Background
Nothing is known about his background.
Nothing is known about his background.
He was educated locally.
Although Ku formally held these posts in Shantung until November 1952, he was transferred to Shanghai in mid-1952 where he served for about half a year as director of the Shanghai Party Propaganda Department. Toward the end of 1952 he became a deputy secretary of the Shanghai Party Committee and by February 1953 was promoted to second deputy secretary. In both posts he served under Ch’en I. Little information is available on Ku during these early years, although he was occasionally mentioned as attending celebrations marking important events in Chinese Communist history (e.g., National Day on October 1, 1952) or in connection with such organizations of minor importance as the Shanghai branch of the Sino-Soviet Friendship Association. In 1954 Ku was transferred to Peking and assigned to work on economic policy. Although his background provides no hint of special competence in the field, he has remained in economic work at a very high level since then.
Ku’s first appointment in the national capital came in December 1954 when he was named a vice-chairman of the State Construction Commission, then headed by economic specialist Po I-po. Within the next two years Ku was to be appointed to two more posts directly under Po: in September 1955 as a deputy director of the State Council’s Third Staff Office and in November 1956 as a vice-chairman of the State Economic Commission. The Third Staff Office was responsible for guiding the work of governmental organs dealing with heavy industry and construction, and the State Economic Commission is responsible for planning on an annual basis (as opposed to the State Planning Commission, which handles longer-range plans). Ku held the Construction Commission post until November 1956 and the Third Staff Office position until September 1959, he continued to work in the State Economic Commission until 1965.
In March 1956 a Scientific Planning Commission was formed under the State Council, headed by Ch’en I, under whom Ku had previously served in Shanghai. Ku was named one of the deputy secretaries-general. Fourteen months later, when the Commission was reorganized, he was removed as a deputy secretary-general but was named as a member, holding the post until November 1958 when the Commission was merged with another State Council commission. Ku was a Shantung deputy to the Second NPC (1959-1964) and at each of the four sessions of the Congress served as a member of the Motions Examination Committee. During this same period he also was a member of the Third CPPCC. Ku was re-elected to the Third NPC, which first met in December 1964-January 1965, when he was elected chairman of the important NPC Budget Committee, he replaced Tseng Shan, who held the post in the Second NPC. During the same session he also served on the Motions Examination Committee, a committee post he had held under the Second NPC.
One of the few times Ku was reported in the national press was in November 1958 when he spoke on industrial questions before the “second national conference of young activists in building socialism.” Yet the paucity of information is clearly no measure of his stature. This was illustrated in early 1964 when political departments were established in at least 15 ministries engaged in industrial or communications work. Paralleling this government structure, the Party formed the “Industrial and Communications Political Department” under the Central Committee with Ku as director. This new structure was apparently designed to enhance the role of politics within ministries in which political matters tended to be neglected in favor of technical competence. Some idea of Ku’s thinking at this'time can be gained from two articles written by him. The first ap¬peared in Peking Review no. 21, May 22, 1964, and was entitled “New Stage in China’s Mass Movement in Industry” and the other in the Peking Kung-jen jih-pao (Daily worker), July 22, 1964, translated in SCMP 3280 under the title “Consciously Transform Your Thought and Become a Staunch and Reliable Successor to the Revolution.”