On the early morning of April 22, 1968, Zhang Qinqiu, then Deputy Minister of the Textile Industry Department of the Chinese Communist Party, jumped from the window of the toilet at Room 363 of the Beijing Textile Industry Department’s building where she was under “isolated review” and committed suicide.
Born in 1904 in Shimen Bay, Chongde County, Zhejiang Province, Zhang Qinqiu came from a wealthy family and attended primary, secondary, and university education in Shimen, Hangzhou, and Shanghai.
She joined the CCP in 1924, being one of the earliest female party members. She studied at the Moscow Sun Yat-sen University and was fluent in Russian.
As one of the few female Red Army soldiers who participated in the Long March, Zhang Qinqiu held the highest rank among female officers during that period. She ventured through grasslands and snowy mountains, fought with the Red Army’s West Route Army in the Hexi Corridor, was captured in battle, and after the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japan in 1937, she was released after negotiations by the CCP. She worked for a long time in women’s affairs in Yan’an. After the CCP took power in 1949, Zhang Qinqiu became the Deputy Minister of the Textile Industry Department, the first female deputy minister in the country.
She had three husbands: the first one, Shen Zemin, was the younger brother of the writer Mao Dun and served as a member of the CCP’s Eyuwan Division Committee and Secretary of the Eyuwan Provincial Committee, but he passed away due to illness. The second one, Chen Changhao, served as the political commissar of the Red Fourth Army and chairman of the political committee of the West Route Army. He went to the Soviet Union for medical treatment and married a Russian woman. The third husband, Su Jingguan, served as the director of the Red Fourth Army General Hospital and later became the Deputy Minister of Health after the establishment of the CCP.
She had a daughter, Zhang Maya, with Shen Zemin, who was born and raised in the International Children’s Hospital in Moscow. She had a son with Chen Changhao, born on the Gobi Desert during the battles in the Hexi Corridor, and was abandoned in the cold wilderness.
Despite surviving through the toughest times of war and being imprisoned by the Kuomintang, Zhang Qinqiu met a tragic end under the pressure of the Cultural Revolution initiated by Mao Zedong.
How was Zhang Qinqiu pressured to death? In the eyes of the rebels during the Cultural Revolution, she was associated with many “big villains.”
Liu Shaoqi was considered the number one “big villain” targeted by Mao Zedong during the Cultural Revolution.
The outbreak of the Cultural Revolution in May 1966 was marked by the issuance of the May 16th Notification by the CCP Central Committee.
The notification stated: “Infiltrating into the party, government, army, and various cultural sectors on behalf of the bourgeoisie is a group of counter-revolutionary revisionist elements. Once the time is ripe, they will seize power to turn proletarian dictatorship into bourgeois dictatorship.” “For example, figures like Khrushchev, they are sleeping next to us, all levels of party committees must be fully aware of this.”
In the same month, the CCP toppled the first anti-party group in the Cultural Revolution – the Peng, Luo, Lu, Yang anti-party group. Peng was a member of the CCP Politburo, Secretary of the Central Secretariat, and the first secretary of the Beijing Municipal Party Committee; Luo Ruiqing served as the chief of staff of the Central Military Commission and was the Minister of Public Security for 10 years; Lu Dingyi served as the Minister of Propaganda for 15 years; Yang Shangkun was the director of the General Office of the Central Committee for 20 years. When Peng, Luo, Lu, and Yang fell, a group of high-ranking party, government, and military officials across the country were also toppled.
In June 1966, with strong support from Mao Zedong, the rebellion began with students from Peking University, spreading to schools nationwide, leading to the paralysis or semi-paralysis of many schools’ leadership and teaching.
Facing the chaotic situation, Liu, Deng, and others made the decision to send working groups to universities and research institutes, with Mao overseeing remotely from Hangzhou, and Liu and Deng making specific deployments in Beijing. Despite the decision receiving Mao’s approval.
At that time, Zhang Qinqiu was conducting the “Four Cleansing Movement” at the Shanghai Textile Machinery Factory when she suddenly received instructions from the Textile Department’s party committee to immediately return to Beijing and take the working group to the Beijing Textile Scientific Research Institute.
In July, Mao returned to Beijing and decided to disband the working group.
On August 1, the 11th Plenary Session of the 8th CCP Central Committee was held. At the meeting, Mao once again accused Liu and Deng of sending working groups, calling it “suppression, terror”; the working group was “clearly standing against the proletariat on the side of the bourgeoisie.” On August 5, Mao issued the “Bombard the Headquarters – My Big Character Poster”, pointing out that there was another “capitalist headquarters” within the CCP. The conference quickly turned to criticize Liu and Deng.
With Liu Shaoqi being toppled, as the leader of the working group at the Textile Industry Department, Zhang Qinqiu also became the target of attack as the proxy of Liu and Deng in the department.
Zhang Guotao was considered a “big villain” who split the Red Army and established a “separate central committee” during the Long March.
After returning from the Soviet Union in 1930, Zhang Guotao was appointed as the Secretary of the Eyuwan Central Branch and Chairman of the Military Commission by the CCP.
