Background
Wang Jen-chung was a native Hopeh.
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Wang Jen-chung
Edit Profilepolitical leader former First Secretary CCP member
Wang Jen-chung, a longtime Party leader in Hupeh, has been associated with the Communists since the days of the Kiangsi Soviet in the early thirties. He made the Long March, after which he studied at and graduated from the North Shensi Public School (Shen-pei kung-hsueh), one of the most important of the Communist-run schools in the Yenan area.
Education
He was educated locally.
Career
After the Sino-Japanese War broke out, Wang was assigned as a political officer to the guerrilla forces of Li Hsien-nien, which were located in the Hupeh-Honan region north of Wuhan. Wang’s service with Li was apparently rather brief, because by 1938 he was transferred northward to his native Hopeh. Communist military forces led by Hsu Hsiang-ch'ien (of the 129th Division) had pushed into southern Hopeh in mid-1938 and had established the South Hopeh Military District. Simultaneously, a civil organ known as the South Hopeh Administrative Office was set up under the chairmanship of Yang Hsiu-feng, a Peking professor who joined the Communist guerrillas when the war broke out. Paralleling the South Hopeh Administrative Office (SHAO) was the South Hopeh Party Committee. Sometime during the war (and until the late 1940's) Wang was chairman of the SHAO. He apparently succeeded Yang Hsiu-feng, possibly when Yang was promoted to the chairmanship of the Chin-Chi-Lu-Yii (Shansi-Hopeh-Shantung-Honan) Border Region Government, which was formed in July 1941. During the war, Wang was also director of the South Hopeh Party Committee Propaganda Department. The other wartime post that Wang was known to have held was membership on the above-described Chin-Chi-Lu-Yii Government Council.
Following the capture by the Communists of Tsinan, the Shantung capital, in September 1948, Wang was assigned to head the governmental organ for that city known as the Tsinan Administrative Office. However, in the first part of 1949 he was apparently assigned to the forces led by his former superior, Li Hsien-nien, who was then commanding troops in Hupeh. In any event, he was with Li in the spring when the Communists captured Wuhan, the Hupeh capital. Li was appointed as the provincial governor, with Wang as one of the vice-governors. He received another appointment in the Hupeh government in September 1950 when he was named a vice-chairman of the Hupeh Finance and Economics Committee, also chaired by Li Hsien- nien. In the interim, in early 1950, the Communists established a governmental organ known as the Central-South Military and Administrative Committee (CSMAC), with jurisdiction over six provinces, including Hupeh. Under the CSMAC, Wang was a member of the CSMACs Finance and Economics Committee, retaining this position until shortly after the CSMAC was reorganized, in January 1953, into the Central- South Administrative Committee (CSAC). Following this reorganization, he was a member of the CSAC until its dissolution in 1954.
In early 1952, in the midst of the “three-anti” campaign being waged against corruption, waste, and bureaucracy, Wang was involved (though not adversely) in a major scandal that rocked the Party in Wuhan. Known as the “Sung Ying case” (see under Chang P’ing-hua), it involved the corrupt behavior of two Party members, Miss Sung Ying, the deputy director of the Wuhan Public Health Bureau, and Chou Chi-fang, a Wuhan vice-mayor. In the ensuing investigations, a number of local officials were dismissed from their jobs, expelled from the Party, or in several cases given prison sentences. Among those affected were Wuhan Mayor Wu Te-feng and the ranking municipal Party secretary, Chang P'ing-hua, both of whom were temporarily dismissed from their positions. In the ensuing reshuffle of personnel, Wang was transferred (February 1952) from his provincial vice-governorship to become a vice-mayor of Wuhan once again serving under Li Hsien-nien, who was named at the same time as the mayor.
Further evidence of Wang increasingly important role in Hupeh and Wuhan affairs comes from the fact that he received other new assignments in early 1952, just as the Sung Ying case was reaching its climax. By January 1952 he was a member of the Standing Committee of the Hupeh Party Committee, and in February he was named to chair the Wuhan anti-corruption check-up committee” presumably to prevent another major scandal. Finally, in the following month, he was named a member of the Central- South Anti-Epidemic Committee. At the time of the Sung Ying case, Li Hsien-nien had assumed the post of ranking secretary of the Wuhan Party Committee (in addition to being the new mayor). However, by early 1953 Wang was serving as both the acting mayor and as the ranking secretary. In late 1954 and early 1955, Wang relinquished both of these posts to other men. However, the transfer to Peking in mid-1954 of Li Hsien-nicn, the most important political official in Hupeh, opened the way for more important tasks for Wang Jen-chung. By the fall of 1954 he had become the Hupeh Party first secretary. Soon after, in February 1955, he was elected to membership on the Hupeh Provincial People's Council (to which he was reelected in September 1964) and as chairman of the Hupeh Committee of the quasi-legislative CPPCC. He was re-elected to the latter post in June 1959 and September 1964.
Politics
In 1954 Wang received his first assignment at the national level when he was elected a deputy from Wuhan to the First NPC (1954-1959), and at the first two sessions of the NPC (1954 and 1955) he served on the ad hoc Motions Examination Committee. However, he was not re-elected to the Second NPC, which opened in April 1959. It was also in the mid-1950’s that Wang began his rise to national prominence in Party affairs. At the Eighth Party Congress in September 1956 he spoke on Party leadership in industry, with particular reference to Hupeh. Wang’s speech centered on a problem that had troubled Chinese industrial management in the mid-1950's, namely, the role of the Party committee within industrial enterprises. Following the Soviet model, the Chinese had been using a system of management which, Wang argued, had diluted the authority of the Party committee. He claimed that the “erroneous” policies in the latter half of 1953 had caused “serious losses” in industrial enterprises in Hupeh. By 1955, however, the Party had again gained control of the industrial system. Wang urged Party cadres to continue this control: “The Party committee must not relax its political leadership and turn itself into an administrative organ. The leading comrades of the Party committee must never confine themselves in the sea of administration.(A further discussion of Party control in industry is contained in the biography of Li Hsueh-feng, who also spoke on the subject at the Eighth Congress.) Less than two years later, at the second session of the Eighth Party Congress in May 1958, Wank was elected an alternate member of the Party Central Committee.
In 1954 Wang received his first assignment at the national level when he was elected a deputy from Wuhan to the First NPC (1954-1959), and at the first two sessions of the NPC (1954 and 1955) he served on the ad hoc Motions Examination Committee. However, he was not re-elected to the Second NPC, which opened in April 1959. It was also in the mid-1950’s that Wang began his rise to national prominence in Party affairs. At the Eighth Party Congress in September 1956 he spoke on Party leadership in industry, with particular reference to Hupeh. Wang’s speech centered on a problem that had troubled Chinese industrial management in the mid-1950's, namely, the role of the Party committee within industrial enterprises. Following the Soviet model, the Chinese had been using a system of management which, Wang argued, had diluted the authority of the Party committee. He claimed that the “erroneous” policies in the latter half of 1953 had caused “serious losses” in industrial enterprises in Hupeh. By 1955, however, the Party had again gained control of the industrial system. Wang urged Party cadres to continue this control: “The Party committee must not relax its political leadership and turn itself into an administrative organ. The leading comrades of the Party committee must never confine themselves in the sea of administration.(A further discussion of Party control in industry is contained in the biography of Li Hsueh-feng, who also spoke on the subject at the Eighth Congress.) Less than two years later, at the second session of the Eighth Party Congress in May 1958, Wank was elected an alternate member of the Party Central Committee.
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Born
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Nationality
China -
Ethnicity
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Political Party
Chinese Communist Party
Career
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1941
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1948
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1952
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1952
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1959