Originally Published: In "New Leaders in the State", in
China Reconstructs, December 1980 (Vol. XXIX, No. 12), pages 4-6.
At that time Yang Shangkun was one of five new Vice-Chairmen of the National
People's Congress of the People's Republic of China, elected at the NPC's
session in September 1980, profiled in the mentioned article.
Transcription/HTML/Markup for marxists.org: January
2024.
Born in Sichuan province in 1907, Yang Shangkun joined the Communist Youth League in 1925 and the Communist Party of China in 1926, and took part in the student movement in Sichuan and Shanghai in that period. From 1927 to 1930, he studied at Sun Yat-sen University in Moscow. After his return to China in 1931 he served as Secretary of the Party fraction in the All-China Federation of Trade Unions and Head of the Propaganda Department of the C.P.C. Central Committee and helped organize and lead the workers' movement and the movement against Japanese aggression and for national salvation in Shanghai. He took part in the 1934-35 Long March and as an observer attended the Zunyi (Tsunyi) Meeting which marked the turn to victory in the Long March and was a key point in Chinese history.
He became Secretary of the North China Bureau of the Party Central Committee in-1937, organizing and leading the work in the anti-Japanese base areas behind enemy lines in north China. In 1945 he became Secretary-General of the Military Commission of the C.P.C. Central Committee. After liberation he served as Deputy Secretary-General of the Party Central Committee. From 1978 onward, in Guangdong province he was Vice-Governor and Second Secretary of its Party Committee and Vice-Chairman of its Revolutionary Committee, and Party Secretary and Chairman of the Revolutionary Committee in the city of Guangzhou.
Yang Shangkun was a member of the Eighth Party Central Committee, and is now a member of the 1lth Party Central Committee.