Liu Shaoqi

Early political activities

Early revolutionary activities

From 21 January to 2 February 1922, Liu worked as a staff member, doing clerical work for the 1st Congress of the Far Eastern Revolutionary Groups. Through Chen Duxiu's introduction, he went to Hunan to serve as a leader in the Secretariat of the Secretariat of the Chinese Labor Union. In the summer, Liu returned to Hunan and met with Mao Zedong, who was then the secretary of the Hunan District Executive Committee of the CCP, in Changsha. After a long talk, Liu was immediately appointed as a member of the Hunan District Executive Committee of the CCP. On 17 August, the Hunan Provincial Student Union established the Hunan Federation of Workers, Students and Merchants, and elected Li Lisan, Yi Lirong, Liu, Xia Minghan, Li Liuru and others as members/ Liu led railway workers' strikes several times, including the Anyuan Coal Mine Workers' Strike in September with Li Lisan and others.

On the evening of 12 September, Liu attended an emergency meeting of the Workers' Club and, together with Li Lisan and others, arranged a strike. He decided that Li Lisan would be the general commander of the strike headquarters and he himself would be the plenipotentiary representative of the Workers' Club, staying at the club to deal with the situation. On 14 September, Liu said: "What the workers hope for is to solve the current living problems. If the railway and mining bureaus do not send plenipotentiary representatives to start with the negotiation conditions, and only use a ridiculous empty word as an answer, in fact, I am afraid that it will not be solved." On 16 September, Liu said: If the demands of more than 10,000 workers cannot be met, even if I am chopped into mincemeat, it will still not solve the problem. At this time, thousands of workers surrounded the martial law headquarters, saying that if anyone dared to touch a hair of the workers' representatives, the railway and mining bureaus would be wiped out. The railway and mining authorities and the martial law headquarters softened their stance. On 18 September, the strike was victorious; in early October, Liu was appointed as the director of the workers' club and went to Changsha to report to Mao and others. On 10 December, the Hanyeping General Trade Union was established in Hanyang, Hubei, and Liu was elected as an executive member.

On 16 August 1923, Liu was elected as the general director of the Anyuan Coal Mine Workers' Club. On 20 August, Liu wrote "Criticism of the Club's Past and Plans for the Future": In addition to maintaining the previous success and not failing, and making every effort to improve the direct interests of the workers, three specific tasks need to be done: (i) to work hard to build and reorganize the internal affairs; (ii) to expand the organization; (iii) to train the members, improve the knowledge level of the working class and train the workers' ability to do things. In 1924, in accordance with the decision passed by the 3rd CCP National Congress that Communist Party members could join the Kuomintang in their own name, Liu joined the Kuomintang. In September, at the 2nd Congress of the Hanyeping General Labor Union, Liu was elected as the chairman.

In 1925, Liu became a member of the Guangzhou-based All-China Federation of Labor Executive Committee. Between 1925 and 1926, Liu led political movements and strikes in Hubei and Shanghai on several occasions, becoming one of the main leaders of the local CCP workers' movement. On 2 May 1925, at the opening ceremony of the 2nd National Labor Congress and the 1st Guangdong Provincial Farmers' Congress, Liu, along with Su Zhaozheng, Liao Zhongkai, Wang Yifei and others, was elected as the chairman of the congress. On 1 June. the Shanghai General Labor Union was officially established, with Liu as director of the general affairs department (equivalent to secretary-general), in charge of five or six sections including documents and general affairs. In November, due to lung disease, Liu returned to Hunan with He Baozhen to recuperate and stayed at the Changsha Cultural Bookstore. During the next two years he led numerous political campaigns and strikes in Hubei and Shanghai. He worked with Li Lisan in Shanghai in 1925, organizing Communist activity following the May Thirtieth Movement. After his work in Shanghai, Liu traveled to Wuhan. He was briefly arrested in Changsha and then returned to Guangzhou to help organize the 16-month-long Canton–Hong Kong strike.

On 16 December, Zhao Hengti, the governor of Hunan Province, ordered the Hunan Provincial Military Law Department to send several soldiers to Changsha Cultural Bookstore to arrest Liu and imprison him at the Martial Law Command. His wife, He Baozhen, and his sixth brother, Liu Yunting, went around trying to find a way to rescue him. They asked Zhu Jianfan, a famous educator (founder of Zhou Nan Girls' Middle School) and provincial senator in the same county, to act as guarantor for his release; they asked Zhou Zhenlin, a member of parliament and a relative of Liu's family, who was also related to Zhao Hengti, to write a letter to plead for his release; and they asked Lu Dipin, a relative of Liu's mother and a division commander of the Hunan Army, to send a telegram to Zhao Hengti to plead for his release.

In early February 1926, Liu was finally released after being imprisoned in the Army Prison for nearly two months; but Zhao Hengti asked him to "leave Hunan immediately". In May, the Chinese Communist Party asked local party organizations to develop the workers' and peasants' movement to welcome the Northern Expedition of the National Revolutionary Army. Liu organized all the delegates of the 3rd National Labor Congress and the delegates of the Second Guangdong Provincial Peasant Congress to petition the National Government, demanding that "the army be dispatched to the North to save the people from the deep suffering of imperialism and warlords". The 3rd National Labor Congress elected a new executive committee of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions. Liu was elected as a standing committee member and secretary-general of the second executive committee of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions. Li Lisan was appointed as the Minister of Organization, Deng Zhongxia as the Minister of Propaganda, and Su Zhaozheng as the chairman. On 9 July, the National Revolutionary Army swore an oath to launch the Northern Expedition; on 20 August, Liu published "Mr. Liao Zhongkai and the Workers' and Peasants' Policy" in the 412th issue of Workers' Road commemorating the anniversary of Liao Zhongkai's martyrdom: "The Chinese National Revolution must be won by the participation of all classes of people in society and the establishment of a united front of all classes. In order to get the majority of workers and peasants to participate in the revolution and fight for it, it is necessary to make the revolution closely related to the interests of workers and peasants. Workers and peasants cannot be deceived into participating in the revolution. They must fight for the interests of workers and peasants, continue to increase the interests of workers and peasants, and truly seek the liberation of workers and peasants. In this way, workers and peasants will naturally participate enthusiastically in the revolution, and the hope of the revolution's success will not be far away."

On 10 October, the National Revolutionary Army captured Wuchang and the Hubei Provincial Federation of Trade Unions was established; on 26 December, Liu wrote in "Two Issues in Trade Union Work": "The so-called democratic centralism means that the power of the trade union is concentrated in the meeting of the majority of people, not in the hands of individuals. That is, everything must be decided by the meeting of the majority of people. Once decided, it must be implemented. The representative meeting is an indispensable organization for any trade union. Without the representative meeting, the trade union is in danger; with the representative meeting, the trade union is strong." Liu said: "If a trade union does not have a real workers' representative meeting, the trade union cannot get close to the masses, it is not a workers' trade union, and it becomes a trade union of a few leaders. All trade unions should quickly organize the representative meeting according to the regulations. Trade unions that already have a representative meeting should be properly organized so that the representative meeting can truly exercise its powers and hold meetings on schedule. All power belongs to the representative meeting." On 28 December, he also wrote in the preface of the booklet "Basic Organization of Trade Unions" "The trade union must have a tight organization in order to fulfill its mission. A tight organization means that above the executive committee there is a real workers' representative assembly; below the executive committee there are the basic organizations of the branches among the masses."

In January 1927, he led the struggle of the Wuhan masses to reclaim the British concession in Hankou; in May, the 5th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party was held, and Liu was elected as a member of the CCP Central Committee, and was appointed to the head of its Labor Department. In his long-term work, Liu gradually summarized a set of struggle policies of "going deep into the masses, hiding for a long time, and accumulating strength", and resisted the so-called "leftist" errors of closed-doorism and adventurism within the CCP Central Committee at that time, which coincided with Mao's thoughts and struggle strategies at that time. On 29 June, Li Lisan, Deng Zhongxia, Lin Yunan, Liu, Xiang Ying, Su Zhaozheng and 35 others were elected as executive members of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions. In early July, Liu's lung disease relapsed, and with the approval of the CCP Central Committee, he left Wuhan to recuperate in Lushan. On 26 October, the Provisional Politburo Standing Committee decided that Liu would stay in Shanghai Hospital to recuperate.

On 7 February 1928, the Provisional Politburo Standing Committee resolved that Su Zhaozheng, Xiang Zhongfa, Xiang Ying, Liu and 11 others would serve as members of the Standing Committee of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions. On 24 March, the Provisional Politburo Standing Committee decided to send Liu to Tianjin to participate in leading the All-China Railway Federation of Trade Unions as a special commissioner of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions and to guide the work of the Shunzhi Provincial Committee. At the end of June, the CCP Central Committee decided to establish a "Central Special Commissioner's Office for Handling the Shunzhi Issue" and appointed Chen Tanqiu, Liu and Han Lianhui as special commissioners (code name Tan Shaolian) to exercise the powers of the Shunzhi Provincial Committee. On 18 December, Liu published "Correction of Erroneous Concepts" in the second issue of "The Way Out": "Correction of these erroneous concepts can only be possible in the long history of work. Changing the old foundation can only be achieved through a gradual process of metabolism in the long history of work"; if we stop working and focus on clearing obstacles, not only will we fail to clear the obstacles, but we will also objectively end up on the road of canceling everything.

Chinese Civil War

In the summer of 1929, Liu was transferred to serve as the secretary of the CCP Manchurian Provincial Committee in Fengtian. During the Sino-Soviet conflict over the Chinese Eastern Railway, he launched a movement against the Nationalist government and Zhang Xueliang and in support of the Soviet Union, Liu was arrested at the gate of the Fengtian Cotton Mill on suspicion of inciting a strike, along with Meng Jian. In mid-September, the Fengtian High Court ruled that "there was insufficient evidence, so no prosecution was initiated, and he was released on bail." The important evidence that Liu would later become a "traitor" was this arrest. In September, the CCP Manchurian Provincial Committee decided that Liu would serve as the secretary of the provincial committee and the head of the propaganda department.

In July 1930, Liu arrived in Moscow; from 15 August to 27 August, Liu led the Chinese trade union delegation to the Fifth Congress of the Red International of Trade Unions and was elected as a member of the Executive Bureau. On 23 October, the Politburo decided that Liu would serve as the Party Secretary of Jiangsu, and Chen Shaoyu would act as Secretary before Liu returned to China.

On 7 January 1931, at the fourth plenum of the 6th CCP Central Committee, Liu did not attend the meeting and was elected as an alternate member of the Politburo. In September, after the execution of Xiang Zhongfa, the General Secretary of the CCP Central Committee, a provisional Central Committee was established. The Provisional Politburo was composed of nine people, including Bo Gu, Zhang Wentian, Lu Futan, Li Zhusheng, Kang Sheng, Chen Yun, Huang Ping, Liu, and Wang Yuncheng. In the autumn, Liu returned to China and served as the Minister of the Workers' Department of the Provisional Central Committee of the CCP and the Minister of the Organization Department of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions. From 7 November to 20 November, the First National Congress of the Chinese Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Soviet was held in Ruijin, Jiangxi. Liu did not attend the meeting and was elected as a member of the Central Executive Committee.