Zhang Qinqiu, who served under Zhang Guotao, had been the head of the political department at Peng (Pai) Yang (Yin) Military-Political School, head of the 73rd Army political department, and head of the Red Fourth Army political department.
After the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution, the rebels ransacked Zhang Qinqiu’s home. When some rebels attempted to take some documents away, Zhang Qinqiu stopped them, insisting that those were her collected and organized historical materials of the Red Fourth Army, involving military secrets.
One rebel sneered, “What’s so special about the Red Fourth Army? It’s just Zhang Guotao’s troops! This stuff is your ‘reversal evidence’, ‘black materials’. Why are you holding onto these things? Are you trying to rehabilitate Zhang Guotao?”
She had opposed Zhang Guotao’s autocratic rule in the past and was demoted from her position as the head of the Red Fourth Army political department to the secretary of the Hongjiang County Committee in the Chuanshan Guandu Revolutionary Base.
The rebels ignored or were not interested in these details. Whenever the Red Fourth Army was mentioned, they immediately associated it with the “big villain” Zhang Guotao. As someone associated with this “big villain,” Zhang Qinqiu naturally became a target.
Wang Ming was identified by the CCP as a representative of left-wing adventurism in the 1930s and right-wing opportunism in the 1940s. In 1956, Wang Ming went to the Soviet Union for medical treatment and never returned. After the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution, Wang Ming was condemned as the “leader of opportunism,” “proxy of Soviet revisionism,” and a “great traitor.”
Zhang Qinqiu spent five years studying in the Soviet Union and became friends with Wang Ming and other students also studying there. They were known as the “Twenty-Eight Bolsheviks.”
The “Twenty-Eight Bolsheviks” was a general term referring to those who were staunch supporters of Marxism-Leninism during their studies in the Soviet Union, becoming the most steadfast supporters of the Soviet Union and the Communist International.
Upon returning to China, their paths diverged, and their thoughts and actions underwent significant changes. For example, Zhang Qinqiu criticized Wang Ming’s dogmatism and sectarianism.
In 1966, at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, Kang Sheng, an advisor to the Central Cultural Revolution Group, asserted that “there are no good people among the ‘Twenty-Eight Bolsheviks’.” Therefore, all living members were reviewed and some were even imprisoned and persecuted to death.
Zhang Qinqiu’s connection with Wang Ming, considered a “big villain,” raised doubts about her intentions.
In the early years of the CCP’s ruling, China followed a pro-Soviet foreign policy. Many Soviet experts were sent to China to assist in construction according to the Soviet model. Even in the Textile Industry Department where Zhang Qinqiu worked, there were Soviet experts, and they had interactions based on their work.
By the time the Cultural Revolution erupted, Sino-Soviet relations had severely deteriorated. One of the reasons Mao initiated the Cultural Revolution was to “counter and prevent revisionism.” Zhang Qinqiu was suspected of colluding with Soviet revisionism.
On April 20, 1968, five members of the Central Special Task Group arrived at Room 351 of the Textile Industry Department’s building, ordering Zhang Qinqiu to explain her interactions with the Soviets.
The group said, “Any attempt to deceive is futile. You, taking advantage of your position, shared statistical data of the Chinese Textile Industry Department with the Soviet experts you work with in the department. Do you not understand the confidential nature of statistical data? Your actions themselves already raise suspicion of collaborating with foreign entities.”
In 1958, Mao Zedong mentioned during a dialogue with Soviet Ambassador Yevgeny, “We have no secrets from you. You know about our military, political, economic, and cultural affairs. You have over 1,000 experts working here from your country. We trust you because you are a socialist country, heirs of Lenin.”
Zhang Qinqiu mentioned Mao’s speech as guidance for working with Soviet experts.
The task group did not heed her explanation, deeming her evasive and in denial, and ultimately charged her with being an opponent of Mao Zedong.
In a notebook found in Zhang Qinqiu’s home during the investigation, they found eight characters written above a picture of Mao Zedong’s portrait: “Overconfident, Loves grandstanding.” Zhang Qinqiu admitted to writing it, as she found it meaningful when Mao mentioned those words during a speech. She wrote it down to remind herself constantly.
However, the task group dismissed her explanation, considering it an attempt to deceive and deny, and deemed this as evidence of her consistent opposition to Mao.
In her last unsubmitted ideological report, Zhang Qinqiu wrote, “If I can’t present my thoughts, no one will believe it. In the end, I am still untruthful and stubborn. What else can I do? There is only one way left.”
Since joining the CCP at the age of 20, believing in communism and enduring many hardships, by the time she was 64, this 44-year-old party veteran was cornered by the party.
Why? Looking back at the history of the CCP, it was a merciless meat grinder of a party. Once caught up in its “merciless struggle and severe blows” process, no one could escape.
Even today, the CCP’s foremost concern is its political security. Specifically, the safety of the CCP leaders’ lives. Any slight misstep could bring great disaster, potentially leading them to a dead-end.
And thus, Zhang Qinqiu, who had devoted her life to the Communist cause, met a tragic end as the party forced her into a corner.
(Media source: Dajiyuan, original article)