Zhang Chunqiao
张春桥
1917–2005
- First Secretary of the Shanghai Municipal Committee
- Member of the Politburo Standing Committee
- Vice-Premier of the State Council
- Member of the Gang of Four
Biography
Early Career and Yan'an Period
Zhang Chunqiao was born in Shandong in 1917. He participated in left-wing literary movements in his youth and travelled to Yan'an in 1938, subsequently working in Party propaganda for many years. After 1949, he operated primarily in Shanghai's cultural and media fields, gradually building political capital and becoming a central figure in the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee.
Rise during the Cultural Revolution
After the Cultural Revolution began, Zhang Chunqiao rose rapidly as a member of the Central Cultural Revolution Group and became one of the principal theoretical exponents of the radical line. He led the seizure of power in Shanghai during the January Storm of 1967, establishing a new governing structure modelled on the "Shanghai Commune" (subsequently reorganised as the Shanghai Municipal Revolutionary Committee). From 1973 he served as a member of the Politburo Standing Committee and concurrently as Vice-Premier of the State Council, forming the core of the Gang of Four alongside Jiang Qing.
Trial and Later Years
He was arrested alongside the other three members on 6 October 1976. Tried in 1980–1981, he was sentenced to death, later commuted to life imprisonment. Zhang Chunqiao refused to plead guilty throughout the proceedings and maintained silence. He was subsequently released on medical parole and died in 2005 at the age of eighty-seven.