On 1 January 1932, Liu, under the pseudonym Zhongchi, published "Strike Strategy" in the third issue of "Guide to the Workers' Movement": "(1) It should be the most urgent demand of the working masses; (2) It should be simple and clear, so that all workers can understand it and it should be the central demand; (3) It should be a demand that capitalists can agree to to some extent; (4) It should be the most important part of the demand." On 14 March, Liu attended the meeting of the Provisional Central Politburo of the CCP. The person in charge of the Provisional Central Committee conveyed the instructions of the Comintern: "Liu Xiang (Liu Shaoqi) cannot take on leadership work." The meeting decided to remove Liu from the position of Minister of Workers of the Central Committee and retain him as an alternate member of the Politburo. Liu served as the Party Secretary of Zhejiang. In winter, Liu bid farewell to He Baozhen and left Shanghai for the Central Soviet Area under the pseudonym Tang Kaiyuan.

In January 1934, Liu attended the fifth plenum of the 6th CCP Central Committee and was elected as an alternate member of the Politburo. In July, Liu became the Party Secretary of Fujian. On 10 October, Liu followed the main force of the Central Red Army to withdraw from the Central Soviet Area and move to western Hunan to begin the Long March. On 22 October, Liu received a telegram from Zhou Enlai and Qin Bangxian: "Liu Shaoqi will participate in the leadership work of the Eighth Army Corps of the Central Red Army and serve as the representative of the CCP Central Committee." On 13 December, the Central Revolutionary Military Commission, in view of the heavy losses suffered by the Eighth Army Corps during the march and battle, with only more than 1,000 people left in the entire corps, decided to abolish the Eighth Army Corps. Liu followed the troops to the Fifth Army Corps and later served as the representative of the Central Committee.

From 15 to 17 January 1935, Liu attended the crucial Zunyi Conference and supported Mao's opinions at the conference. He was then sent to the so-called "White Areas" (areas controlled by the Kuomintang) to reorganize underground activities in northern China, centered around Beijing and Tianjin. In early February, Liu went to the Third Army Corps of the Red Army to serve as the director of the Political Department. In October, Liu married Xie Fei; in early November, the Northwest Executive Bureau of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions was established, and Liu served as its chairman. At the end of the year, Liu arrived in northern Shaanxi On 17 December, Liu attended the Wayaobao Conference.

In the spring of 1936, Liu Shaoqi went to Tianjin as a representative of the CCP Central Committee to preside over the work of the CCP Central Committee Northern Bureau. Liu adopted Ke Qingshi's proposal. He asked the CCP Central Committee for instructions and suggested that CCP members who were imprisoned in the Caolanzi Penitentiary by the Nationalist government should complete the simple procedures stipulated by the prison authorities to not oppose the Communist Party and not publish articles before being released. Zhang Wentian approved Liu's suggestion on behalf of the CCP Central Committee. About sixty CCP members imprisoned in the Penitentiary were released after Liu's instructions to draft the "Anti-Communist Announcement" and publish it in the newspaper. These CCP members who were released made important contributions to opening up the situation for the Northern Bureau. However, during the Cultural Revolution, this matter became one of Liu Shaoqi's "crimes" due to "procedure issues".

On 15 October, Liu published "How to Conduct Mass Work?" in the 63rd issue of Fireline: "In order to truly organize the masses on a large scale, we must strive to create the following conditions: (i) strive for freedom of mass organization and mass movement, and make full use of all existing open and semi-open possibilities. (ii) create numerous leaders for mass movement and gain the great faith of the masses. (iii) adopt a completely democratic working method and organizational method. Only when the above three conditions are met can mass movement and mass organization move forward by leaps and bounds. It is impossible to organize the masses in secret. Mass movement without leaders cannot persist and has no direction. Without adopting a democratic working method and organizational method, it is impossible to give full play to the great creativity of the masses. However, the mistakes of our party in the past of closed-doorism, adventurism and bureaucracy were that we ignored the above three conditions and adopted policies that were contrary to the above three conditions, so that the mass organization in the White Area suffered failures everywhere and could not achieve any results. Now we must correct this!"

On 27 November, Liu wrote "The Lessons We Should Learn from the Beiping Issue", signed KV, and published in the 68th issue of Fireline on 30 December: "At present, any attempt to slightly weaken the party's discipline can only help the enemy. However, discipline is not only something that comrades should abide by, but also something that leaders and instructors should abide by. Not only those who undermine the principle of centralization are violating discipline, but those who undermine the principle of democracy are also violating discipline. … Without true democracy, there is no true centralization. If the opinions and rights of all comrades are not respected, and all good opinions are not adopted, then naturally we cannot concentrate the strength of the whole party and unite as one person to fight. … Leaders must have a full democratic spirit to treat comrades".

In early 1937, Liu Shaoqi went to Beiping with the Northern Bureau. In the same year, he challenged Zhang Wentian on the Party's historical problems, criticizing the leftist errors after 1927, thus breaching the consensus reached at the Zunyi Conference that the Party line had been essentially correct. On 20 February and 4 March, Liu Shaoqi wrote letters to Zhang Wentian, namely "On a Question in the Historical Lessons of the Great Revolution" and "A Letter to the Central Committee on the Past Work in the White Areas", indicating that the CCP's line in the past ten years had been wrong and caused controversy within the party. However, this move was tacitly approved by Mao, laying the foundation for the future political alliance between the two. On 21 April, Liu left Beiping and returned to Yan'an at the end of April.

Second Sino-Japanese War

After the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War, Liu transferred the Northern Bureau to Taiyuan, Shanxi, and communicated with Yan Xishan. He led the anti-Japanese movements in that area with the assistance of Peng Zhen, An Ziwen, Bo Yibo, Ke Qingshi, Liu Lantao, and Yao Yilin. On 28 September 1937, Liu telegraphed Zhang Wentian : "Beijing and Tianjin have long been lost and of course cannot be defended. I have given instructions to Beijing and Tianjin: (i) take guerrilla warfare as the central task, mobilize a large number of cadres and comrades and anti-Japanese activists to go to the countryside, develop and lead guerrilla warfare. (ii) cancel all semi-public national salvation groups and send personnel to the countryside to fight guerrilla warfare. Reorganize the fully public hometown associations and join the traitor groups. (iii) Cadres who cannot stand in Beijing and Tianjin and cannot participate in guerrilla warfare should withdraw from Beijing and Tianjin." In addition, he implemented the policy of "going deep into enemy territory, mobilizing the masses and carrying out guerrilla warfare" proposed by the CCP Central Committee headed by Mao, and led the work of creating the CCP anti-Japanese base area behind enemy lines in North China.

In mid-March 1938, Liu returned to Yan'an When Mao married Jiang Qing, Liu and Zhang Wentian were the strongest opponents. On 16 July, Mao, Zhang Wentian, and Liu Shaoqi sent a telegram to Zhu De, Peng Dehuai, and Zhu Rui : "Yan [Xishan] and Liang [Huazhi] have suspected that there are Communists in his new forces. Therefore, secret work, especially certain special relationships, must be kept very vigilant. Public staff are prohibited from writing letters casually, and any actions that violate secret work must be punished. Comrades working in public organizations and Yan's troops should say more of Yan Xishan's words, use more of Yan's'work-based' terminology in documents and slogans, and use less Marxist–Leninist terminology, such as KMT-CCP cooperation, united front, democratic regime, etc. These slogans written by organizations and groups in their own name should be washed away. On the surface, Yan's central ideas should be respected to reduce Yan's suspicion, but in terms of content, we should maintain our anti-Japanese national salvation content." From October to November, Liu participated in the sixth plenum of the 6th CCP Central Committee.

The plenum decided to abolish the Yangtze River Bureau and establish the Southern Bureau and the Central Plains Bureau. Liu was appointed as the secretary of the Central Plains Bureau. He used the pseudonym "Hu Fu" to open up the anti-Japanese residents in the vast area between the Yellow River and the Yangtze River and to participate in the military work of the New Fourth Army in Anhui, Henan and Jiangsu. On 9 November, the Politburo issued the "Notice of the Politburo on the Composition and Jurisdiction of the Central Plains Bureau" which made Liu the secretary of the Central Plains Bureau On 23 November 1938, Liu Shaoqi departed from Yan'an and arrived in Zhugou, Queshan County, Henan Province on 28 January 1939. After arranging the work of the Central Plains Bureau, he returned to Yan'an in May 1939 to report to the Central Committee and request instructions. On 8 July 1939, Liu delivered his famous speech On the Self-Cultivation of Communist Party Members at the Marxist–Leninist Academy in Yan'an, emphasizing that "the training and self-cultivation of revolutionary practice. requires the cultivation of a hard-working style; the cultivation of being good at connecting with the masses; and the cultivation of various scientific knowledge."

In September 1939, Liu Shaoqi returned from Yan'an to Zhugou. Accompanying him were Xu Haidong, Liu Shaoqi's secretary Liu Bin, and several dozen cadres sent from Yan'an to the Central Plains behind enemy lines, traveling in two trucks. Among them were Luo Keming and Wu Zhichuan from the Yan'an Marxist–Leninist Academy, and Liu Ruilong, deputy director of the Anwu Fort Wartime Youth Training Class. In Zhugou, they met with Zhu Lizhi, deputy secretary of the Central Plains Bureau and secretary of the Henan Provincial Committee, Chen Shaomin, the organization minister of the Henan Provincial Committee, Cao Diqiu, Wang Laohan (Wang Guohua), Wei Gongzhi, and others. After making specific arrangements for the work of the anti-Japanese guerrilla base area in the Hubei-Henan-Anhui border region, they set off in mid-October 1939, passing through Queshan, Runan, Xiangcheng, and Shenqiu, crossing the Yellow River flood area.

In early November 1939, Liu Shaoqi and his party arrived at the headquarters of the Sixth Detachment of the New Fourth Army in Xinxingji, Beixiang, Woyang County, in the Henan-Anhui-Jiangsu border region, where they stayed for about two weeks. At a meeting of cadres of the Sixth Detachment of the New Fourth Army, the call was made to "Advance eastward, advance eastward, and advance further eastward!" to penetrate deep into the enemy's rear. At that time, the mass work in the Henan-Anhui-Jiangsu border region was still at the stage of general propaganda and appeals. In response to this situation, Liu Shaoqi pointed out that it was necessary to further mobilize the masses, reduce rent and interest, improve the treatment of hired laborers, implement reasonable burdens, actively organize the masses, arm the masses, and establish and transform political power. Only in this way could the problem of establishing a base area be solved. Comrade Liu Shaoqi also gave specific instructions on the policy and tasks of the Henan-Anhui-Jiangsu base area, requiring the creation of a base area connecting the four counties of Yongcheng, Xiayi, Xiaoxian, and Suxian, while at the same time establishing two small base areas, Suixian-Qixian-Taikang and Shangqiu-Boxian-Luyi-Zhecheng, so that they could be connected later; he also required consolidating and expanding the troops, strengthening army building, and preparing to expand eastward along the Jinpu Railway in one or two months.

