Liu Shaoqi,
the son of a landowner, was born in Yinshan, China,
in 1898. While at school he met Mao
Zedong.
After studying Russian in Shanghai he went to live in the Soviet Union.
On his return
he joined the Chinese Communist Party. Sun
Yat-sen, leader of the Kuomintang,
died on 12th March 1925. Chiang
Kai-Shek emerged
as the new leader of the Kuomintang. He now carried out a purge that
eliminated the communists from the organization. Those communists
who survived managed to established the Jiangxi Soviet.
The nationalists now imposed
a blockade and Mao
Zedong decided
to evacuate the area and establish a new stronghold in the north-west
of China. In October 1934 Liu Shaoqi,
Mao
Zedong,
Lin
Biao, Zhu
De, and some
100,000 men and their dependents headed west through mountainous areas.
The marchers experienced
terrible hardships. The most notable passages included the crossing
of the suspension bridge over a deep gorge at Luting (May, 1935),
travelling over the Tahsueh Shan mountains (August, 1935) and the
swampland of Sikang (September, 1935).
The marchers covered about
fifty miles a day and reached Shensi on 20th October 1935. It is estimated
that only around 30,000 survived the 8,000-mile Long
March.
When the Japanese
Army invaded the heartland of China in 1937, Chiang
Kai-Shek was
forced to move his capital from Nanking to Chungking. He lost control
of the coastal regions and most of the major cities to Japan. In an
effort to beat the Japanese he agreed to collaborate with Mao
Zedong and
his communist army.
During this period Liu
Shaoqi became an expert in the theory of party organization and in
1939 published How to be a Good Communist.
In 1943 he became Secretary General of the Chinese Communist Party.
During the Second
World War the communist guerrilla forces were well led by
Zhu De and Lin Biao.
As soon as the Japanese surrendered, Communist forces began
a war against the Nationalists led by Chaing
Kai-Shek. The
communists gradually gained control of the country and on 1st October,
1949, Mao announced the establishment of People's Republic of China.
Soon afterwards Liu Shaoqi was appointed Vice-Chairman under Mao.
As a result of
the failure on the Great
Leap Forward,
Mao
Zedong retired
from the post of chairman of the People's Republic of China. Liu
Shaoqi replaced Mao as head of state. Mao remained
important in determining overall policy. In the early 1960s Mao became
highly critical of the foreign policy of the Soviet Union. He was
for example appalled by the way Nikita
Khrushchev backed
down over the Cuban
Missile Crisis.
Mao
Zedong
became openly involved in politics in 1966 when with Lin
Biao he
initiated the Cultural Revolution.
On 3rd September, 1966, Lin Biao made a speech where he urged pupils
in schools and colleges to criticize those party officials who had
been influenced by the ideas of Nikita
Khrushchev.
Mao was concerned
by those party leaders such as Liu Shaoqi, who
favoured the introduction of piecework, greater wage differentials
and measures that sought to undermine collective farms and factories.
In an attempt to dislodge those in power who favoured the Soviet
model of communism, Mao galvanized students and young workers as his
Red Guards to attack revisionists
in the party. Mao told them the revolution was in danger and that
they must do all they could to stop the emergence of a privileged
class in China. He argued this is what had happened in the Soviet
Union under Joseph Stalin and Nikita
Khrushchev.
Zhou
Enlai
at first gave his support to the campaign but became concerned when
fighting broke out between the Red Guards
and the revisionists. In order to achieve peace at the end of 1966
he called for an end to these attacks on party officials. Mao remained
in control of the Cultural Revolution and with the support of the
army was able to oust the revisionists.
The Cultural
Revolution came to an end when Liu Shaoqi resigned from all his
posts on 13th October 1968. Lin Biao
now became Mao's
designated successor.
Liu Shaoqi
was banished to Henan Province where he died in 1969.
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