View source for Zhang Chunqiao

{{Short description|Member of the Gang of Four (1917–2005)}}
{{family name hatnote|[[Zhang (surname)|Zhang]]|lang=Chinese}}
{{More citations needed|date=August 2023}}
{{expand Chinese|date=March 2023|topic=bio}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| name                = Zhang Chunqiao<br><small>{{nobold|Chang Chun-chiao}}</small>
| image               = File:1967-07 1967年4月20日北京市革命委员会成立 张春桥-上海革委会主任.jpg
| office              = [[Vice Premier of China]]
| leader              = [[Mao Zedong]]
| premier             = [[Zhou Enlai]]<br>[[Hua Guofeng]]
| term_start          = January 1975
| term_end            = July 1977
| office1             = [[Shanghai Revolutionary Committee|Director of the Shanghai Revolutionary Committee]]{{efn|Zhang was briefly the head of the Shanghai People's Commune in February 1967.}}
| term_start1         = February 1967
| term_end1           = July 1977
| predecessor1        = [[Cao Diqiu]] (as mayor)
| successor1          = [[Su Zhenhua]]
| birth_date          = {{birth date|1917|2|1|df=y}}
| birth_place         = [[Heze]], [[Shandong]], [[Republic of China (1912–1949)|Republic of China]]
| death_date          = {{death date and age|2005|4|21|1917|2|1|df=y}}
| death_place         = [[Jiangyin]], [[Jiangsu]],{{fact|date=October 2025}} [[People's Republic of China]]
| party               = [[Chinese Communist Party]] (1938–1977; expelled)
| native_name         = {{nobold|张春桥}}
| native_name_lang    = zh-cn
}}
{{Chinese
| s = 张春桥
| t = 張春橋
| p = Zhāng Chūnqiáo
| w = Chang<sup>1</sup> Ch'un<sup>1</sup>-ch'iao<sup>2</sup>
| mi = {{IPAc-cmn|zh|ang|1|-|ch|un|1|q|iao|2}}
| order = st
}}
{{Maoism sidebar |expanded=people}}
'''Zhang Chunqiao''' ({{zh|s=张春桥}}; 1 February 1917 – 21 April 2005; also spelled as '''Chang Chun-chiao<ref>Wade, Nigel. "MAO's Widow Arrested." ''Daily Telegraph'', 12 Oct. 1976, pp. [1]+. ''The Telegraph Historical Archive''. Accessed 21 June 2025.</ref>''') 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|Maoist]] 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 of the Chinese Communist Party|Politburo]] in 1969, and its inner [[Politburo Standing Committee of the Chinese Communist Party|Standing Committee]] in 1973, reaching his zenith as the country's second-ranking [[Vice Premier of China|vice premier]] in 1975.

After Mao's death in 1976, Zhang was [[Smashing the Gang of Four|arrested]] along with the other members of what would become known as the Gang of Four. He was sentenced to [[Death sentence with reprieve|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.

==Early life==
Born in [[Juye County]], [[Shandong]], Zhang worked as a writer in [[Shanghai]] in the 1930s, developing strong connections within the city. After attending a 1938 conference in Yan'an, he joined the [[Chinese Communist Party]].

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]]."<ref name=zhang>{{cite book|title=Excerpts from Zhang Chunqiao’s Home Letters from Prison|url=https://chunqiao.pub/2025/01/11/265/|publisher=Chunqiao Publications|date=2025|author=Zhang Chunqiao}}</ref>

== People's Republic of China ==
With the [[proclamation of the People's Republic of China]], Zhang became a prominent Shanghai journalist, put in charge of the newspaper ''[[Jiefang Daily]]''. Here, he met [[Jiang Qing]].

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.<ref>{{cite book | last=Chang | first=Parris H. |author-link=Parris H. Chang| title=Power and Policy in China | publisher=Penn State University Press | publication-place=University Park, Pa. | date=1978 |edition=2nd| isbn=978-0-271-00544-7 | page=100, and n21–22}}</ref> In the article, Zhang praised the [[Chinese Red Army|Red Army]]'s egalitarian focus in the 1930s, including its communist mutual relations not just internally but with the masses.<ref name=":Kindler2">{{Cite book |last=Kindler |first=Benjamin |title=Writing to the Rhythm of Labor: Cultural Politics of the Chinese Revolution, 1942–1976 |date=2025 |publisher=[[Columbia University Press]] |isbn=978-0-231-21932-7 |location=New York City, NY}}</ref>{{Reference page|page=128}} According to Zhang, "When comrades lived used to live under the supply system they did not envy wage labor, and people liked this kind of expression of a living institution of relations of equality. Before long, however, this kind of system was attacked by the ideology of [[bourgeois right]]. The core of the ideology of the bourgeois right is the wage system."<ref name=":Kindler2" />{{Reference page|page=129}}

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]].