In November 1939, Liu Shaoqi went to the New Fourth Army Jiangbei Command Headquarters at Sanhuangjia, Daqiao Town, Dingyuan County. They repelled the attacks of Li Pinxian's troops, the chairman of the Anhui Provincial Government, and Han Deqin's troops, the chairman of Jiangsu Province, which were controlled by the Guangxi clique, and established the Anhui East Anti-Japanese Democratic Base Area in Huainan. On 4 January 1940, Liu telegraphed the Secretariat of the CCP Central Committee and Xiang Ying, again proposing that the Fourth and Fifth Detachments of the New Fourth Army or a part of the troops from Jiangnan be transferred to the north bank of Huaiting to develop. On 11 January, the Secretariat of the CCP Central Committee replied and agreed: one or two regiments from Jiangnan should be transferred to the north bank of the Yangtze River to develop; two or three regiments from the Fourth and Fifth Detachments should be transferred to Huaibei, and Peng Xuefeng's troops should be transferred to northern Jiangsu to develop. On 28 March 1940, Liu Shaoqi wrote a letter from Huainan instructing the establishment of the Jiangsu-Anhui Military and Political Committee, appointing Liu Ruilong as secretary, and Jiang Hua, Zhang Aiping, Jin Ming, Tan Xilin, Tian Weiyang and others as members. He also gave specific instructions on establishing an anti-Japanese democratic regime, developing armed forces, mass movements, and the united front. In May 1940, Liu Shaoqi arrived in northeastern Anhui, uniting and integrating the military and political organizations sent to northern Anhui by various CCP organizations: the People's Anti-Japanese Volunteer Army formed by Guo Zihua's Jiangsu-Shandong-Henan-Anhui Special Committee using united front relations; the Eighth Route Army's Longhai Southern Advance Detachment and the Jiangsu-Anhui Special Committee sent to northern Jiangsu by the Shandong Branch and the Shandong Column of the Eighth Route Army; subsequently, the Shandong Branch sent Jin Ming to establish the Jiangsu-Anhui Regional Party Committee and the Eighth Route Army's Jiangsu-Anhui Column; the Eighth Route Army's Jiangsu-Shandong-Henan Detachment also entered Lingbi and Sixian counties; the Hubei-Henan-Anhui Provincial Committee sent cadres to northeastern Anhui with Sheng Zijin, the commissioner of the Sixth District of Anhui; and there were also guerrilla forces established by local party organizations. In June 1940, Liu Shaoqi arrived in Huainan.

On 1 July, he published an article entitled "Be a Good Party Member, Build a Good Party" in the Anti-Enemy Daily. In October 1940, Liu Shaoqi traveled from Huainan through the Huaihai River to Yancheng. Under this strategic guidance, the New Fourth Army under Chen Yi and Su Yu crossed the Yangtze River from the south and marched north, achieving victory in the Huangqiao Campaign in October 1940. At the same time, Huang Kecheng's Eighth Route Army went south to northern Jiangsu and joined forces with Chen Yi's New Fourth Army in central Jiangsu, connecting the CCP base areas in North and Central China into one area. Under this situation, the CCP Central Committee decided to establish the Central China New Fourth Army Eighth Route Army General Headquarters, which was formally established in mid-November 1940. Ye Ting served as commander (Chen Yi acted as commander), and Liu Shaoqi served as political commissar. Subsequently, from 29 November – 17 December 1940, Liu organized and launched the Caodian Campaign, attacking the Kuomintang army under Han Deqin. At the cost of nearly 2,000 casualties, they only broke through the outer defense line of Caodian and were unable to pose a threat to its basic position. The campaign failed. The direct consequence of the great development of the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army in northern Jiangsu and the friction between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party in the region was the Southern Anhui Incident.

On 4 January 1941, Ye Ting, Xiang Ying and others led the New Fourth Army headquarters and 9,000 troops in southern Anhui to move north through Maolin. On 6 January, under Chiang Kai-shek's orders, over 80,000 troops of the 32nd Army Group of the Third War Zone launched a general offensive against the New Fourth Army, triggering the Southern Anhui Incident. After seven days and nights of fierce fighting, the New Fourth Army was ultimately defeated; Ye Ting was captured, and Xiang Ying, who had been hiding in the mountains of southern Anhui, was murdered by a traitor. Chiang Kai-shek ordered the cancellation of the New Fourth Army's designation. Given the situation, Liu suggested to the Central Committee that "a full-scale political counter-offensive be launched, but a temporary halt to the military counter-offensive." On 17 January, the National Government Military Commission. A notice was issued announcing the cancellation of the New Fourth Army's designation. On the same day, Liu asked the Central Committee to appoint Chen Yi as acting commander of the New Fourth Army and to establish the army headquarters in northern Jiangsu. On the 18th, he and Chen Yi jointly telegraphed the Central Committee, again proposing to rebuild the New Fourth Army headquarters. On 20 January, the Central Military Commission issued an order to rebuild the New Fourth Army headquarters, and Liu was appointed as the political commissar of the New Fourth Army. He and Chen Yi and others rebuilt the New Fourth Army and expanded the anti-Japanese base area in Central China. The first priority was to rebuild the New Fourth Army headquarters and to build the Central China Party School to improve the CCP's leadership over the army. The moderate rectification campaign in northern Jiangsu was organized to determine the development direction and tasks of the New Fourth Army. In January 1941, the New Fourth Army headquarters was established in Yancheng. In May 1941, the Central Plains Bureau and the Southeast Bureau merged to form the Central China Bureau, with Liu Shaoqi as secretary. Under Liu's organization and coordination, the New Fourth Army grew from more than 90,000 men at the time of its reconstruction to 135,000 men.

From 2 July to 3 July, Liu delivered a speech entitled "On Intra-Party Struggle" at the Party School of the Central China Bureau of the CCP Central Committee, and put forward the correct policy for carrying out intra-party struggle. On 3 November, Liu delivered a speech entitled "The Spirit of Democracy and Bureaucracy" at the Party School of the Central China Bureau of the Chinese Communist Party: "The bourgeoisie talks about equality and the rights of the people in many places; but they can tolerate absolutely unequal economic status. The bourgeoisie has tens of millions of millions of dollars in wealth, while countless millions of people are without food or clothing. The state and society are built on an economic structure. The mode of production of material wealth, the productive forces, and the relations of production are the foundation of society. Economic inequality among people leads to inequality in all other aspects. Legal equality is hypocritical; in reality, it only guarantees the freedom and rights of the bourgeoisie to exploit workers. This is the essence of bourgeois democracy… (The spirit of democracy) is the spirit of equality. The bourgeoisie talks about democracy, but in reality, they cannot practice it… We revolutionaries must have a spirit of equality, believing that no one has the right to oppress or exploit another, or to insult another's dignity. If I can exploit your labor, and you can only accept being driven, this is inequality, and it is also a lack of the spirit of democracy… However, the spirit of equality or…" Democratic spirit is not egalitarianism. Currently, among our comrades, on the one hand, the demonstration of democratic spirit is insufficient; on the other hand, there are some egalitarian demands, and even extreme democratization, denying organizational structure... This egalitarianism and extreme democratic demands lack the spirit of equality and democracy... China is a country lacking a democratic tradition; generally speaking, the people have not received democratic training and do not understand democracy... Bureaucracy exists not only among the exploiting classes but also among the proletariat, within the Communist Party, and in the proletarian state. Especially when the proletarian party becomes the ruling party, bureaucracy becomes serious... Raising the cultural level of the masses, especially raising their democratic spirit, and conducting democratic education are important methods for combating bureaucracy; dismissal is only a temporary solution. All work systems and organizational systems must be democratic to ensure the struggle against bureaucracy can be carried out. Communist Party members and cadres must possess a full democratic spirit and a spirit of equality, using democratic actions to supervise themselves and others; this will continuously prevent and gradually overcome bureaucracy." From January to March 1942, the Central China Bureau held its first enlarged meeting and passed the resolution on March 5, "The current situation, the basic summary of the work of our Party and our army in Central China over the past three years and the tasks for the future".

On 19 March 1942, Liu departed from Danjiagang, Funing County, northern Jiangsu Province, and returned to Yan'an via Shandong Province. He arrived in Yan'an on 30 December 1942. On the way, he passed through Shandong Province and dealt with the differences between the military and political leaders in Shandong Province.

On 28 June 1943, Liu wrote to Xu Fanting on issues of human nature, right and wrong, good and evil : "The questions of human nature, right and wrong, good and evil are among the most prominent issues raised in the history of Chinese philosophy, and have been debated throughout the past two thousand years, remaining unresolved to this day… The most fundamental difference between humans and other animals lies in the fact that humans possess thought. The human brain and its entire nervous system are exceptionally well-developed (a result of long-term labor and struggle), enabling humans to understand the internal connections between various phenomena in nature; thus, humans are able to transform objective things according to the laws of their development, engage in labor and production, manufacture tools, and transform the world. This is something no other animal possesses." Some people possess unique talents. Human thought, at any time, cannot be separated from the attributes of matter; it is the reflection of the laws governing the development of objective things in the human mind. Human production and labor are always social relations of production, social relations, political relations, etc. (i.e., the laws governing people's common life). These definite relations determine people's definite social concepts, that is, they determine people's definite patterns of thought, consciousness, viewpoints, habits, psychology, morality, etc. Long-term definite patterns of production and life cultivate a characteristic in people's thoughts and actions; this is people's social nature.People's concepts of good and evil reflect people's objective interests. But people are concrete beings, and people's interests are also concrete. On 17 December, Mao wrote to Liu: "I read your article in one go, and I read it three times. I also frankly wrote down my opinions. Generally speaking, I think that the parts on human nature (mostly the first half) are wrong, and the parts on class struggle (the second half) are right or relatively right (but there are some mistakes). … I have not studied it thoroughly, and I cannot say that all my criticisms are correct. Please tell me after you read it." Liu participated in the rectification movement and began to enter the core decision-making level of the CCP. He was one of the five secretaries of the CCP. During the rectification movement, Liu and Mao accused Zhou Enlai of making right-leaning line errors and of negligence in dealing with Hu Zongnan. Zhou Enlai was forced to admit his mistakes and publicly apologized many times.

At the 7th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party held from 23 April – 11 June 1945, Liu was elected as Secretary of the Secretariat of the CCP Central Committee and Vice Chairman of the CCP Central Revolutionary Military Commission. From 14 May to 15 May, Liu delivered a report on revising the Party Constitution, which discussed a series of major theoretical principles, including the characteristics and nature of the Chinese Communist Party, its guiding ideology, the characteristics of the Chinese revolution, the mass line, and democratic centralism. Among them, Mao Zedong Thought was discussed for the first time in the history of the CCP, and Mao Zedong Thought was explicitly written into the Party Constitution. It was proposed that "Mao Zedong Thought, which combines the theory of Marxism–Leninism with the practice of the Chinese revolution, should be taken as the guiding principle for all work of the whole Party". He articulated four "mass points" to be instilled in every party member: "everything for the masses; full responsibility to the masses; faith in the self-emancipation of the masses; and learning from the masses". After that Congress, he became the supreme leader of all CCP forces in Manchuria and northern China, a role frequently overlooked by historians.

