Zhang Wentian

Zhang Wentian in 1951

Zhang Wentian (2nd from right) with Lin Biao , Gao Gang , Chen Yun and Lü Zhengcao in Harbin

Zhang Wentian (far left) with Zhou Enlai , Chen Yi and Mao Zedong in Zhongnanhai in 1956

Zhang Wentian ( Chinese  張聞天  /  张闻天 , Pinyin Zhāng Wéntiān , W.-G. Chang Wen-t'ien ), also known from Luo Fu ( Chinese  洛甫 , Pinyin Luò fǔ , W.-G. Lo Fu ; * 30. August 1900 in Nanhui , Shanghai ; † July 1, 1976 in Beijing ) was a Chinese author, translator and politician. In the 1930s he was one of the 28 Bolsheviks trained in the Soviet Union who led the Communist Party until Mao Zedong came to power . After the proclamation of the People's Republic of China , he served as deputy foreign minister until the great leap forward .

Life

Zhang was born the son of wealthy farmers and attended several private and public schools in Wusong and Nanjing . As a young man he took part in the May 4th Movement and began to get involved in revolutionary youth organizations. In 1920 he went to Japan to study for a year, after his return he worked in a bookstore, where he met the Marxist Li Da, among others . Between 1922 and 1924 he worked for a Chinese newspaper in San Francisco and devoted himself to self-study in the library of Berkeley University . After returning to China, he worked as a teacher in Sichuan and published a magazine called Nanhong, which was banned after six issues. He wrote dramas , poems and essays, and devoted himself to translating foreign literature into the Chinese language . His most famous works include the novel "Reise" and the drama "Traum der Jugend", both written in 1924.

Zhang joined the Chinese Communist Party in May 1925 and was sent to Moscow in October 1925 under the code name Ismailov - from which his Chinese pseudonym Luo Fu is derived - to study at Sun Yat-sen University . He stayed in the Soviet Union for a long time, married a Russian woman and returned to Shanghai in January 1931.

After the family arrived in Shanghai, Zhang was initially unable to contact the party. As a result, Zhang missed the plenary session on January 7, 1931, at which Comintern envoy Pavel Mif removed the previous party leaders Qu Qiubai and Li Lisan from the Politburo and transferred control of the party to Zhang's Moscow fellow student Wang Ming . Zhang quickly rose in the party hierarchy, taking over the organization department, the propaganda department, and the function of editor-in-chief of the party newspaper. With his great knowledge, which he had acquired in the Soviet Union, he was at that time the most important theorist and writer of texts in the Chinese Communist Party. In the same year, Zhang became a permanent member of the Politburo, chaired by Bo Gu . Although Zhang had been trained in the Soviet Union, he often took critical positions on Comintern politics, sometimes personally in the Politburo or under a pseudonym in magazines. But he also participated in resolutions that required the Red Army to attack large cities from their base areas, which was completely unrealistic militarily and meant campaigns with high losses for the communist troops.

In 1933, under pressure from the Kuomintang , the Politburo was forced to move to the Jiangxi Soviet . Zhang and Bo fought the approaches of local communists such as Luo Ming , Deng Xiaoping or Mao Zedong . In 1934, Zhang was elected general secretary of the party in place of Bo Gu , began to disapprove of the authoritarian course of Bo Gu and Comintern representative Otto Braun , and no longer supported Bo Gu in his power struggles against Wang Ming, Deng Xiaoping and other experienced party cadres . He was therefore demoted within the party and received a post in the government of the Chinese Soviet Republic . In the capital of the Soviet Ruijin , Zhang first came into contact with Mao Zedong, who had also lost his influence in the party and represented outsider positions. After the Soviet had to be evacuated and the party leadership had embarked on the Long March , Zhang joined the group around Mao Zedong, which rebelled against the Comintern's policies around Bo Gu and Otto Braun. At the extended meeting of the Central Committee on January 7th and 8th in Zunyi , Bo Gu and Otto Braun were replaced, Zhang Wentian became party leader and Mao Zedong took control of the Red Army.

Zhang subsequently supported Mao's policies, for example in the power struggle with Zhang Guotao , at the Wayaobao conference regarding the decision to again form a united front with the Kuomintang in the war against Japan , or in the power struggle against Wang Ming. Because of his proximity to the Comintern, however, he lost influence in the correction campaigns of the 1940s. When the post of general secretary was abolished in 1945, it meant a demotion for Zhang, while Mao took control of the party as chairman of the central committee. During the Chinese Civil War , Zhang was active in Manchuria under Chen Yun , Gao Gang and Lin Biao , where he mainly took on organizational work in the Manchurian Administrative Committee.

After the establishment of the People's Republic of China , Zhang initially represented China before the United Nations and was appointed ambassador to the Soviet Union in 1951. In 1955 he became Deputy Foreign Minister under Chen Yi , and in 1956 he was elected as a non-permanent member of the Politburo at the Eighth Congress. At the height of the great leap forward , Zhang was part of Peng Dehuai's group who criticized the policy of the great leap. He lost all his posts at the Lushan Conference and from then on worked as a researcher in an economic research institute. Zhang suffered physical attacks during the Cultural Revolution . He died of a heart attack in 1979 and was rehabilitated after his death.

Works

• 张闻天 (Zhang Wentian): 张闻天 选集 (Selected works by Zhang Wentian) . 人民出版社 (Volksverlag), Beijing 1985.

Web links

Commons : Zhang Wentian  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Chiu-yee Cheung: Luo Fu . In: Leung, Pak-Wah (Ed.): Political leaders of modern China: a biographical dictionary . 1st edition. Greenwood Press, Westport, Conn. 2002, ISBN 0-313-30216-2 , pp. 117-119 .
2. ↑ ^{a b} James Z. Gao: Historical dictionary of modern China (1800-1949) . Scarecrow Press, Lanham 2009, ISBN 978-0-8108-4930-3 , pp. 436 .
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Christopher R. Lew and Edwin Pak-wah Leung: Historical dictionary of the Chinese Civil War . 2nd Edition. Scarecrow Press, Lanham 2013, ISBN 978-0-8108-7874-7 , pp. 266-268 .
4. ↑ Alexander V. Pantsov and Steven I. Levine: Mao: The Real Story . Simon & Schuster, New York 2007, ISBN 978-1-4516-5447-9 , pp. 255-257 .
5. ↑ Alexander V. Pantsov and Steven I. Levine: Deng Xiaoping, a revolutionary life . Oxford University Press, New York 2015, ISBN 978-0-19-062367-8 , pp. 92 .
6. ↑ Dieter Kuhn : The Republic of China from 1912 to 1937 - Draft for a political history of events . 3. Edition. Edition Forum, Heidelberg 2007, ISBN 3-927943-25-8 , p. 554 .
7. ↑ Dieter Kuhn : The Republic of China from 1912 to 1937 - Draft for a political history of events . 3. Edition. Edition Forum, Heidelberg 2007, ISBN 3-927943-25-8 , p. 563 .
8. ↑ Alexander V. Pantsov and Steven I. Levine: Mao: The Real Story . Simon & Schuster, New York 2007, ISBN 978-1-4516-5447-9 , pp. 267, 278-280 .
9. ↑ Alexander V. Pantsov and Steven I. Levine: Mao: The Real Story . Simon & Schuster, New York 2007, ISBN 978-1-4516-5447-9 , pp. 464-465 .
10. ↑ Lawrence R. Sullivan: Historical dictionary of the Chinese Communist Party . Scarecrow Press, Lanham 2012, ISBN 978-0-8108-7470-1 , pp. 309 .

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