Zhang Wentian

Zhang Wentian (30 August 1900 – 1 July 1976) was a Chinese politician who was a high-ranking leader of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Born in Nanhui, he attended the Hohai Civil Engineering School in Nanjing and spent a year at the University of California.

On 30 August 1900, Zhang Wentian was born in Deng San Village, Nanhui, Jiangsu Province.

Zhang's ancestors migrated to Pudong from Qinghe County to avoid the war.

His grandfather Zhang Xiangfu and father Zhang Qimei were farmers, and his mother Jin Tianhua had attended a private school.

Zhang Wentian was the eldest son of the family.

In 1915, he was admitted to the Jiangsu Provincial Fisheries School (Wusong Fisheries School).

After studying for two years, he decided to transfer because he could not physically get used to the studying environment there.

In 1917, he entered the Hohai Civil Engineering School.

At this point, Zhang Wentian became exposed to the Chen Duxiu‘s journal New Youth, and started to lean toward the idea of Bolshevik revolution.

After the outbreak of the May Fourth Movement in 1919, Zhang Wentian participated in student movements and began to engage himself in literary creation and translation.

In July 1920, Zhang Wentian and his classmate Shen Zemin went to study in Japan.

They studied Japanese, philosophy and other texts in social sciences.

In January 1921, Zhang Wentian returned to China, and became an editor for Zhonghua Book Company, working with colleagues Zuo Shunsheng, Tian Han, Li Da, He Shuheng.

On January 5, 1922, Zhang Wentian published "China's Source of Chaos and Its Solution(中国底乱源及其解决)".

The article stated: "We are so uneasy about this unreasonable society, but what methods should we use to transform it? What should it be transformed into? Nonresistance? Resistance? Anarchism? Socialism? Like the water flowing in the river, it constantly troubles me. However, life cannot continue without a decision. Then, naturally we cannot but go down the socialist road."

In August, Zhang Wentian went to study in University of California, Berkeley at his own expense.

He took several courses, but was not formally enrolled.

Zhang Wentian returned home in January 1924, continuing his work as an editor for to Zhonghua Book Company.

In October 1924, Zhang Wentian received an invitation from the Juvenile Chinese Society Chengdu branch and took up the job as an English teacher at the Second Chongqing Women's Normal School with colleagues Xiao Chunü and Yang Angong.

He later joined the CCP in 1925 and was sent to study at Sun Yat-sen University in Moscow, from 1926 to 1930.

He was a member of the group known as the 28 Bolsheviks, but switched to supporting Mao Zedong during the Long March.

In May 1925, Zhang Wentian left Sichuan and returned to Shanghai with Xiao Chunü to propagate revolutionary ideas.

In June, Zhang Wentian was introduced by Shen Zemin and Dong Yixiang to join the Chinese Communist Party.

He went to Moscow to study at Sun Yat-sen University in October.

While Zhang was studying and teaching in Moscow between 1925 and 1930, Nikolai Bukharin was still in power.

Zhang learned about Bukarin's theory of allowing private rural economy through supply and marketing cooperatives, and this would later deeply influence Zhang's own policy perspectives.

Zhang was much respected in the CCP circle for his thorough knowledge of Bukharin, in addition to Marxism and Leninism.

In early 1928, some members of the Chinese Communist Party branch at Sun Yat-sen University were dissatisfied with the work of the school branch office.

The school branch office ignored the leadership of the party and sought to restructure the Communist Party branch.

The power struggle between the two factions in Moscow reached its peak in the summer of 1928, and a ten-day meeting was held to discuss the workings of the school office.

The secretary of the Soviet Communist Party Committee supported the school branch office.

Despite the opposition from majority of students, under the support of minority factions including Bo Gu and others, the vote was passed to support the school branch office.

After the meeting, the proud supporters of the school branch office were given the nickname" 28 Bolsheviks" by the oppositional faction, and Zhang Wentian was one of them.

He was General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party from 1935 to 1943, when the post was abolished.

He was a participant of the Long March, and later served as an ambassador to the Soviet Union from April 1951 to January 1955.

He was First Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China from December 1954 to November 1960.

At the Lushan Conference in 1959 he supported Peng Dehuai and lost power along with Peng.

During the Cultural Revolution he was attacked as an ally of Peng and Liu Shaoqi; he was rehabilitated by Deng Xiaoping after Mao's death.

He remained a member of the Politburo, but ranked 12th of 13 in the 7th Politburo and reduced to Alternate Member in the 8th Politburo.