On 9 June, Liu was elected as a member of the CCP Central Committee. On 15 June, Liu attended the meeting of the Presidium of the 7th CCP National Congress and decided to elect 13 people, including Mao Zedong, Zhu De, Liu, Zhou Enlai, and Ren Bishi, to form the Politburo, and to elect 5 people, including Mao, Zhu De, Liu, Zhou Enlai, and Ren Bishi (the five secretaries of the CCP, equivalent to the Standing Committee of the Central Politburo), to form the Central Secretariat. Mao was elected as the Chairman of the CCP Central Committee and Chairman of the Politburo and the Secretariat. On 19 June, Liu attended the first meeting of the first Plenary Session of the 7th CCP Central Committee and elected Liu as a member of the Politburo and Secretary of the Central Secretariat, and Mao as the Chairman of the CCP Central Committee and Chairman of the Politburo and the Central Secretariat. On 12 July, Liu attended the meeting of the Secretariat of the CCP Central Committee and approved Mao as Chairman of the CCP Central Revolutionary Military Commission, Zhu De, Liu, Zhou Enlai, and Peng Dehuai as Vice Chairmen, and Liu as Director of the General Political Department.

Resumption of the Civil War

After the end of the Second Sino-Japanese War, during the Chongqing negotiations between Mao and Chiang Kai-shek, the president of the Kuomintang, Liu was acting as the chairman of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party in Yan'an. He put forward the strategic policy of "developing northward and defending southward", and proposed the strategy of "giving way to the main road and occupying the two sides" adopted by the CCP in the Northeast situation. At the same time, he published the "Instructions of the CCP Central Committee on the Land Issue" (i.e. "May 4 Instructions"), and the CCP carried out land reform in the liberated areas. It changed the "rent reduction and interest reduction" policy during the War of Resistance Against Japan and distributed the land to the peasants to realize "land to the tiller".

In March 1947, the National Revolutionary Army captured Yan'an. Mao, Zhou Enlai, Ren Bishi and others stayed in northern Shaanxi to direct the Chinese Civil War. Liu Ze served as the secretary of the Central Working Committee and, together with Zhu De, Dong Biwu, Kang Sheng and others, led a part of the Central Committee to Xibaipo, Pingshan County, Hebei Province, to be responsible for the land reform movement in the occupied areas. After the Central Working Committee moved to Xibaipo, it guided the Jin-Cha-Ji Field Army to achieve victories in the Zhengtai Campaign, Qingcang Campaign, Baobei Campaign and Shijiazhuang Campaign, annihilating more than 62,000 National Revolutionary Army soldiers. From July to September, Liu presided over the National Land Conference in Xibaipo to discuss land reform policies and promulgated the Outline of the Land Law of China, confiscating the land of landlords and rich peasants and distributing it to poor peasants and middle peasants.

In April 1948, Mao, Zhou Enlai, and Ren Bishi led some members of the CCP Central Committee to Xibaipo, Pingshan County, Hebei Province, where they met with Zhu De and Liu. In May 1948, Liu concurrently served as the First Secretary of the CCP North China Bureau. Subsequently, Liu assisted in commanding the Liaoshen campaign, Huaihai campaign, and Pingjin campaign as Vice Chairman of the CCP Central Military Commission and Director of the General Political Department.

In March 1949, Liu participated in the second plenum of the 7th CCP Central Committee and spoke at the meeting. From June to August, Liu, Gao Gang, and Wang Jiaxiang led a CCP Central Committee delegation on a secret visit to the Soviet Union. The Soviet expert chief advisor Kovalev, Chinese staff members Deng Liqun, Ge Baoquan, Xu Jiefan, and translator Shi Zhe accompanied the visit. On 27 June, the delegation stayed at the Kuntsevo Villa and held its first meeting with Soviet leaders including Joseph Stalin, Vyacheslav Molotov, Georgy Malenkov and Anastas Mikoyan. The meeting covered topics such as loans to the Soviet Union, sending experts, management of cities such as Shanghai, policies on Xinjiang and ethnic minorities, the formation of a naval fleet, the Moscow-Beijing shipping route and supporting facilities, a discussion meeting on Chinese politics and military affairs with the Presidium of the CPSU, the establishment of state institutions and the management of industrial and commercial enterprises. Stalin also decided to lend $300 million to China and decided to sign the loan agreement in the name of the Northeast People's Government. On 2 July, the two sides held another meeting. The two sides held a total of six meetings (only one meeting was recorded, and the other two meetings had specific dates). During the talks, Liu communicated with Mao and others via telegram.

On 4 July, Liu reported to the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party and Stalin: "Regarding the treaties and agreements signed between the Kuomintang and foreign countries, we are prepared to handle them separately. The principle is that we are prepared to recognize and inherit those that are beneficial to the Chinese people and world peace and democracy. For example, the UN Charter, the Cairo Declaration, and the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Alliance. We are prepared to abolish those that are detrimental to the Chinese people and world peace and democracy. For example, the Sino-US Treaty of Commerce and Navigation. As for others, we are prepared to recognize them after revision. The Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Alliance has provided great assistance to the Chinese people in the past. In the future, the new Chinese government will inherit this treaty, which will make an even greater contribution to the people of both the Soviet Union and China, especially to the Chinese people. We are fully willing to inherit this treaty. When the Soviet Union and the new China establish diplomatic relations, this treaty needs to be dealt with. There are roughly three ways to handle it:"

1. The new Chinese government announced its full recognition of the treaty's continued validity without any modifications.
2. In accordance with the spirit of the original treaty, a new Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Alliance was to be signed by representatives of the two governments, with additions and subtractions to the text and content to be made in accordance with the new circumstances.
3. Representatives of the two governments exchanged letters to temporarily maintain the status quo of the treaty, but were prepared to re-sign it at an appropriate time.

"Which of these three approaches should be adopted?" To which Stalin replied that "We'll decide on this after Mao Zedong arrives in Moscow."

Liu said that "Among the democratic parties, students, and workers, some raised the issues of Soviet troops stationed in Port Arthur, Mongolian independence, and the removal of machinery from Northeast China by the Soviet Union.", to which Stalin replied: The Japanese assets we removed from Northeast China were only a portion, not all." Liu said that "We explained to these people that if we did not support Soviet troops stationed in Port Arthur when we ourselves could not even defend our own coastline, it would be aiding imperialism. Regarding the Mongolian People's Republic, we said: The Mongolian people demand independence, and according to the principle of national self-determination, we should recognize Mongolian independence. However, if the Mongolian People's Republic is willing to unite with China, we naturally welcome it. Only the Mongolian people have the right to decide this matter. The report introduced the political, economic and military situation in China and sought its opinion. It mentioned that China would lean to the Soviet Union and that the Soviet Union would "take away machinery and equipment" from Northeast China. It believed that "we explained it this way: these machines belonged to the Japanese. It was completely correct for the Soviet Union to take these things away as war booty to build socialism, so that they would not fall into the hands of the reactionaries and be used against the Chinese people."

In September, Liu attended the first plenary session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and was elected as Vice Chairman of the Central People's Government.

People's Republic of China

On 1 October 1949, Mao Zedong announced the founding of the People's Republic of China, with Liu present at founding ceremony. On 19 October, at the third meeting of the Central People's Government Council, Liu was elected as Vice Chairman of the People's Revolutionary Military Commission.

Land reform

On 6 June 1950, the third plenum of the 7th Central Committee established the Central Land Reform Committee, headed by Liu, to guide the Land Reform Movement. It promulgated and implemented the Land Reform Law, which included preserving the peasant economy, uniting and protecting the middle peasants, confiscating the landlords' land, and distributing land on the basis of the original cultivated land using the method of supplementary adjustment. Its reform was very effective. In 1952, the national agricultural output value increased by 48.5% compared with 1949 and by 15.3% compared with 1951; the total grain output increased by 42.8% compared with 1949; the total cotton output increased by 193.4% compared with 1949; while the personal life of farmers also improved. In 1952, Liu led the CCP delegation to participate in the 19th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the celebration of the 35th anniversary of the October Revolution.

In the early days of the PRC, Mao followed the Soviet model and established the State Planning Commission, with Gao Gang as its director. He transferred the economic departments that were originally under the Central People's Government Council, leaving Zhou Enlai in a powerless position, only in charge of foreign affairs. During the same period, Mao criticized Liu Shaoqi on several occasions, and Gao Gang believed that Mao intended to seize Liu Shaoqi's power. So he joined forces with Rao Shushi to take the opportunity to attack Liu Shaoqi, and the conflict between Liu and Gao worsened. So Liu and Zhou Enlai joined forces, and with Mao's consent, they criticized Gao Gang at the fourth plenum in February 1954, causing him to step down.

Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress

On 27 September 1954, Liu was elected Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress at the first session of the 1st National People's Congress. He then delivered a report on the draft Constitution of the People's Republic of China to the Congress on behalf of the Constitution Drafting Committee.

From 2 April to 9 April 1955, Liu invited leaders of provincial and municipal committees from Northwest, Southwest, Central, South, East, North and Northeast China to a meeting to hear their reports on local work. When discussing economic issues, Liu said: "The more industries that develop blindly, the greater the difficulties will be. Here is a lesson: not all development is good. If development is not planned and has a future, development itself is destructive." Liu Tong, a leader of the provincial party committees in the Central and Southern regions, said: "A one-size-fits-all approach to leadership is not feasible. There must be a division of labor, and various business agencies must be established." Liu Tong, a leader of the provincial party committees in the North China region, said: "The Party's failure to manage the Party's affairs is a whole problem. The Party committee is busy all day long and cannot manage the Party. What does it manage? It manages conscription, unified purchase and sales, basic construction, and other business. These things should be managed by business agencies. The Party should manage inspection work, political and ideological work, and organizational work." Liu said: "If there are capable business departments to do all aspects of the work, the Party committee can free up its hands to do what it should do. … It can stand in a supervisory position to guide and help the work of business departments, that is, to manage cadres, inspect work, and do political and ideological work, without having to directly manage their business. … In the future, the Party's leadership over government departments will be in principle like this."

From 15 to 27 September 1956, the 8th CCP National Congress was held in Beijing. Liu delivered a political report to the Congress on behalf of the Central Committee. Liu advocated that after the completion of socialist transformation, the focus of the Party's work should be shifted to social productive forces. On 28 September, the first plenum of the 8th Central Committee was held, and Liu was elected as a member of the Politburo Standing Committee and Vice Chairman of the CCP Central Committee. He played an important role in formulating the country's political, economic, cultural, educational, and diplomatic policies. On 23 October, Liu led a CCP delegation consisting of General Secretary Deng Xiaoping, Head of the International Department Wang Jiaxiang and Alternate Secretary of the Secretariat Hu Qiaomu to Moscow for a secret visit to the Soviet Union. On the evening of 30 October, at a meeting of the Presidium of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Liu, on behalf of the CCP delegation, objected to the Soviet Army's withdrawal from Hungary following the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, believing that it was inappropriate to hand over Hungary to anti-government forces that used violent means. On the evening of 31 October, Liu and the delegation returned to China, and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev and other important members of the CPSU Presidium saw them off at the airport.