=== Cultural Revolution ===
Zhang spent much of the Cultural Revolution shuttling between Beijing and Shanghai. He arrived in Shanghai in November 1966 at representing the [[Cultural Revolution Group]] in their push to stop [[Cao Diqiu]] from dispersing workers in Anting. He signed the "Five-Point Petition of Workers", and in February 1967 organized the [[Shanghai People's Commune]] with [[Wang Hongwen]] and [[Yao Wenyuan]], essentially overthrowing the city government and local party structure, becoming chairman of the city's [[Revolutionary committee (China)|Revolutionary Committee]], a title that essentially combined the former posts of mayor and party secretary. This structure would persist until the latter post was restored in 1971.{{citation needed|date=June 2025}} 

In April 1969, he joined the [[Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party|Politburo]], and in 1973 he was promoted to the [[Politburo Standing Committee of the Chinese Communist Party|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.

=== Arrest and death ===
Zhang was [[Smashing the Gang of Four|arrested]] along with the other members of the so-called "Gang of Four" in October 1976, as part of a conspiracy by [[Ye Jianying]], [[Li Xiannian]] and the new party leader [[Hua Guofeng]]. He was expelled from the Communist Party in July 1977, and then sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve in 1984, alongside Jiang Qing. His sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment, and was further reduced to 18 years in December 1997.

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.<ref name=zhang/> 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.<ref name=zhang/>

In 1998, Zhang was released from prison to undergo medical treatment, then lived in obscurity in Shanghai{{fact|date=October 2025}} until he died from pancreatic cancer in April 2005.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4533401.stm|title=China's Gang of Four member dies|date=10 May 2005}}</ref>

==Notes==
<references group="lower-alpha" />

== References ==
{{reflist}}

== Reading list ==
*[http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/zhang/index.htm Zhang Chunqiao Reference Archive]
*[http://www.marx2mao.com/Other/ARD75.html "On Exercising All-Round Dictatorship over the Bourgeoisie"]

{{s-start}}
{{s-off}}
{{s-bef|before=[[Cao Diqiu]]|as=Mayor of Shanghai}}
{{s-ttl|title=[[Mayor of Shanghai|Chairman of the Revolutionary Committee of Shanghai]]|years=1967–1976}}
{{s-aft|after=[[Su Zhenhua]]}}
|-
{{s-bef|before=[[Deng Xiaoping]]}}
{{s-ttl|title=First-ranking [[Vice Premier of China]]|years=1976}}
{{s-aft|after=[[Li Xiannian]]}}
|-
{{s-ppo}}
{{s-bef|before=[[Chen Pixian]]<br><small>Vacant since 1967</small>}}
{{s-ttl|title=[[Politics of Shanghai|Secretary of the CPC Shanghai Committee]]|years=1971–1976}}
{{s-aft|after=[[Su Zhenhua]]}}
|-
{{s-mil}}
{{s-bef|before=[[Li Desheng]]<br><small>Vacant since 1970</small>}}
{{s-ttl|title=Director of the [[People's Liberation Army General Political Department|General Political Department]] of the [[People's Liberation Army]]|years=1975–1976}}
{{s-aft|after=[[Wei Guoqing]]<br><small>Vacant until 1977</small>}}
|-
{{s-end}}

{{4th State Council of China}}
{{10th Politburo of the Communist Party of China}}
{{9th Politburo of the Communist Party of China}}
{{Shanghai leaders}}
{{Cultural Revolution}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Zhang, Chunqiao}}
[[Category:1917 births]]
[[Category:2005 deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century mayors of places in China]]
[[Category:Politicians from Heze]]
[[Category:Anti-revisionists]]
[[Category:Maoist theorists]]
[[Category:People of the Cultural Revolution]]
[[Category:People from Juye County]]
[[Category:Mayors of Shanghai]]
[[Category:Deaths from cancer in China]]
[[Category:Chinese Communist Party politicians from Shandong]]
[[Category:Gang of Four]]
[[Category:People's Republic of China politicians from Shandong]]
[[Category:Chinese politicians convicted of crimes]]
[[Category:Chinese prisoners sentenced to death]]
[[Category:Members of the 10th Politburo Standing Committee of the Chinese Communist Party]]
[[Category:Members of the 9th Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party]]
[[Category:Deaths from pancreatic cancer in China]]
[[Category:Chinese Marxists]]
[[Category:Chinese Maoists]]
[[Category:Secretaries of the Shanghai Municipal Committee of the Chinese Communist Party]]
[[Category:Prisoners sentenced to death by the People's Republic of China]]