Wang, Zhen (1908–1993)

Chinese communist political leader. He was a veteran of the Long March and vice president of the Chinese Communist Party's (CPP) Central Advisory Committee from 1988. A hardline Marxist, he strongly supported the Tiananmen Square crackdown against the student-led pro-democracy movement in June 1989.

Born in the south-central province of Hunan, Wang began his career in the labour movement, working initially on the railways. He joined the CCP in 1927, and until the 1950s was an important army commander and political officer. He took part in the Long March 1934–35 when the communists retreated northwards under the attack of the Nationalist forces. Following the communist victory in 1949 Wang directed the forced ‘liberation’ and Han Chinese colonization of the largely Muslim far-western province of Xinjiang. He became a full member of the CCP's influential central committee in 1956.

An unswerving Marxist, Wang escaped the purge during the ultra-leftist Cultural Revolution 1966–69. He was the only member of the subsequent reformist administration of Deng Xiaoping to do so. He became vice premier in 1975 and joined the CCP's Politburo in 1978. Advancing age forced Wang to retire as vice premier in 1980, but he served as vice chair of the Central Advisory Committee 1985–87, a body set up by Deng to accommodate senior party figures. In his position as a party elder, he worked, via his protégés, to defend ‘Mao's revolution’. In 1987 he was influential in securing the ousting of the liberal-minded CCP leader Hu Yaobang.