On 10 November, Liu delivered a report on the international situation at the second plenum of the 8th Central Committee: "In countries ruled by the working class, that is, in our socialist countries, is there a possibility and a condition for the emergence of a class of workers' aristocrats? If we do not pay attention and let it run its course, a new 'aristocratic class' may also emerge in our countries. It can emerge in the working class and also in the Communist Party. I think there is such a possibility. But if we pay attention and take some measures, it may not necessarily emerge and can be avoided. Therefore, I have thought about it personally, and I also talked about it at the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau yesterday. We need to take some measures and measures to raise our attention to this issue and educate the Party and the people. In addition, we need to stipulate some necessary systems so that our country will not develop into a special class that stands on the people's head and is detached from the people in the future. At a State Council meeting in February, Mao repeatedly warned against "pouring cold water" on the economic plan, which was being proposed too ambitiously. Premier Zhou Enlai said, "Wash it with cold water." Liu also supported Zhou, saying, "Some people are too hot-headed now and have proposed too high a goal." Two different ideas began to emerge. Mao was very displeased with the "anti-rash advance" proposed by Liu, Zhou and others. Once, Liu revised the People's Daily editorial draft which was against impatience and submitted it to Mao for review. Mao directly instructed that he would not read it. Mao later said, "Anti-rash advance has discouraged 600 million people and is a policy error."

In 1957, Liu said in an investigation: "Engels said that we must prevent the state and state organs from becoming social servants and social masters. The leaders of our party, government, state and economic organs were originally servants of the people and servants of society. Now some of our comrades have become masters, treating the people as servants, and they are not even aware of it. This is wrong. All our leaders serve the people, are servants of the people, and are servants of the people. They have no right to be masters. Because if they do not do this, they cannot treat the masses as people like themselves. When dealing with the internal affairs of the masses, they cannot treat ordinary workers, ordinary farmers, and ordinary students as our party members and cadres. We must trust the masses, and then the masses will trust us. If we do not trust the masses, the masses will not trust us." Then came the third plenum of the 8th Central Committee in 1957 to oppose "anti-rash advance". Zhou Enlai made a self-criticism, while Liu thought to himself, "We are always far behind Chairman Mao." The side supporting Mao took the initiative, thus starting the prelude to the Great Leap Forward.

Great Leap Forward

In 1955, Mao launched a high tide of merging agricultural cooperatives into large communes. By the beginning of 1958, under Mao's proposal, China launched the Great Leap Forward. Liu, as a front-line leader, actively participated in the decision-making and implementation of the Great Leap Forward. In March, the Chengdu Conference proposed to "merge large communes" in accordance with Mao's proposals, which marked the first step in the establishment of the people's commune system. At the end of April, Liu and Zhou Enlai and several others began to "blow about communes" and "blow about utopia", advocating large-scale establishment of communes, large-scale establishment of public canteens, large-scale steel production, and the implementation of the supply system, and put these into practice in their work. Liu spoke strongly in favor of the Great Leap Forward at the 8th CCP National Congress in May 1958. At this Congress Liu stood together with Deng Xiaoping and Peng Zhen in support of Mao's policies against those who were more critical, such as Chen Yun and Zhou Enlai. In June, after Mao approved the report that "it will surpass Britain in two years", Liu also followed suit and declared that steel production could catch up with Britain in two or three years and surpass the United States in seven or eight years. Like Mao, he also publicly fueled the exaggerated behavior when he conducted on-site inspections of agricultural production. Mao later demanded that some excessive targets be reduced. After the problems of the Great Leap Forward began to emerge at the end of 1958, Liu admitted that "I was also a bit hot-headed and said some excessive things". In the spring of 1959, Mao further demanded "correcting the left" and "reducing the air".

Chairman of the People's Republic of China

Shortly after the founding of the PRC, Mao designated Liu as his successor. In December 1953, Mao proposed that Liu take charge of the "front line" work and that he himself retire to the "second line". At the 8th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in 1956, Liu delivered a political report on behalf of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party and was elected as the first-ranked Vice Chairman of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. When Mao visited the Soviet Union at the end of 1957, he informed Khrushchev that Liu would succeed him as the Chairman of the People's Republic of China. At the end of 1958, Mao's proposal not to be re-elected as the State Chairman was adopted by the sixth plenum of the 8th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party.

On the eve of the 2nd National People's Congress in 1959, Mao made small-scale briefings on various occasions to prepare for Liu's succession. On 10 March, an uprising in Tibet centered on Lhasa occurred. On 11, 12, 14 March and 17, Deng Xiaoping attended meetings convened by Liu to study how to deal with the rebellion of the reactionary upper class in Tibet. Liu and Deng Xiaoping said at the meeting: "Eight years have passed since the peaceful liberation of Tibet. We have not carried out democratic reforms because we were waiting for the upper class to realize their mistakes." "Now some upper class members are going to rebel, forcing us to carry out reforms." On 27 April, Liu was elected State Chairman at the 2nd National People's Congress, while Soong Ching-ling and Dong Biwu were elected as Vice Chairpersons. In late October, when meeting with model workers attending the National Congress of Heroes, Liu said to Shi Chuanxiang, a sanitation worker in Beijing : "You are a servant of the people when you clean the latrines, and I am also a servant of the people when I am the chairman. This is just a difference in the division of labor in the revolution, and both are indispensable parts of the revolutionary cause."

Liu's work focused on party organizational and theoretical affairs. He drafted party regulations and oversaw the organizational development of the party consistent with Marxist–Leninist principles. He was an orthodox Soviet-style Communist and favored state planning and the development of heavy industry. He elaborated upon his political and economic beliefs in his writings. His best known works include How to be a Good Communist (1939), On the Party (1945), and Internationalism and Nationalism (1952).

Lushan Conference

The Lushan Conference was held from 2 July to 1 August 1959. On 14 July, Peng Dehuai wrote to Mao, stating his thoughts on the mistakes and lessons learned from the Great Leap Forward and the People's Commune movement since 1958; Mao did not comment, but on 16 July, he added the "Comrade Peng Dehuai's Opinion Letter" and printed it for reference by all the comrades present. On 23 July, Mao convened a plenary meeting and harshly criticized Peng's letter. He said that the opinions put forward by Peng and others as "bourgeois wavering" and "right-leaning". As a result, Liu and others who attended the meeting began to criticize Peng, leading the meeting to turn from "correcting the left" to "opposing the right". According to Mao's proposal, the eighth plenum of the 8th Central Committee was held from 2 to 16 August. The plenum further criticized the so-called "Peng Dehuai, Huang Kecheng, Zhang Wentian and Zhou Xiaozhou anti-Party clique" and passed the resolution "Struggle to Defend the Party's General Line and Oppose Right Opportunism" and the resolution "On the Errors of the Anti-Party Clique Headed by Comrade Peng Dehuai". After the Lushan Conference, Liu said at the Supreme State Conference that in order to gain experience for progress, even if mistakes are made, they should be understood from a positive perspective. On the other hand, in order to maintain Mao's authority, Liu still participated in the wave of unprecedentedly high-profile calls for Mao's cult of personality, which made it difficult to correct the mistakes of the Great Leap Forward for a while.

Great Chinese Famine

On 3 January 1961, at the third briefing of the Central Committee working conference to discuss the 1961 national economic plan, Liu said: "It seems that last year, the increase from 18.4 million tons of steel to 20.4 million tons was a mistake. The basic spirit of this year's plan is to ease the situation and contradictions and to leave room for maneuver. There is room for maneuver in every matter." On 9 January, at the fifth briefing of the Central Committee working conference, he said: "It seems that the peasants are very vulnerable in terms of economy. Being vulnerable in terms of economy, they are also vulnerable in terms of resistance to illegal and disorderly conduct. This economic vulnerability and political vulnerability are very easy to cause problems. In the future, our leaders at all levels should be particularly careful in dealing with peasant issues and make peasants' lives better." On April 1, he arrived in Changsha from Guangzhou and began to conduct in-depth investigations and research in rural Hunan. During the visit, he learned the damage caused by the Great Leap Forward. After conducting on-site investigations in his hometown in Hunan and visiting various places, Liu's thinking changed significantly. He decided to disband the canteens, emphasize investigation and research, and begin to correct the excesses of the Great Leap Forward.

Seven Thousand Cadres Conference

On 27 January 1962, Liu delivered a report on behalf of the Central Committee and officially sent it to the delegates of the Enlarged Meeting of the Central Committee, known as the Seven Thousand Cadres Conference. After the Standing Committee agreed, Liu gave a long speech at the conference, supplementing the report: "In the past, we often compared shortcomings, mistakes and achievements to the relationship between one finger and nine fingers. Now we probably can't apply this everywhere. In some areas, we can still say that. In those places, although there are shortcomings and mistakes, they may only be one finger, while the achievements are nine fingers. However, in general, the relationship between shortcomings and achievements in the whole country cannot be said to be one finger and nine fingers, but rather three fingers and seven fingers. In some areas, the shortcomings and mistakes are more than three fingers. If we say that the shortcomings and mistakes in these places are only three fingers, while the achievements are seven fingers, this is not in line with the actual situation and cannot convince people. When I went to a place in Hunan, the farmers said that 'three parts natural disaster and seven parts man-made disaster.' If you don't admit it, people won't accept it. In some parts of the country, we can say that shortcomings and mistakes are the main ones, and achievements are not the main ones."

At the meeting, Mao, as Chairman of the CCP, assumed the responsibilities of the Central Committee, while Deng Xiaoping and Zhou Enlai, representing the Secretariat of the CCP Central Committee and the State Council respectively, made self-criticisms. Liu organized criticism of the lessons learned from the Great Leap Forward and other campaigns, sharply pointing out that the Great Leap Forward was "three parts natural disaster and seven parts man-made disaster." As the State Chairman in charge of frontline work, Liu demanded that the entire Party correct its shortcomings and errors, overcome difficulties, and do a good job in adjusting the national economy. The report proposed strengthening centralized and unified leadership, opposing decentralism, and striving for a more rapid fundamental improvement in the national economy. The report elaborated on the Party's fine traditions and style, such as seeking truth from facts and adhering to the mass line, and seriously criticized the phenomena of falsehood, exaggeration, coercion, and serious detachment from the masses among cadres in recent years. It demanded that the entire Party overcome subjectivism, bureaucracy, commandism, decentralism, and other bad ideas and styles, and greatly strengthen the Party's fighting capacity."

During the Seven Thousand Cadres Conference, in order to exonerate the millions of cadres who had been labeled as "Peng Dehuai elements" and "right-leaning elements," and in response to the delegates' demands to overturn the verdict on Peng Dehuai's "challenge letter" incident, Liu said at the conference that there was no problem with the letter Peng Dehuai wrote to Chairman Mao, but that Peng Dehuai's problem was "colluding with foreign countries". Liu's characterization made it impossible for Peng Dehuai to be exonerated. Liu also made a severe characterization.

