Li Fuchun

Revolutionary Career and Early PRC

Li Fuchun was born on 22 May 1900 in Changsha, Hunan. While on the work-study programme in France, he married Cai Chang in 1923 — her brother Cai Hesen was one of the early leaders of the Chinese Communist Party — and joined the CCP himself while in Europe, moving in the same political circles as Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping. After returning to China he participated in the Land Revolution, the Long March, and the War of Resistance. After 1949 he served as Chairman of the Northeast People's Government and helped oversee the development of the Northeast's heavy industrial base — experience that directly informed his later direction of national economic planning.

Principal Architect and Administrator of the First Five-Year Plan

In September 1954, Li Fuchun was appointed Vice Premier of the State Council and Chairman of the State Planning Commission, a post he held until September 1970, making him the principal architect and institutional head responsible for the First Five-Year Plan. He coordinated the 156 Soviet-aided key projects, working closely with Soviet technical personnel and domestic industrial ministries to bring steel, machinery, and energy projects into production. In July 1955 he delivered the Report on the First Five-Year Plan for Development of the National Economy to the Second Session of the First NPC — one of the most authoritative policy texts associated with the plan. He was elected to the CCP Politburo in 1956 and added to the Secretariat of the Central Committee in May 1958. After the Cultural Revolution began, he briefly rose to the Politburo Standing Committee from August 1966 to April 1969, helping Zhou Enlai fend off disruption and keep the economy running, before gradually receding from the top leadership. Li Fuchun died in Beijing on 9 January 1975, at the age of 75.