Chang Yun

Background

The birthplace of Chang Yun is uncertain, varying between Anhwei and the city of Wu-hsi (Wusih) in Kiangsu.

Education

She attended Futan University in Shanghai and was active in the May Fourth student movement, possibly while enrolled there. Six years later, in 1925, Chang was reported to be a student in Hankow. By this time she had joined the Party and was active in its underground, serving as director of the Women’s Department of the CCP Committee in Hankow between 1925 and 1927

Career

From the spring of 1949 until her transfer to Peking in 1952, Chang was occupied with organizational tasks in east China, particularly those related to women’s activities. During this three-year period she headed the “democratic women’s” organizations for both east China and Shanghai, and in this capacity was in Peking in March-April 1949 for the women’s congress that established the All-China Federation of Democratic Women (ACFDW). At this congress she was elected to the First Executive Committee of the ACFDW. She was again in Peking in December 1949 leading a delegation from Shanghai to the large “Asian Women’s Conference,” one of the first of many such regional conferences that Peking was to hold in the years ahead.

In the early 1950’s, China was divided for administrative purposes into six large military-political regions, the one for east China being known as the East China Military and Administrative Committee (ECMAC). When this was formally established in January 1950, with Shanghai as the capital, Chang was named to ECMAC membership, and in the following month was also appointed a member of the ECMAC Land Reform Committee. There is little information on her during the early 1950’s, although she did serve on a special committee for the “study of Mao Tse-tung’s thought” that was established in December 1951, and by the next month she was also serving as head of the Women’s Work Department of the East China Bureau of the CCP. Then, by September 1952, she was transferred to Peking to become secretary-general of the Women’s Federation, thereby surrendering her various posts in east China.

At the Third Women’s Congress, held in September 1957, Chang gave the keynote report, a lengthy statement that was reprinted in consecutive issues of the JMJP (September 10-11, 1957). At the close of the Congress, she was re-elected a vice-chairman (but not to membership on the Secretariat). Apart from her trip to Denmark in 1953, Chang’s work in the women’s movement has also taken her abroad bn three other occasions, journeys that are summarized as follows: 1954—leader, women’s goodwill mission to France for 10-day visit, December; 1957 —member, “working people’s” delegation led by Liu Ning-i to the 40th anniversary celebrations of the Soviet Union, November; 1958—leader, women’s delegation to Vienna to attend the Fourth Congress of the Women’s International Democratic Federation, arriving May 28th, leaving June 9, going via Prague to Poland (June 10-23).

Achievements

• As her position on the Party Central Committee indicates, Chang is one of the foremost leaders in women’s work in China. Until 1960 she was particularly active in this field, but since that time (possibly owing to age) she has not been frequently mentioned in the national press. Aside from re-elections to the NPC and the CPPCC, the only new assignment that she received after 1957 occurred in July 1958 when she was named to the National Committee of the China Peace Committee.

Membership

After the Nationalists and Communists broke relations in the summer of 1927, she engaged in Party underground work in Wuhan, Nanking, Shanghai, and Hunan Province, and when the Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1937 she joined the Communist guerrillas. By 1941 she was identified as secretary of the Party Committee in the Second Sub-district of the CCP-controlled central Kiangsu administrative district, a territory held by the New Fourth Army. She held this post through 1948, and by 1949 was president of the Institute for Women Cadre Workers, a school established to train women activists attached to the Third Field Army, the force that took over most of the coastal provinces for the Communists.

In the early 1950’s, China was divided for administrative purposes into six large military-political regions, the one for east China being known as the East China Military and Administrative Committee (ECMAC). When this was formally established in January 1950, with Shanghai as the capital, Chang was named to ECMAC membership, and in the following month was also appointed a member of the ECMAC Land Reform Committee. There is little information on her during the early 1950’s, although she did serve on a special committee for the “study of Mao Tse-tung’s thought” that was established in December 1951, and by the next month she was also serving as head of the Women’s Work Department of the East China Bureau of the CCP. Then, by September 1952, she was transferred to Peking to become secretary-general of the Women’s Federation, thereby surrendering her various posts in east China.

In March 1956 she was named to membership on the National Association for the Elimination of Illiteracy, an organization subordinate to the State Council and headed by Vice-Premier Ch’en I. Miss Chang’s career reached a new peak in September 1956 when she was elected an alternate member of the Party Central Committee at the Eighth National Congress. At that congress only four women were elected to full membership, and only four more as alternates. Still another indication of her stature within Party circles came about in June 1957 when she was identified as the third secretary of the Party’s Women’s Work Committee, of which the above- mentioned Ts’ai Ch’ang is the first secretary and Teng Ying-ch’ao (Mme. Chou En-lai) is the second secretary.

Connections

Chang was married to an early revolutionary, Li Yun-sheng, who was killed. A child by that marriage was arrested in the 1920’s.

Spouse:

Li Yun-sheng