Background
Nothing is known about his background.
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Hsu Li-ch’un
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A leading propagandist, Hsu Li-ch’un first gained a degree of national prominence in 1949 when he was selected for membership on the Central Committee of the New Democratic Youth League at the first congress of the league in April 1949. Later that year he was identified as head of the Peking chapter of the league. By 1950 Hsu was a deputy director of the league’s Propaganda Department, and in November 1951 he was elevated to the Standing Committe
Education
He was educated locally.
Career
In 1954 he was elected as a Kiangsu deputy to the First NPC, but was not re-elected to the Second NPC, which opened in April 1959. Hsu’s real move up the hierarchical ladder apparently began in about 1956. In September of that year the Party held its Eighth Congress, Hsu spoke at one of the sessions on the work of theoretical education for Party cadres. He addressed the congress, a rather singular honor for a man who was relatively unknown in that period, in his capacity as director of the Theoretical Propaganda Division of the Party’s Propaganda Department, a position he may still hold. By September 1961 he was a deputy director of the Propaganda Department (under Director Lu Ting-i) and continues to hold this important position. Then, in September 1964, Hsu was identified as a deputy editor-in-chief of Hung- ch’i (Red flag), the most important Party journal, which is under the editorship of Ch’en Pota, an alternate member of the Party Politburo.
Since the Eighth Party Congress in 1956, Hsu has been rather active, particularly in the propaganda field. He was reported from time to time attending special meetings devoted to the study of some phase of Marxism-Leninism or the thought of Mao Tse-tung. For example, he spoke at a meeting in Peking in early May 1958 marking the first anniversary of Mao’s famous speech “On the Correct Handling of Contradictions among the People.” Similarly, he served on the preparatory committee and the presidium (steering committee) for a national conference of “advanced” workers in the field of culture and education held in Peking in June 1960. After he became a deputy director of the Propaganda Department (1961), he took an active part in the tasks of entertaining foreign dignitaries, especially those from Communist countries working in propaganda.
Politics
Although Hsu has never been a member of the National Committee of the CPPCC, he has been active in the organization from 1951. In October-November of that year he attended the third session of the CPPCC, and when a Study (hsueh-hsi) Committee was formed in February 1952 under Politburo member Lin Po-ch’ii, Hsu was named to head the Staff Office, a position he apparently held throughout the life of the First CPPCC (to December 1954). The Study Committee is a body which organizes classes, schools, and special meetings attended mainly by non-Communists for the purpose of an intensive study of Marxism-Leninism and the thought of Mao Tse-tung. When the Second CPPCC was formed in December 1954, no Study Committee was established, but then in March 1956 it was re-created under Li Wei-han, then the head of the Party’s United Front Department. Hsu was named as a member of the re-created committee and remained one until the close of the Second CPPCC (April 1959).
Membership
He apparently held all these posts until the next congress of the league in mid-1953. It was as a youth leader that Hsu went to Hungary in April 1950 as a member of a Chinese delegation attending the celebrations marking the fifth anniversary of the “liberation” of Hungary. Hsu then broke off from the main delegation and led a portion of the group to East Germany in May 1950 to attend a congress of an East German youth organization. In June he attended a similar congress in Czechoslovakia and then returned home in mid-July 1950.
