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Zhang Chunqiao (; 1 February 1917 – 21 April 2005; also spelled as Chang Chun-chiaoWade, Nigel. "MAO's Widow Arrested." Daily Telegraph, 12 Oct. 1976, pp. 1+. The Telegraph Historical Archive. Accessed 21 June 2025.) was a Chinese political theorist, writer, and politician. He came to the national spotlight during the late stages of the Cultural Revolution, and was a member of the ultra-Maoism group dubbed the "Gang of Four".
Zhang joined the Chinese Communist Party in 1938, later becoming a prominent journalist in charge of Jiefang Daily after the establishment of the People's Republic. He rose to prominence after his October 1958 article entitled "Destroy the Ideology of Bourgeois Right" caught the attention of Mao Zedong, who ordered its reproduction in People's Daily.
With the onset of the Cultural Revolution, he was appointed as a member of the Cultural Revolution Group. In 1967, Zhang organized the Shanghai People's Commune and briefly became its chairman, effectively overthrowing the local Shanghai government and local party structures. Afterwards, he was appointed as the director of the Shanghai Revolutionary Committee. He joined the Politburo in 1969, and its inner Standing Committee in 1973, reaching his zenith as the country's second-ranking vice premier in 1975.
After Mao's death in 1976, Zhang was arrested along with the other members of what would become known as the Gang of Four. He was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve, later commuted to life imprisonment, and then further reduced to 18 years. He was released from prison in 1998 to undergo medical treatment, and died in 2005.
Zhang first saw Mao Zedong at a party in 1938, and spoke to him for the first time in 1939, while he was serving as "head of the propaganda section of a public school in northern Shaanxi."
Zhang first came to prominence as the result of his October 1958 article in Jiefang Daily entitled "Destroy the Ideology of Bourgeois Right". Mao Zedong took notice of the article, and ordered it to be reprinted in People's Daily, along with an accompanying "Editor's Note" expressing his mild approval. Zhang was seen as one of Mao's firmest supporters as the chairman engaged in an ideological struggle within party leadership with rival revolutionary Liu Shaoqi.
In April 1969, he joined the Politburo, and in 1973 he was promoted to the Standing Committee therein. In January 1975, Zhang became the second-ranked Vice Premier, and penned "On Exercising All-Round Dictatorship Over the Bourgeoisie" to promote the theoretical study of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Deng Xiaoping was the first-ranked Vice Premier at the time, but was out of the office by 1976. After the death of Zhou Enlai in January 1976, Zhang Chunqiao competed for the position of Premier with his political opponent Deng Xiaoping. However, Mao did not choose either of them. Instead, he chose Hua Guofeng as the new Premier.
Zhang remained silent during his 1980 trial, and refused to speak until his relatives were allowed to visit him in prison years later; according to his daughter, Weiwei, he could barely talk by that time. He remained critical of the Communist Party under Deng Xiaoping and his successors in letters to his daughter, and stayed true to his Maoist beliefs, predicting the 21st century would see the triumph of socialist revolution in several countries.
In 1998, Zhang was released from prison to undergo medical treatment, then lived in obscurity in Shanghai until he died from pancreatic cancer in April 2005.
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Categories: 1917 Births, 2005 Deaths, 20th-century Mayors Of Places In China, Politicians From Heze, Anti-revisionists, Maoist Theorists, People Of The Cultural Revolution, People From Juye County, Mayors Of Shanghai, Deaths From Cancer In The People's Republic Of China, Chinese Communist Party Politicians From Shandong, Gang Of Four, People's Republic Of China Politicians From Shandong, Chinese Politicians Convicted Of Crimes, Chinese Prisoners Sentenced To Death, Members Of The 9th Politburo Of The Chinese Communist Party, Deaths From Pancreatic Cancer In China, Chinese Marxists, Chinese Maoists, Prisoners Sentenced To Death By The People's Republic Of China
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