After the Seven Thousand Cadres Conference, on 8 February, Liu spoke at the Central Committee. He said: "We must create an atmosphere in which people can speak freely. This is true within the Party and even more so outside the Party. Under no circumstances should the Party replace the government or the trade unions, because Party members are always a minority. We must give full play to the role of the people's congress system and implement people's democracy through this system." From 21 February to 23 February, Liu presided over the enlarged meeting of the Politburo Standing Committee in Beijing, namely the Xilou Meeting. Liu began to make comprehensive adjustments to the national economy. Both Liu and Zhou Enlai advocated that Chen Yun be the head of the Central Financial and Economic Group. In 1939, Liu published his important work On the Self-Cultivation of Communist Party Members in Yan'an, emphasizing that Communist Party members should strengthen their self-cultivation after seizing power. On 1 August, it was republished by the People's Daily and Red Flag. During the reprinting process, the book still retained some of the original texts criticizing Chen Duxiu, such as "shamelessly demanding that our party members respect him as they respect Marx and Lenin, support him as their leader, and repay him with their heart and enthusiasm." "He is complacent, likes to teach others, likes to lecture others, and likes to command others. He always wants to climb on top of others, and does not humbly learn from others, especially from the masses, and does not accept others' correct opinions and criticisms." Mao believed that this was an allusion to himself. During the Cultural Revolution, this reprint was severely criticized and called "Black Cultivation".

From 25 July to 24 August, the Central Committee held a working conference in Beidaihe. On 6 August, Mao delivered a speech on the issues of "class, situation and contradiction" at the conference. He then interrupted the central group meetings six times to severely criticize the "dark wind" and the "individual farming wind". On 11 August, at the central group meeting, Liu made a self-criticism regarding the assessment of the situation at the May Central Working Conference, admitting that the assessment of difficulties was "overestimated".

From 24 to 27 September, he attended the tenth plenum of the 8th Central Committee. The meeting adopted the "Decision on Further Consolidating the Collective Economy of the People's Commune and Developing Agricultural Production", the "Regulations on the Work of Rural People's Communes (Revised Draft)", the "Decision on Commercial Work", the "Decision on the Planned and Step-by-Step Exchange of Leading Cadres of the Party and Government at All Levels" and the "Decision on Strengthening the Party's Supervisory Organs". The plenum affirmed the achievements made since the 9th plenum of the 8th Central Committee in implementing the eight-character policy and strengthening the agricultural front, and decided to continue to adhere to the policy of adjusting the national economy. On the 24th, Mao delivered a speech at the plenum on class, situation, contradictions and unity within the Party, exaggerating and absolutizing the class struggle that still exists within a certain scope in socialist society. He also criticized the "dark wind", "individual farming wind" and "reversal of verdicts wind" again On 26 September, Liu spoke at the meeting, expressing his agreement with Mao's opinion, and at the same time stipulated that the spirit of this meeting should only be conveyed to cadres at the administrative level 17 and above, and required the whole Party not to relax economic work and to put work first. Liu, Zhou Enlai, Deng Xiaoping and others tried to continue to shift the core of the central work from class struggle to economic adjustment work.

Three-Year Recovery Period and the Socialist Education Movement

In 1964, Liu visited Hebei, Shandong, Anhui, Jiangsu, Shanghai, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Guangdong, Guangxi, Yunnan and other places to inspect economic construction. After inspecting the grassroots, he and Deng Xiaoping established an emergency committee and proposed the "Sixty Articles on Agriculture" and "Three Self-Management and One Contract", and began to adjust the national economy, leading economic development from exaggerated idealism to pragmatism. Mao clearly felt that Liu and Deng were implementing a political line completely different from his own. At the National Work Conference at the end of 1964, Mao criticized the Four Cleanups and Five Antis, and the two sides had fierce contradictions, which caused the relationship between Liu, Deng Xiaoping and Mao to break down. At the end of the same year, Liu attended the first session of the 3rd National People's Congress and was re-elected as State Chairman and served as Chairman of the National Defense Commission. During the three-year famine, Zhongnanhai implemented a system of self-reporting of food rations by senior cadres. At that time, Mao and Zhu De reported 13 kilograms per month, Zhou Enlai reported 12 kilograms per month, and Liu reported 9 kilograms per month. Liu was the cadre in Zhongnanhai who reported the least amount.

In 1962, Mao reiterated the class struggle and criticized the "dark wind", "reversal of verdicts" and "individual farming" within the CCP. These "three winds" were more or less related to Liu. Liu accepted Mao's theory of anti-revisionism and prevention of revisionism. He not only made self-criticism and severely criticized the "three winds", but also said that "the question of who wins and who loses between the two classes has not yet been resolved" and "we must strengthen socialist education and prepare for capitalist restoration." However, at this time, Liu did not regard "capitalist restoration" as a real danger. The targets of the class struggle he mentioned at that time were only social problems such as "speculation and profiteering, embezzlement and theft, as well as some serious extravagance and waste, serious degeneration and deterioration, lawlessness and disorder, and serious decentralism". This was significantly different from Mao's understanding of the seriousness of class struggle. From September 1963, the Sino-Soviet polemic was fully launched. Against the backdrop of international "anti-revisionism" and domestic "prevention of revisionism", Liu began to shift his energy to the socialist education movement that was being fully launched (the "Four Cleanups" in the countryside and the "Five Antis" in the cities). Liu presided over the revision of the "Later Ten Articles," which was approved by Mao and distributed to the entire people along with the "First Ten Articles," thus launching the "Four Cleanups" movement in full swing. As the movement progressed, Liu's understanding of carrying out the socialist education movement also underwent a major change. He accepted Mao's theory of "opposing revisionism and preventing revisionism" and believed that "revisionism is a kind of bourgeois ideology, a reflection of bourgeois ideology within socialist countries and within the Communist Party."

In November 1963, Liu Shaoqi's wife, Wang Guangmei, joined the "Four Cleanups" work team and went to Taoyuan Brigade, Luwangzhuang Commune, Funing County, Hebei Province to guide the "Four Cleanups" campaign. The "Taoyuan Experience", which she summarized, served as the blueprint for the "Socialist Education Movement" of "focusing on key points to drive overall progress." At the beginning of the movement, Liu's assessment of the situation and his proposed policies were approved by Mao. However, as the movement deepened, excessive actions emerged, and the differences between Liu and Mao in their understanding and practice of class struggle gradually surfaced. Liu believed that the focus of "anti-revisionism and prevention of revisionism" was at the grassroots level, and the "Four Cleanups" movement he spearheaded aimed to severely crack down on "landlords, rich peasants, counter-revolutionaries, and bad elements" and grassroots cadres deemed to have become revisionists. Mao, on the other hand, believed that the root of revisionism lay in the upper echelons of the Party, stating that a "bureaucratic class" had formed within the Party. At the Central Work Conference at the end of 1964, the differences between Mao and Liu became public. Mao proposed that the main contradiction at that time was the contradiction between capitalism and socialism, and the focus of the movement was to rectify the capitalist road faction in the Party and oppose pointing the spearhead at the grassroots level. Liu said that the nature of the movement was the intertwining of contradictions among the people and contradictions between the enemy and ourselves, and opposed elevating all contradictions to the nature of the enemy and ourselves. At the meeting, Mao had the upper hand, and the "Four Cleanups" movement was redeployed according to Mao's opinion, which to some extent corrected the excessive bias of cracking down on grassroots cadres. However, Mao's proposal of "focusing on rectifying the capitalist road faction in the Party" expanded the class struggle and prepared the theoretical premise for launching a larger-scale movement in the next step. At this time, Mao had already linked Liu with "revisionism in the Central Committee", and the two policies on class struggle represented by Liu and Mao in the Central Committee were finally no longer compatible.

The economic policies of Deng and Liu were notable for being more moderate than Mao's radical ideas. For example, in the period when the economic turmoil of the Great Leap Forward prompted the Party to delay the Third Five Year Plan, Liu led a group of high officials who worked to revive the economy through an increased role for markets, greater material incentives for workers, a lower rate of investment, a more moderate pace for developmental goals, and increased funding for consumer industries. During preliminary work on the Third Five Year Plan, Liu stated:

In the past, the infrastructure battlefront was too long. There were too many projects. Demands were too high and rushed. Designs were done badly, and projects were hurriedly begun ... We only paid attention to increasing output and ignored quality. We set targets too highly. We must always remember these painful learning experiences.

Liu was among the senior officials who in 1964 were initially reluctant to support Mao's proposed Third Front campaign to develop basic industry and national defense industry in China's interior to address the risk of invasion by the United States or the Soviet Union. In an effort to stall, Liu proposed additional surveys and planning. Academic Covell F. Meyskens writes that Liu and the high-ranking colleagues who agreed with him did not want to engage in another rapid industrialization campaign so soon after the failure of the Great Leap Forward and that instead they sought to continue the gradual approach of developing areas and increasing consumption. When fears of American invasion increased after the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, Liu and his colleagues changed their views and began fully supporting the Third Front construction.

Cultural Revolution

Liu was publicly acknowledged as Mao's chosen successor in 1961; however, by 1962 his opposition to Mao's policies had led Mao to mistrust him. After Mao succeeded in restoring his prestige during the 1960s, Liu's eventual downfall became "inevitable". Liu's position as the second-most powerful leader of the CCP contributed to Mao's rivalry with him at least as much as Liu's political beliefs or factional allegiances in the 1960s, especially during and after the Seven Thousand Cadres Conference, indicating that Liu's later persecution was the result of a power struggle that went beyond the goals and well-being of either China or the Party.

By 1966, few senior leaders in China questioned the need for a widespread reform to combat the growing problems of corruption and bureaucratization within the Party and the government. In November 1965, the debate surrounding the play Hai Rui Dismissed from Office brought the Cultural Revolution, launched by Mao, to the forefront. In May 1966, the Cultural Revolution finally erupted, plunging the entire country into chaos with the Red Guard movement. In the early stages of the Cultural Revolution, Liu shared Mao's views on certain issues. With the goal of reforming the government to be more efficient and true to the Communist ideal, Liu himself chaired the enlarged Politburo meeting that officially began the Cultural Revolution. On 27 June 1966, at a symposium with democratic figures convened by the Central Committee in the Anhui Hall of the Great Hall of the People, Liu discussed the issues of Peng Zhen, Luo Ruiqing, Lu Dingyi, and Yang Shangkun. "The relationship between Peng, Luo, Lu, and Yang is abnormal… Their common characteristic is that they oppose Chairman Mao and Mao Zedong Thought, and they are all engaged in underground activities." "The Peng, Luo, Lu, and Yang incident has the potential to lead to a coup, which is a reflection of the intense international and domestic class struggle within our party leadership." He concluded by saying, "We now support Chairman Mao, and we will support Chairman Mao after he passes away. Mao Zedong Thought must continue, and Chairman Mao's works should become the textbooks of the people of the whole country, the action guide of the people of the whole country, and the action guide of all party members. Mao Zedong Thought is the beacon of mankind and the sharp weapon of world revolution. Mao Zedong Thought can change the face of China and the face of the world. We have used Mao Zedong Thought to defeat all anti-party elements, and we can also defeat all domestic reactionaries and all foreign reactionaries."

