Bo Yibo

Early Years, Military Agitation and Prison (1908–1936)

Bo Yibo, born Bo Shucun, was born in 1908 in Dingxiang, Shanxi. He joined the Chinese Communist Party in April 1925 and served as Party branch secretary at the Shanxi National Normal School, secretary of the northern Taiyuan district committee and a member of the provisional Shanxi provincial committee, helping to lead student and labour movements in Taiyuan; after the defeat of the Great Revolution he went underground in rural northern Shanxi. Moving to Tianjin at the end of 1928, he became head of the military committee of the Tianjin Party committee and secretary-general of the Northern Bureau's military committee, directing agitation among soldiers and organising mutinies in Tianjin, Tangshan and along the Zhengding–Taiyuan and Beiping–Hankou railways.

Arrested in Beiping in 1931, Bo was held in the Beiping Military Reflection Institute, where he served as secretary of the prison Party branch. He was released in August 1936 through the Party's efforts. According to an article by Wei Jingmin in Bainianchao (no. 1, 2003), the prisoners left jail in 1936, with the approval of the CCP Central Committee, after signing "anti-Communist notices" printed by the prison authorities; Zhou Enlai later wrote that the decision "was indeed made by Comrade Shaoqi on behalf of the Centre, and was reviewed by both the Seventh and Eighth Congresses".

The Shanxi New Army and North China (1936–1949)

After his release Bo was sent to Taiyuan as secretary of the CCP Shanxi working committee, reached an agreement with the Shanxi warlord Yan Xishan to carry out work for resistance against Japan, helped lead the Shanxi Sacrifice League for National Salvation and ran training courses for military and civil cadres. In August 1937 he formed the Shanxi New Army's "Shanxi Youth Dare-to-Die Corps", serving as political commissar of its First Column, which moved to south-eastern Shanxi to fight alongside the Eighth Route Army and helped establish the Taiyue base area. After Yan Xishan's "December Incident" of 1939 his forces were incorporated into the Eighth Route Army's 129th Division, with Bo as commander and political commissar of the Dare-to-Die First Column; from 1941 he was vice-chairman of the Shanxi–Hebei–Shandong–Henan Border Region administrative committee and political commissar of the Taiyue Military District, and from October 1942 secretary of the Taiyue regional Party committee. He was elected to the Seventh Central Committee in June 1945.

After Japan's surrender he became deputy secretary of the Shanxi–Hebei–Shandong–Henan Central Bureau and deputy political commissar of its military region; after Liu Bocheng and Deng Xiaoping led the main force into the Dabie Mountains in July 1947, he ran the bureau. From May 1948 he was second and then first secretary of the CCP North China Bureau, political commissar of the North China Military Region and vice-chairman of the North China People's Government, and took part in organising the Beiping–Tianjin Campaign.

Finance Minister and the State Economic Commission (1949–1966)

After the founding of the People's Republic Bo became a member of the Central People's Government, deputy director of the Government Administration Council's Financial and Economic Committee and Minister of Finance. At the national conference on financial and economic work held by the Central Committee from June to August 1953, the new tax system he had drawn up came under criticism and he made a self-criticism; according to the historian Lin Yunhui, Gao Gang used the criticism of Bo to aim at Liu Shaoqi — "criticising Bo to shoot at Liu".

In September 1954 Bo became director of the State Construction Commission, and from May 1956 director of the State Economic Commission and Vice-Premier; in September 1956 he was elected an alternate member of the Eighth Politburo, and he was reappointed Vice-Premier in April 1959 and January 1965. On 19 August 1964 he, Li Fuchun and Luo Ruiqing jointly submitted a report on how national economic construction should prepare against surprise enemy attack, recommending that the focus of future industrial construction shift to the Third Front.

The "Sixty-One" Case (1966–1978)

After the Cultural Revolution began, the 1936 releases were raised again. According to Wei Jingmin, Kang Sheng wrote to Mao Zedong on 16 September 1966 calling the original decision "an anti-Communist decision"; on 16 March 1967 the Central Committee issued a "preliminary investigation" into the "surrender and betrayal" of Bo Yibo, Liu Lantao, An Ziwen, Yang Xianzhen and others, and Bo and the rest were branded the "Sixty-One Renegades Clique". On 10 April 1967, at a rally of some 300,000 people at Tsinghua University to denounce Wang Guangmei, Bo, Peng Zhen, Lu Dingyi and others were paraded alongside her.

After the Cultural Revolution Bo and other survivors and their families petitioned for rehabilitation. Hu Yaobang, then head of the Central Organisation Department, directed a review; on 20 November 1978 the department reported to the Central Committee that the so-called "Sixty-One Renegades Clique" "did not exist and was a wrongful case", and on 16 December, the day before the Third Plenum of the 11th Central Committee opened, the Central Committee issued a notice endorsing the report and formally overturning the verdict.

The Reform Era and Later Years (1979–2007)

Bo became Vice-Premier again in July 1979 and was added to the 11th Central Committee that September; in May 1982 he became a State Councillor and served for a time as deputy director of the State Commission for Restructuring the Economic System. In September 1982 and November 1987 he was elected vice-chairman of the Central Advisory Commission. In his later years he devoted himself to Party history, writing the memoir Reflections on Certain Major Decisions and Events, which scholars of the early People's Republic, including historians of the Three-Anti campaign, have used as a source.

Bo Yibo died in Beijing on the evening of 15 January 2007, aged 99. His son Bo Xilai later became Party secretary of Chongqing and was dismissed in 2012 and put on trial.