Chen Yun (1905—1995）

Chen Yun was a great proletarian revolutionary and politician; the outstanding Marxist; he was an important members of the collective Central Leading Group; one of the pioneers and founders of China's socialist economic construction; the long-tested and outstanding leaders of the Party and the country, one of the important members of the party's first generation of central leadership collectives with Comrade Mao Zedong as the core and the party’s second generation central leadership collective with Comrade Deng Xiaoping as the core. Chen Yun was born on June 13, 1905 in a native of Qingpu, Jiangsu Province (now Shanghai), formerly named Liao Chen-yun. After graduating from high school in 1919, he went to Shanghai Commercial Press as an apprentice. In 1925, he participated in the “May 30th Movement”, joined the CPC in the same year, served as the chairman of the Executive Committee of the Press Office of the Commercial Press, and later participated in the Workers' Movement in Shanghai. After the failure of the Great Revolution, he returned to his hometown to join the peasant movement and served successively as secretary of the CPC Qingpu County Party Committee and Minister of the Organization Department of the Zhapu Special Committee. Returning to Shanghai in 1929, he served as member of the CPC Jiangsu Provincial Committee and the Secretary of the Peasant Movement Committee. At the request of the CPC Central Committee, the CPC Provincial Committee set up Shanghai General Action Committee and District Action Committees in March. Chen Yun was appointed as alternate member of the Standing Committee of the General Action Committee and Party Secretary of Shanghai Fanan District, director of the Organization Department of Jiangsu Provincial Party Committee, Secretary of Jiangsu Provincial Party Committee, etc. In 1930, he was elected as an alternate member of the Central Committee at the Third Plenary Session of the Sixth Party Congress. Since then, he has served as a member of the Central Committee, a member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee, and a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee. In September 1931, he was a member of the Provisional Central Committee of the CPC. In 1933, Chen Yun entered the Central Revolutionary Base in Jiangxi. In 1934, he participated in the Long March with the Central Red Army, served as the Representative of the Central Committee in the Fifth Red Army, and served as the Political Commissar of the Central Committee Column. In January 1935, he attended the Zunyi Conference and expressed his support for Mao Zedong's correct ideas. In June of the same year, he was ordered to leave the Long March team secretly from Tianquan County, Sichuan Province and arrived in Shanghai alone for resuming the secret work of the Communist Party. Later, he went to Moscow from Shanghai to report to the Communist International on the Long March of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army and the Zunyi Conference, and then stayed in the Soviet Union to lead the delegation of the CPC for the Communist International Meeting. He arrived in Yan'an in November 1937 and served as the head of the organization department of the CPC Central Committee. In 1944, he served as deputy director of the Northwest Financial and Economic Office and presided over the financial and economic work of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region. After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, he served as the Secretary of the Northern Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, Secretary of the Southern Office and Political Commissar of the Liaodong Military Region, Deputy Political Commissar of the Northeast Military Region, and Director of the Northeast Financial and Economic Committee. In 1948, he was elected Chairman of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions.

After the founding of New China, he served as Vice Premier of the State Council and Director of the Financial and Economic Commission, presiding over the national financial and economic work. In 1950, at the Third Plenary Session of the Seventh Party Central Committee, he was elected as the secretary of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee. In 1954, Chen Yun became Vice Premier of the State Council. In 1956, at the First Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee of the CPC, he was elected to the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC and the Vice-Chairman of the Central Committee, and later served as the Chairman of the Five-member Group on Central Economic Work and the Leading Group on Central Finance and Economics. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, and Deng Xiaoping adopted a series of correct measures to effectively promote the recovery of the national economy. During the “Cultural Revolution”, in addition to retaining the name of a member of the CPC Central Committee, other leading posts of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council were dismissed. In 1975, he was elected as the Vice-Chairman of the Fourth National People's Congress Standing Committee. At the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Party in 1978, he was re-elected as the Vice-Chairman of the Central Committee and the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee and served as the first secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. He was re-elected Vice Premier of the State Council in 1979. After the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee, a series of far-reaching ideas and important decisions were put forward. After the 13th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 1987, he withdrew from the leadership of the Central Committee and served as the Head of the Central Advisory Committee. On April 10, 1995, he died in Beijing at the age of 90. His major works are included in Selected Works of Chen Yun and Collections of Chen Yun,so forth.