a brigade in the war against the Imperial Japanese Army , which in 1941 captured a fallow land in Nanniwan in the Shaanxi province and was able to supply itself with food thanks to the agriculture there. During the Chinese Civil War from 1945 to 1949 he was in command of troops against the National Army of Chiang Kai-shek. In this position he succeeded in establishing communist rule in the Xinjiang region in 1949 .

After the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1, 1949, he served in the People's Liberation Army and was promoted to general in 1955 . In 1956 he became a member of the CCP Central Committee and served as Minister of Agriculture for People's Communes and Cultivation in Prime Minister Zhou Enlai's government . He kept this office during the Cultural Revolution, which lasted from 1966 to 1976 .

Subsequently he was Vice Prime Minister from 1975 to 1980 and in this role helped Deng Xiaoping to strengthen his position of power from 1977 to 1978. This also led to his being a member of the CCP Political Bureau from 1978 to 1985 . He then became in 1982 Director of the Central Party School and called one of the first politicians the dismissal of the "liberal" current General Secretary of the Communist Party of China Hu Yaobang . However, during the power struggles of the various camps in 1987, he was initially released from his position as director of the Central Party School.

In 1988 he succeeded Ulanhu as Vice President of the People's Republic of China and remained an influential spokesman for the People's Liberation Army and the surviving Maoists and veterans of the Long March during his tenure, which lasted until 1993 . At the same time, he was a supporter of the Tian'anmen massacre initiated by Deng Xiaoping to end the months-long occupation of Tian'anmen Square in Beijing and even suggested that "all bourgeois- liberal counter-revolutionaries should be banished to remote regions such as Qinghai and Xinjiang On the other hand, he belonged to a small group of old party functionaries of the first generation of leaders who constantly, but without great success, put pressure on Deng to limit his reform and openness policies .

Zhen is one of the " Eight Immortals of the Chinese Communist Party ".

Web links

• rulers.org
• Obituary: Wang Zhen . In: The Independent of March 13, 1993