However, the differences between the two sides gradually increased. In dealing with some specific issues of the Cultural Revolution, the contradictions between the two sides rose and fell. In June 1966, Liu and Deng Xiaoping organized work teams to enter universities and middle schools, prohibiting students from marching and demonstrating and posting big-character posters, and directing the struggle against the "five black categories". Mao was very annoyed by this: "Communists are afraid of student movements, which is anti-Marxist." He ordered the work teams to be withdrawn. On 18 July, after returning to Beijing from swimming in the Yangtze River in Wuhan, Mao refused Liu's request to meet and first listened to the report from Jiang Qing and others. From 19 to 23 July, Liu presided over the "Report Meeting on the Situation of the Cultural Revolution". There were obvious differences of opinion on the issue of sending work teams. Chen Boda, Kang Sheng, Guan Feng and others expressed their opposition. On 24–25 July, Mao convened the Standing Committee of the Central Committee, members of the Cultural Revolution Group, and secretaries of the Central Bureau, and harshly criticized Liu and Deng Xiaoping for sending work teams to suppress the student movement. He said that only the Beiyang warlords suppressed the student movement, and accused them of setting up frameworks such as "distinguishing between insiders and outsiders" to lead the movement astray. He also said that the work teams "have a bad effect on the movement and hinder the movement", and that the work teams should be abolished and their leaders dismissed. At the eleventh plenum in August 1966, the "Decision of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party on the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" was adopted. Mao directly targeted Liu with the goal of "bombarding the bourgeois headquarters". At the same time, Lin Biao replaced Liu as the second-in-command of the CCP. Although Liu was still a member of the Standing Committee of the Politburo, his ranking dropped to 8th. At the same time, his status as Vice Chairman of the CCP Central Committee was no longer mentioned. At the enlarged meeting of the Politburo on 16 October, Liu was criticized by Chen Boda, Lin Biao and others. Subsequently, the rebels used big-character posters and other means to criticize Liu and Deng Xiaoping repeatedly. Mao criticized this approach, and Zhou Enlai, Tao Zhu and others stepped forward to stop it on many occasions.

Downfall

At the Central Party Congress in October 1966, which lasted for nearly three weeks, Liu and Deng Xiaoping were identified as representatives of the "bourgeois reactionary line" and made self-criticisms. The contents were printed and distributed throughout the country. This became one of the most well-known crimes in the Cultural Revolution. However, Liu and Deng were still members of the Politburo Standing Committee and had not been formally dismissed. On 8 November, Nie Yuanzi, who posted the "first Marxist–Leninist big-character poster in the country", and 10 others posted a big-character poster entitled "Deng Xiaoping is a capitalist roader in the Party". In December 1966, the Liu issue was finally made public. Jiang Qing publicly declared that "Liu Shaoqi is the Khrushchev of the Party". Slogans of "Down with Liu Shaoqi" appeared in Beijing. On 18 December, the Central Committee agreed to establish a special investigation group to investigate Wang Guangmei. On 24 December, Qi Benyu stated at the Beijing Mining Institute that "Liu and Deng are the biggest capitalist roaders in the Party". On 25 December, Kuai Dafu, the "rebel commander," led more than 5,000 people in Beijing to shout slogans such as "Down with Liu Shaoqi" and "Down with Deng Xiaoping" and posted them on the Tiananmen wall, based on Zhang Chunqiao's instructions on 18 December. The "Wang Guangmei Special Case Group" was responsible for investigating Liu and Wang Guangmei, and it was not until April 1968 that it was openly operating under the name of "Liu Shaoqi and Wang Guangmei Special Case Group" Xie Fuzhi served as the group leader and person in charge of the special case work, while Jiang Qing and Kang Sheng were the decision-makers and commanders.

On 1 January 1967, students from more than 20 colleges and universities in Beijing and some members of the public held a march and rally in Tiananmen Square to denounce the crimes of Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping. With the support and encouragement of the "Central Cultural Revolution Group", schools in Beijing also put up big-character posters with slogans such as "Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping are the biggest bourgeois power holders in the Party, the founders of modern Chinese revisionism, and the black commanders of the bourgeois headquarters" and "Down with Liu and Deng". At the same time, Peng Dehuai, who had been "overthrown" six years earlier, was escorted back to Beijing and subjected to criticism and struggle sessions with Peng Zhen, Luo Ruiqing and others. On 1 January 1967, the rebels in Zhongnanhai posted big-character posters at Liu's residence, and posted slogans such as "Down with China's Khrushchev Liu Shaoqi" on the courtyard wall. On the evening of the 3rd, under the instigation of Qi Benyu and others, the rebels criticized and struggled against Liu and Wang Guangmei for the first time. On 6 January, the rebels at Tsinghua University set a trap to lure Liu and Wang Guangmei out of Zhongnanhai and forcibly detained Wang Guangmei. She was later released after Zhou Enlai intervened. On 13 January, Mao sent his secretary to meet Liu for a talk (inquiring about Liu's family situation). Liu offered to resign from his positions as Chairman of the State, member of the Standing Committee of the Central Committee, and director of the Editorial Committee of the Selected Works of Mao Zedong, and was willing to go to Yan'an or his hometown to farm with his wife and children. Mao only told him to "study hard and take care of his health" and recommended that he read Mechanical Materialism, Mechanical Man and Huainanzi. In the following days, the telephone line in Liu's office was removed. Liu lost his personal freedom.

In early March 1967, Chen Boda and Kang Sheng conveyed Mao's instructions at a meeting of cadres above the rank of army and began to criticize "On the Self-Cultivation of Communists". On 8 May, in the name of the editorial department of People's Daily and Red Flag, a long critical article entitled "The crux of 'Self-Cultivation' is betrayal of the dictatorship of the proletariat" was published. On 11 May, a special notice from the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party was issued, saying that the article had been discussed and approved by the enlarged meeting of the Standing Committee of the Politburo and personally approved by Mao. "It is hoped that the revolutionary comrades in all units will seriously organize study and discussion, and further carry out a major criticism movement against the largest handful of capitalist roaders in power in the Party." On the 18th, People's Daily and Red Flag published an editorial department article entitled "The Great Historical Document", using "China's Khrushchev" as a synonym to criticize Liu Shaoqi in an exaggerated way. At a meeting to criticize Liu Shaoqi in June, someone found Liu Shaoqi's ex-wife Wang Jian through connections and asked her to expose and criticize Liu at the meeting.

Whatever its other causes, the Cultural Revolution, declared in 1966, was overtly pro-Maoist, and gave Mao the power and influence to purge the Party of his political enemies at the highest levels of government. Along with closing China's schools and universities, and Mao's exhortations to young Chinese to randomly destroy old buildings, temples, and art, and to attack their teachers, school administrators, party leaders, and parents, the Cultural Revolution also increased Mao's prestige so much that entire villages adopted the practice of offering prayers to Mao before every meal. In both national politics and Chinese popular culture, Mao established himself as a demigod accountable to no one, purging any that he suspected of opposing him and directing the masses and Red Guards "to destroy virtually all state and party institutions". After the Cultural Revolution was announced, most of the most senior members of the CCP who had voiced any hesitation in following Mao's direction, including Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping, were removed from their posts almost immediately and, with their families, subjected to mass criticism and humiliation. Liu and Deng, along with many others, were denounced as "capitalist roaders". Liu was labeled as the "commander of China's bourgeoisie headquarters", China's foremost "capitalist roader", "the biggest capitalist roader in the Party", and a traitor to the revolution; he was displaced as Vice Chairman of the CCP by Lin Biao in July 1966.

In 1967, Liu and his wife Wang Guangmei were placed under house arrest in Beijing. Liu's major economic positions were attacked, including his Three Freedoms and One Guarantee (which promoted private land plots, free markets, independent accounting for small enterprises, and household output quotas) and "four freedoms" (which permitted individuals in the countryside to lease land, lend money, hire wage laborers, and engage in trade). In early July, Jiang Qing and others instructed the masses of Beijing Construction Engineering College to set up a loudspeaker at the west gate of Zhongnanhai, claiming that they would drag Liu out of Zhongnanhai and "struggle to discredit him." Subsequently, hundreds of organizations from Beijing universities went to support him, forming a "Liu-grabbing front line," besieging and attacking Zhongnanhai for a month. On the 14th, Mao left Beijing. On the 18th, Jiang Qing, Kang Sheng, and Chen Boda organized a mass meeting to criticize Liu and Wang Guangmei, insulting them and forcing them to bow their heads and bend over for more than two hours and ransacking their homes. In the same year, the CCP theoretical journal Red Flag published Qi Benyu's article "Patriotism or Treason?" in its fifth issue, pointing the finger at Liu:

The biggest capitalist roader in power within the Party defended himself by saying that he was an "old revolutionary who encountered new problems." Could there really be such an "old revolutionary" who was so crazy about capitalist restoration? Could there really be such an "old revolutionary" who was so rampant in opposing the great leader Chairman Mao and the great Mao Zedong Thought? There is only one answer: you are not an "old revolutionary" at all, you are a fake revolutionary, a counter-revolutionary, you are Khrushchev sleeping next to us!

On 8 August 1967, Liu resigned again, but his subsequent letters went unanswered. Liu eventually realized that arguing was futile, so he gave up writing letters and making appeals and remained silent, ultimately choosing to express his silent resistance. However, the criticism did not decrease; on 27 August – 30 August 1967, the People's Daily published front-page news, directly pointing out that Liu was "China's Khrushchev".

Expulsion from the CCP

At the twelfth plenum of the 8th Central Committee in 1968, some members of the Central Committee were deprived of their right to attend the meeting. Some members of the Central Committee who attended the meeting were continuously criticized and struggled against. Among the members and alternate members of the 8th Central Committee, those who were labeled as "traitors," "spies," "colluding with foreign countries," and "anti-Party elements" accounted for 71% of the total. On 20 May 1968, Mao said in "Talk with Members of the Central Cultural Revolution Group Meeting": "The case of Liu Shaoqi is almost over now." On 18 October, the Central Committee Special Case Review Group, including Zhou Enlai, Jiang Qing, Kang Sheng, Xie Fuzhi, and others, put forward the "Report on the Investigation of the Crimes of Traitor, Spy, and Scab Liu Shaoqi", which included the investigation results of Liu's counter-revolutionary crimes of being arrested, betraying, surrendering to the enemy, acting as a spy, and scab in 1925, 1927, and 1929.

On 31 October, the twelfth plenum of the 8th Central Committee approved the report, which considered him to be "Liu Shaoqi, the number one capitalist roader in power in the Party, a traitor, spy, and scab buried in the Party, and a lackey of imperialism, modern revisionism, and the Kuomintang reactionaries with a long list of crimes." The resolution was passed: "Liu Shaoqi is to be expelled from the Party forever, removed from all his posts inside and outside the Party, and continue to settle accounts with Liu Shaoqi and his accomplices for their crimes of betraying the Party and the country." It also called on "all comrades in the Party and the people of the whole country to continue to carry out a large-scale revolutionary struggle to eliminate the counter-revolutionary revisionist thoughts of Liu Shaoqi and the largest handful of capitalist roaders in the Party." Among all the attendees, only Chen Shaomin opposed the resolution. After Liu was dismissed, the position of State Chairman was vacant for a long time until the 4th National People's Congress was held in 1975 to amend the Constitution and formally abolish it.

