Zhang Chunqiao

Zhang Chunqiao (Chinese simplified: 张春桥; Chinese traditional: 張春橋; Pinyin: Zhāng Chūnqiáo; EFEO: Tchang Tch' ouen-kiao) is a radical Maoïste which occupied several stations at the top of the Gouvernement of the Popular republic of China before being stopped in October 1976 and condemned in 1981 for its membership to the Bande of the four, died of a Cancer the April 21st 2005 at the eighty eight years age.

Youth and rise

Wire of a journalist progressist of Shanghai, born in 1917 in a family of intellectuals of the province of Shandong, it attended good schools and forged a honourable education.

Zhang joined the Ligue of the Writers and Chinese Artistes of Left to adolescence, being opposed to the capacity Tchang Kaï-chek, and joined the Chinese Communist party (PCC) in 1938, after the conference of Yan' year, at the age of twenty and one years.

It followed a career of Apparatchik of the Journalisme of State, writing for the Agence China Nouvelle starting from 1950 and in the daily newspaper Libération ( Jiefang Ribao ), climbing in the hierarchy of the party as its reputation of journalist grew, until being appointed chief of the department of the Propagande of the town of Shanghai in 1963.

The Cultural revolution

It reached the post envied of secretary of the Party Shanghai in 1966, year-hinge. Within the central Group of the Cultural revolution, carried out by Jiang Qing, Chen Boda (the secretary of Mao) and Yao Wenyuan, and with the support of the Great helmsman, Zhang was one of the actor-keys of the Cultural revolution in the metropolis of Eastern China at the worst time of terror Maoist, between 1966 and 1969. In 1967 Zhang directed with Wang Hongwen the revolutionary Committee of Shanghai, with for goal to create a Commune of Shanghai on the model of the Commune of Paris of 1870. The movement, which had degenerated, was repressed in blood when it had become obvious that it was a obvious failure.

The combat against the moderate ones

Zhang joined the Central committee of the PCC in 1969, and was promoted at the Standing Committee in 1973. The same year, Deng Xiaoping, shown during the Cultural revolution to be “the instrument n° 2 of capitalism”, returned in the alleys of the capacity. But the different ones from the rival factions continued to divide the political power. On a side, one found the Prime Minister Zhou Enlai, Deng Xiaoping and a faction of moderate or pragmatic, other the radicals, the gauchists or Maoists carried out by Jiang Qing. With died of Zhou Enlai in January 1976, Mao chooses his protected Hua Guofeng, halfway between the two factions, to provide the functions of Prime Minister.

The lawsuit of the Band of the Four

One month after the death of Mao Zedong in September 1976, the members of the Bande of the four (Zhang, Jiang Qing, the woman of Mao, Wang Hongwen and Yao Wenyuan) was stopped by a unit of elite of the popular Armée with release (APL), marking the end of the Cultural revolution.

On this date, Zhang was Deputy Prime Minister, n° 3 in the hierarchy of the capacity - i.e. behind Deng Xiaoping, him also Deputy Prime Minister, and Hooted Guofeng, the Prime Minister in title. He was also director of the Department of General policy of the APL, member of the central committee of the Politburo and considered as one of the potential successors of Mao Zedong with the head of the PCC.

Shown to have tried to assassinate Hua Guofeng, the new one directing party, moderate like Deng, the “Four” were the high-speed motorboats of what was called the Chinese version of the Procès of Nuremberg, a televised lawsuit carried out by thirty-five judges. The lawsuit was regarded by all the observers external as a setting in scene of legality. Also shown to be directly responsible for the persecution of 729 511 people and of died of 34 800 of them during the Cultural revolution, they were used as scapegoats with the whole mode. The page was turned.

Zhang was condemned by the Supreme court of Beijing to the capital punishment, pains commuted to life imprisonment in January 1983 after two years of moratorium. Then its sentence was reduced to eighteen years of prison. Zhang had been released on word for medical reasons in January 1998.

External bonds

http://www.marxists.org/glossary/people/z/pics/zhang-chunqiao.jpg
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4533401.stm

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