Former member of the “Gang of Four” during the Cultural Revolution and former Vice Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee, Wang Hongwen’s wife, Cui Gendi, passed away two weeks ago in Shanghai.
According to a report from Hong Kong’s “Ming Pao” on April 28, Cui Gendi, the widow of Wang Hongwen, passed away in Shanghai on the 14th of this month at the age of 86.
Mainland China’s Sina website republished a long article commemorating Cui Gendi.
Public records show that Cui Gendi was born in Shanghai in 1940 and was originally a female worker at the Shanghai Cotton Textile Factory No. 17. Before the Cultural Revolution, she married Wang Hongwen from the factory’s Defense Department, and they had one daughter and two sons together.
After the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution in 1966, Wang Hongwen was quickly promoted by Mao Zedong and later became prominent in the Chinese Communist political arena as a “representative of the working class.” He participated in the establishment of the “Shanghai Workers’ Revolutionary Command Headquarters” and served as its commander, seizing power in Shanghai. In April 1969, Wang Hongwen entered the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party and subsequently held important positions such as Vice Chairman of the Central Committee, member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee, and member of the Central Military Commission, earning him the title of Mao Zedong’s “successor” at one point.
After Mao Zedong passed away in September 1976, Wang Hongwen, along with Mao’s wife Jiang Qing, was arrested and included in the “Gang of Four.” In January 1981, he was sentenced to life imprisonment. Cui Gendi had previously stated that she would not divorce Wang Hongwen, saying, “I will wait for him.”
In August 1992, Wang Hongwen passed away in Beijing at the age of 56 due to liver cancer.
Regarding Cui Gendi’s death, on an overseas platform, some netizens commented, “She almost became the first lady,” and “The Cultural Revolution caused the deaths of tens of millions of Chinese people, and to this day, not a single person has repented, which means that the human tragedy may happen again.”