Background
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Li Ta-chang
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Li Ta-chang is a PLA veteran who fought in north China and Manchuria prior to the Communist conquest of China in 1949. He has been a senior official in the southwest since 1950 and for the most of the period since 1955 has been the governor of Szechwan. Li’s first known position of prominence in the Red Army was in the Shansi-Chahar-Hopeh (Chin-Ch a-Chi) area, where he was chief-of-staff of the Chin-Ch’a-Chi Military Region.
Education
He was educated locally.
Career
Following the cessation of hostilities in 1945, the Communists began to infiltrate troops and cadres into Manchuria, many of them from the north China areas where Li had been working. Early in 1946 Li was head of the Industry Office in Antung province and by the middle of the year he was working in Suining, a short-lived province created by the Communists in eastern Manchuria, with its capital at Mu-tan-chiang (Mutankiang), about 100 miles west of Vladivostok.1 There Li served as the political commissar of the Suining Military District and as speaker of the Suining Provincial People’s Congress. In the period from 1946 to 1949, he was also deputy director of the Northeast Party Bureau’s Propaganda Department where he served under important Party leader Lin Feng.
By early 1950 Li was transferred to his native Szechwan where he soon became one of the more important leaders. From 1949 to 1952, Szechwan was unique among the Chinese provinces in that it was divided into four geographic sub-districts (north, east, south, and west Szechwan). The governmental organ for south Szechwan where Li was stationed was known as the South Szechwan People’s Administrative Office (SSPAO), with its capital at Lu-chou (Lu-hsien), a city on the Min River. In early 1950 Li became director of the SSPAO as well as political commissar of the South Szechwan Military District, and although specific information is lacking, it is probable that he also headed the Party organization in south Szechwan. In brief, Li was the dominant figure in the area until the four sectors were merged to form Szechwan province in August 1952. He was also a participant in the regional government apparatus for southwest China, the Southwest Military and Administrative Committee (SWMAC), established in July 1950. Li was a member of the SWMAC (chaired by Liu Po-ch’eng), he was reappointed to membership when the SWMAC was reorganized into the Southwest Administrative Committee (SWAC) in February 1953, retaining this post until the SWAC was abolished in late 1954.
When Szechwan province was re-established in its traditional boundaries in August 1952, Li was named as a vice-governor under Governor Li Ching-ch’iian, who later became a Politburo member. Li Ta-chang remained in this post until January 1955 when he succeeded Li Ching-ch’iian as the governor. Li Ta-chang also served under Li Ching-ch’iian in the Szechwan Party structure; by late 1952 he was a deputy secretary of the Szechwan CCP Committee, a position whose designation was changed to secretary by 1957 but that was still subordinate to First Secretary Li Ching-ch’iian.
Li received his first national post in 1954 when he was elected from his native Szechwan as a deputy to the First NPC (1954-1959). He was re-elected to the Second NPC (1959-1964) as well as to the Third NPC, which held its first session in December 1964-January 1965. Li has been a fairly active participant in the NPC, especially since the Second NPC opened in 1959, he served on the Presidium (steering committee) for each of the four annual sessions of the Second NPC and twice (in April 1959 and April 1960) delivered major speeches before the Congress. He has also gone to Peking on occasion to deliver reports before the NPC Standing Committee (the governing organ of the NPC between the annual sessions), as in April 1955 when he gave a report on agricultural work in Szechwan.
At the historic Eighth National Congress in September 1956, Li was elected an alternate member of the Party Central Committee. Since that time he has been reported very regularly in Szechwan, especially in matters related to agriculture, but also in relation to the development of the communes and the youth movement. Within Szechwan, a rich rice-surplus area and China’s most heavily populated province, Li ranks after Politburo member Li Ching-ch’iian and approximately on par with Party First Secretary Liao Chih-kao, also a Central Committee alternate member.
Politics
As described above, Li was first elected to the Szechwan governorship in January 1955. He was re-elected to the position in July 1958 and September 1963. Then, quite suddenly, he was transferred in February 1965 for a brief period to neighboring Kweichow. The circumstances were not clear, but apparently the Kweichow governor and first secretary, Chou Lin, was either ailing or in political difficulties. In early 1965, several new men were brought into Kweichow, Li being the most prominent among them. He became the Kweichow Party first secretary and at this same time was also identified as a secretary of the Party’s Southwest Bureau, serving once again under Li Ching-ch’iian, the first secretary. Li Ta-chang’s work in Kweichow, possibly a trouble-shooting mission, was short-lived. By June 1965 he was back in Szechwan, once again as the provincial governor. During his brief absence from Szechwan in the first half of, 1965, Liao Chih-kao succeeded Li Ching-ch’iian as the Szechwan Party first secretary. Thus, although Li Ta-chang is the provincial governor and a secretary of the Southwest Party Bureau, he is subordinate to Liao Chih-kao in the provincial Party hierarchy.
