Background
Ch’en was born in 1911 in Foochow, the capital of Fukien.
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Ch’en P’ei-hsien
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Ch’en P’ei-hsien remained behind in central-south China in 1934 when the Long March began, and during the Sino-Japanese War he fought with the Communists’ New Fourth Army, which operated in east-central China. From the early 1950’s he has been a ranking official in Shanghai and, following the death of K’o Ch’ing-shih in 1965, Ch’en became first secretary of the Shanghai Party Committee.
Education
By the early 1930’s he was serving in the Kiangsi Soviet as secretary of the “Children’s Bureau” (Erh-t’ung chii) under the Party Central Committee. He was among those ordered to remain behind to conduct guerrilla warfare in central-south China after the main Communist forces led by Chu Te and Mao Tse-tung left on the Long March in the fall of 1934.
Career
Shortly afterward, Nationalist pressures forced Ch’en and others to fight their way out of the Central Soviet area, over 80 per cent of the 1,800-man force was annihilated by the time it had reached the Kiangsi-Kwantung border area over the winter of 1934-35. By early 1935, Ch’en was serving as secretary of the Communist Youth (Shao-kung) organization, which was subordinate to the South Kiangsi Provincial CCP Committee. In the early spring of 1935 important Party leaders Hsiang Ying and Ch’en I arrived in the area to take command. For the next two years, Ch’en P’ei-hsien served in this area as a guerrilla leader and Party organizer. The Communist forces were small, badly armed, and largely ineffective. One measure of their ineffectiveness as guerrilla leaders comes from the fact that some of the most important leaders, including Yang Shang-k’uei, were forced to take up simple trades in order to make a living. Ch’en and his colleagues were also completely out of contact with the main Communist forces, it was nine months after the completion of the Long March that they first heard of it, and for over two years they were out of contact with the Party Central Committee.
About the time the Sino-Japanese War began in mid-1937, Ch’en went north to Kiangsu where he became secretary of the Su-chung (Central Kiangsu) District CCP Committee, a post he held until the Communist victory in 1949. As such, he was an important political figure in the New Fourth Army area of operations, and as of early 1941 he was known to be taking instructions directly from Liu Shao-ch’i, the political commissar for the entire New Fourth Army. (For a discussion of the Central Kiangsu District, see under Su Yu, the military commander.) In addition to his Su-chung post, Ch’en was also connected with the “Southeast Youth Bureau,” which may have been subordinate to the Party’s Southeast Bureau headed by Hsiang Ying.
Ch’en remained in Kiangsu during the civil war with the Nationalists in the late forties, and when the Communist armies captured Wu-hsi (Wusih) in the spring of 1949 he was made chairman of the Wu-hsi Military Control Commission. Until Kiangsu was restored to its traditional boundaries in November 1952, the province was divided into northern and southern sectors. Ch’en was the top Communist official in southern Kiangsu from the 1949 takeover until 1952. He headed the South Kiangsu District CCP Committee and was also political commissar of the Military District. The governmental organ, with its capital at Wu-hsi, was known as the South Kiangsu People’s Administrative Office (SKPAO).
Ch’en was transferred to Shanghai in early 1952 and has held ranking posts there from that time. For a brief time in 1952 he was third deputy political commissar of the Shanghai-Woo-sung Garrison. More important was his position as fourth secretary of the Shanghai CCP Committee, a post that placed him under First Secretary Ch’en I, Second Secretary Liu Hsiao, and Third Secretary Liu Ch’ang-sheng. By early 1955 he was elevated to second secretary, a post that now placed him under the new Shanghai first secretary, K’o Ch’ing-shih. Ch’en’s title was redesignated as secretary in the early fall of 1956, but in fact he remained as the second-ranking Party official in Shanghai under K’o. By 1954 Ch’en was also a member of the Party’s East China Bureau, a post he presumably held until the Bureau was abolished in mid-1955. In February 1955 he was given an additional assignment as a member of the Shanghai Municipal People’s Council, a position to which he was re-elected in January 1957 and November 1958.
Since the mid-fifties Ch’en has been constantly reported in the press, very often in connection with the many foreigners who visit Shanghai. On many occasions he acted for Shanghai CCP First Secretary K’o Ch’ing-shih when the latter was not in Shanghai. Then, when K’o died in April 1965, Ch’en replaced him as first secretary, a position he continues to hold. His only known trip abroad was in April-May 1961 when he led a delegation to Leningrad to attend May Day celebrations. His contributions to the press include two articles for the Party’s leading journal, Hung-ch’i (Red flag, issues of October 16, 1959, and February 16, 1960).
Membership
Ch’en was a member of the SKPAO from its formation in late 1949 and was also chairman of the SKPAO Finance and Economics Committee. Lesser posts held by Ch’en from 1949 included membership on both the Standing Committee of the South Kiangsu General Labor Union and the South Kiangsu Branch of the Sino-Soviet Friendship Association.
Although he worked mainly in south Kiangsu in the early years of the PRC, he also held positions in organizations at the national and regional level. He was a Central Committee member of the nationwide New Democratic Youth League from April 1949 until mid-1953. And when the regional government organ known as the East China Military and Administrative Committee (ECMAC) was established under the chairmanship of Jao Shu-shih in Jan¬uary 1950, Ch’en was appointed as a member. He was reappointed in December 1952 when the ECMAC was reorganized into the East China Administrative Committee (ECAC), holding this position until the dissolution of the ECAC in 1954.
Ch’en attended the Party’s Eighth National Congress in September 1956 and spoke on the use of the “working masses” to improve industry. At the close of the Congress he was elected an alternate member of the Party Central Committee. In November 1958 he received still another post in Shanghai when he was elected chairman of the Second Shanghai Committee of the CPPCC, and in July 1962 he was named to chair the Third Committee. From mid-1960 to about mid-1964 he was also political commissar of the PLA Shanghai Garrison Command. Ch’en has also been associated with the Party’s East China Bureau, which was re-established in accordance with a decision taken at the Party Central Committee’s Ninth Plenum in January 1961. By May 1963 he was identified as one of the secretaries of the Bureau, then headed by K’o Ch’ing-shih.
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Born
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Nationality
China -
Ethnicity
Career
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1935
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1949
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1949 - 1952
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1965