On 17 October, the People's Daily published the Central Committee's decision to continue attacking Liu as China's Khrushchev. On 27 November, the People's Daily "exposed" Liu's attacks on the three red banners of the General Line, the Great Leap Forward, and the People's Commune, which Mao had personally established, and his rampant peddling of Khrushchev's revisionist black goods. He was also frantically carrying out criminal activities against the Party, socialism, and Mao Zedong Thought. He was a lackey of American imperialism and Soviet modern revisionism, and an accomplice of the reactionaries. On 1 April 1969, the 9th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party was held, where Liu was denounced as a traitor and an enemy agent. At the formal meeting of the 9th Congress, Lin Biao delivered a political report on behalf of the CCP Central Committee which stated that the Cultural Revolution had "destroyed the bourgeois headquarters headed by Liu Shaoqi, a traitor, spy, and scab, exposed a small handful of traitors, spies, and unrepentant capitalist roaders in power within the Party, with Liu Shaoqi as the general representative, and crushed their conspiracy to restore capitalism". Zhou Enlai read the Party verdict that Liu was "a criminal traitor, enemy agent and scab in the service of the imperialists, modern revisionists and the Kuomintang reactionaries". Liu's conditions did not improve after he was denounced in the Congress, and he died soon afterward.

Illness and death

In early 1968, Liu remained imprisoned in solitary confinement in Fuluju, Zhongnanhai and his physical and mental health deteriorated. He suffered from pneumonia, diabetes, hypertension and vegetative nervous system disorders and by mid-April, struggled to move his legs and lacked mental clarity. In early July, Liu suffered an acute bronchitis, which developed into bronchopneumonia. This saw several doctors from Beijing Hospital and military hospitals urgently gather to consult and treat Liu. After consultation, the doctors believed that "the patient's condition is very critical and an accident may occur at any time" and suggested hospitalization, but this was rejected. The doctors were forced to treat Liu by borrowing medical equipment from the hospital and stabilise him onsite. On 24 July, Liu was stabilised but remained in poor condition. He required constant care and was bedbound. He suffered frequently bronchopneumonia and his condition gradually worsened over the following months.

After 9 October, Liu was unable to eat anything at all and had to be fed through a nasogastric tube. The Zhongnanhai Clinic's "Report on Liu Shaoqi's Condition" on 14 October stated: "Since suffering from severe bronchopneumonia in early July, he has had repeated relapses, with five major relapses in more than three months." "If there are any more serious relapses in the future, he may not be able to be saved. He has coronary artery disease, cerebral arteriosclerosis and cerebral softening, plus diabetes, which may also cause sudden changes. We must prevent him from dying in the short term." On 7 and 9 November, he suffered from vomiting and fever and by mid-January 1969 developed muscle degeneration and incontinence.

On 5 July 1969, Liu's bronchopneumonia relapsed, and his body temperature rose to 39°C. After consultation, the doctors unanimously agreed that the situation was serious. The Zhongnanhai Clinic's "Report on Liu Shaoqi's Condition" stated: "Because of his advanced age, long-term illness and long-term bed rest, he is thin and has extremely poor resistance. He is prone to complications such as shock, heart failure, and diabetic ketoacidosis. Therefore, the prognosis is poor and he may die at any time." After emergency treatment, his condition was temporarily stabilized.

In early October 1969, Mao estimated that the international situation might suddenly deteriorate based on the world dynamics at that time. Therefore, he decided conduct nationwide war preparation. The Central Committee decided to evacuate Liu along with other side-lined and disgraced leaders to other areas. Liu said to his family in the end, "Fortunately, history is written by the people." On the evening of 17 October, Liu was escorted by two members of the special task force and transferred to Kaifeng, Henan in an Il-14 (No. 3284). Doctor Dong Changcheng, nurses Cao Bing and Ji Xiuyun, and Liu's former bodyguard Li Taihe accompanied him.

In Kaifeng, he was held at the former site of the Tongheyu Bank in the courtyard of the Kaifeng Revolutionary Committee. His imprisonment during thus time has been well studied and covered by academic journals on CCP history, and documentaries by CCTV and Xinhua News Agency. Liu's condition deteriorated after his arrival in Kaifeng due to the cold temperatures. Between 24 and 31 October 1969, Liu twice became unstable due to bronchopneumonia, but intervention by the accompanying medical team saved his life. On 6 November, the medical team were ordered to return to Beijing and his care was transferred to the local garrison. Four days later, Liu's condition once again deteriorated, with a persistently high fever and local medical staff sought to intervene using methods from the previous two events. In the early hours of the 12 November, Liu's condition began to once again deteriorate, and at 6:38am became unstable and was pronounced deceased at 6:45am at 70 years of age. At midnight on 13 November, when the special task force was registering the "cremation application form", they used Liu Yuan's name to apply and filled in "deceased's name" as "Liu Weihuang". Liu's body was falsely claimed to be the body of a patient with a highly contagious disease. On 14 November, Liu's body was secretly cremated on-site at the Kaifeng East Suburb Crematorium. The ashes were placed in an ordinary wooden box and stored in the Kaifeng Crematorium's columbarium.

In a memoir written by Liu's principal physician, he disputed the alleged medical maltreatment of Liu during his last days. According to Dr. Gu Qihua, there was a dedicated medical team in charge of treating Liu's illness; between July 1968 and October 1969, Liu had seven total occurrences of pneumonia due to his deteriorating immune system, and there had been a total of 40 group consultations by top medical professionals regarding the treatment of this disease. Liu was closely monitored on a daily basis by a medical team, and they made the best effort given the adverse circumstances. He died in prison from complications due to diabetes at 6:45 a.m. on 12 November 1969 under a pseudonym in Kaifeng, and was cremated the next day.

Rehabilitation, commemoration and evaluation

On 6 October 1976, the Gang of Four was arrested in Beijing, and the Cultural Revolution ended. In December 1978, the CCP held the third plenum of the 11th Central Committee, and began to comprehensively and earnestly correct the serious "leftist" errors of the Cultural Revolution and before, set things right, and redress a large number of unjust, false and wrong cases during the Cultural Revolution. Later, cadres and the masses wrote to the Central Committee, demanding that Liu be exonerated. During the Cultural Revolution, many people who suspected and dissatisfied with Liu's case, such as Zhang Zhixin, were labeled as counter-revolutionaries and was executed. In February 1979, the Central Committee decided that the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the Organization Department of the Central Committee would review Liu's case.

On 24 February 1980, the fifth plenum of the 11th Central Committee unanimously passed the "Resolution on the Rehabilitation of Comrade Liu Shaoqi", deciding to exonerate Liu and restore his reputation as "one of the leaders of the Party and the State". The communique issued by the plenum stated that Liu was "a great Marxist and proletarian revolutionary, has consistently been loyal to the Party and the people for decades, dedicating his life to the cause of the proletarian revolution and making indelible contributions to my country's new democratic revolution, socialist revolution, and socialist construction."

In May 1980, the Liu Shaoqi Funeral Committee was formed to prepare for the funeral of the head of state. On 13 May, Wang Shoudao, Liu Lantao and Wang Guangmei, vice chairmen of the CPPCC, took a special plane to Zhengzhou. They then went to Kaifeng to pick up Liu Shaoqi's ashes. On 14 May, a ceremony to welcome and send off the ashes was held in Zhengzhou. Liu Lantao and Wang Shoudao accompanied Wang Guangmei and her children to take a special plane to escort Liu Shaoqi's ashes to Beijing. On 15 May, the Liu Shaoqi Funeral Committee issued a notice: "In order to deeply mourn the late Comrade Liu Shaoqi, Vice Chairman of the CCP Central Committee and Chairman of the People's Republic of China, a memorial service will be held in Beijing on 17 May 1980. On the same day, flags will be flown at half-mast at Tiananmen Square, Xinhua Gate, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, central and state organs, Chinese embassies and other overseas institutions, and government agencies, military units, enterprises, institutions, schools, etc. in Beijing and other provinces, municipalities, autonomous regions, and autonomous regions, and entertainment activities will be suspended for one day." On the afternoon of 17 May, the Liu Shaoqi memorial service was held at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing; more than 10,000 party and state leaders and representatives attended the service. Deng Xiaoping delivered a eulogy on behalf of the Central Committee.

Before his death, Liu had repeatedly asked that his ashes be scattered at sea after his death. In April 1954, he told Wang Guangmei that after his death, his body should be cremated and his ashes should not be kept. He wanted his ashes scattered at sea, like Engels. On 19 May, Liu's ashes were escorted to Qingdao Military Port by representatives of the funeral committee and Liu's family. The Anshan destroyer carried out the scattering ceremony. Under the escort of four frigates, Wang Guangmei and other relatives scattered the ashes at sea in the Yellow Sea. In the case of the Lin Biao and Jiang Qing counter-revolutionary clique in 1981, Jiang Qing, Chen Boda and others were sentenced to death with a reprieve and imprisonment respectively for allegedly organizing and participating in false accusations, framing and persecuting Liu to death.

With the complete rehabilitation of Liu's reputation and identity, related commemorative activities were launched one after another. Liu wrote several articles, including On the Self-Cultivation of Communist Party Members and Report on the Land Reform Issue, which were included in Selected Works of Liu Shaoqi. The two volumes were published by People's Publishing House in 1982 and 1985 respectively. On the fourth set of renminbi 100 banknotes issued in April 1987 (1980 edition and 1990 edition), Liu became one of the four relief portraits on the front of the banknote. The other three were Mao, Zhou Enlai and Zhu De. In 1988, his ancestral home in Huaminglou Tanzichong, Ningxiang County, Hunan Province, his birthplace, was also renovated and named after Liu Shaoqi's former residence, which is one of the key cultural relics protection units in the country. In 2000, the place where Liu died was listed as the third batch of provincial cultural relics protection units in Henan Province and a moral education base for primary and secondary schools. There is also a cement plant in Kampot Province, Cambodia, named Kosaman-Liu Shaoqi Cement Plant.

In 2008, China held an event to commemorate the 110th anniversary of Liu's birth. In his speech, CCP General Secretary Hu Jintao praised Liu as "a great Marxist, a great proletarian revolutionary, statesman, and theorist, one of the main leaders of the Party and the state, a founding father of the People's Republic of China, and an important member of the first generation of the Party's central leadership collective with Comrade Mao Zedong as its core."

• Bronze statues of the five secretaries of the Chinese Communist Party in Zaoyuan, Yan'an: Ren Bishi, Zhou Enlai, Mao Zedong, Liu Shaoqi, and Zhu De.
• On the 90th anniversary of Liu Shaoqi's birth in 1988, a full-body bronze statue of Liu Shaoqi was erected at the Liu Shaoqi Memorial Square in Huaminglou, Ningxiang County, Hunan Province.
• The Liu Shaoqi Memorial Hall in Kaifeng, Henan Province, which is the site of Liu Shaoqi's death, features a bronze bust of Liu Shaoqi.

On 23 November 2018, the CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping delivered a speech in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing to commemorate the 120th anniversary of the birth of Liu Shaoqi.

Personal life

Liu married five times, including to He Baozhen (何宝珍) and Wang Guangmei (王光美). His third wife, Xie Fei (谢飞), came from Wenchang, Hainan and was one of the few women on the 1934 Long March. His wife at the time of his death in 1969, Wang Guangmei, was thrown into prison by Mao during the Cultural Revolution; she was subjected to harsh conditions in solitary confinement for more than a decade.