On 1 October 1949, Mao Zedong announced the
founding of the People's Republic of China, with Liu present at founding ceremony. In the early days of the PRC, Mao followed the Soviet model and established the
State Planning Commission, with Gao Gang as its director. He transferred the economic departments that were originally under the Central People's Government Council, leaving Zhou Enlai in a powerless position, only in charge of foreign affairs. During the same period, Mao criticized Liu Shaoqi on several occasions, and Gao Gang believed that Mao intended to seize Liu Shaoqi's power. So he joined forces with
Rao Shushi to take the opportunity to attack Liu Shaoqi, and the conflict between Liu and Gao worsened. So Liu and Zhou Enlai joined forces, and with Mao's consent, they criticized Gao Gang at the fourth plenum in February 1954, causing him to step down.
Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress On 27 September 1954, Liu was elected
Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress at the first session of the
1st National People's Congress. He then delivered a report on the draft
Constitution of the People's Republic of China to the Congress on behalf of the Constitution Drafting Committee. Once, Liu revised the ''
People's Daily'' editorial draft which was against impatience and submitted it to Mao for review. Mao directly instructed that he would not read it. Mao later said, "Anti-rash advance has discouraged 600 million people and is a policy error." In 1957, Liu said in an investigation: "
Engels said that we must prevent the state and state organs from becoming social servants and social masters. The leaders of our party, government, state and economic organs were originally servants of the people and servants of society. Now some of our comrades have become masters, treating the people as servants, and they are not even aware of it. This is wrong. All our leaders serve the people, are servants of the people, and are servants of the people. They have no right to be masters. Because if they do not do this, they cannot treat the masses as people like themselves. When dealing with the internal affairs of the masses, they cannot treat ordinary workers, ordinary farmers, and ordinary students as our party members and cadres. We must trust the masses, and then the masses will trust us. If we do not trust the masses, the masses will not trust us." Then came the third plenum of the 8th Central Committee in 1957 to oppose "anti-rash advance". Zhou Enlai made a self-criticism, while Liu thought to himself, "We are always far behind Chairman Mao." The side supporting Mao took the initiative, thus starting the prelude to the Great Leap Forward. Liu spoke strongly in favor of the Great Leap Forward at the 8th CCP National Congress in May 1958. At this Congress Liu stood together with Deng Xiaoping and Peng Zhen in support of Mao's policies against those who were more critical, such as
Chen Yun and Zhou Enlai. In June, after Mao approved the report that "it will surpass Britain in two years", Liu also followed suit and declared that steel production could catch up with Britain in two or three years and surpass the United States in seven or eight years. Like Mao, he also publicly fueled the exaggerated behavior when he conducted on-site inspections of agricultural production. Mao later demanded that some excessive targets be reduced. After the problems of the Great Leap Forward began to emerge at the end of 1958, Liu admitted that "I was also a bit hot-headed and said some excessive things". In the spring of 1959, Mao further demanded "correcting the left" and "reducing the air".
Chairman of the People's Republic of China , 1954 Shortly after the founding of the PRC, Mao designated Liu as his successor. In December 1953, Mao proposed that Liu take charge of the "front line" work and that he himself retire to the "second line". At the 8th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in 1956, Liu delivered a political report on behalf of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party and was elected as the first-ranked Vice Chairman of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. On the eve of the
2nd National People's Congress in 1959, Mao made small-scale briefings on various occasions to prepare for Liu's succession. On March 10,
an uprising in Tibet centered on Lhasa occurred. On March 11, 12, 14 and 17, Deng Xiaoping attended meetings convened by Liu to study how to deal with the rebellion of the reactionary upper class in Tibet. Liu and Deng Xiaoping said at the meeting: Eight years have passed since the peaceful liberation of Tibet. We have not carried out democratic reforms because we were waiting for the upper class to realize their mistakes. Now some upper class members are going to rebel, forcing us to carry out reforms. In late October, when meeting with model workers attending the National Congress of Heroes, Liu said to Shi Chuanxiang, a sanitation worker in Beijing : "You are a servant of the people when you clean the latrines, and I am also a servant of the people when I am the chairman. This is just a difference in the division of labor in the revolution, and both are indispensable parts of the revolutionary cause." He was an orthodox Soviet-style Communist and favored state planning and the development of heavy industry. He elaborated upon his political and economic beliefs in his writings. His best known works include
How to be a Good Communist (1939),
On the Party (1945), and
Internationalism and Nationalism (1952).
Lushan Conference The Lushan Conference was held from July 2 to August 1, 1959. On July 14, Peng Dehuai wrote to Mao, stating his thoughts on the mistakes and lessons learned from the Great Leap Forward and the People's Commune movement since 1958; Mao did not comment, but on July 16, he added the "Comrade Peng Dehuai's Opinion Letter" and printed it for reference by all the comrades present. According to Mao's proposal, the eighth plenum of the 8th Central Committee was held from August 2 to 16. The plenum further criticized the so-called "Peng Dehuai, Huang Kecheng, Zhang Wentian and Zhou Xiaozhou anti-Party clique" and passed the resolution "Struggle to Defend the Party's General Line and Oppose Right Opportunism" and the resolution "On the Errors of the Anti-Party Clique Headed by Comrade Peng Dehuai".
Great Chinese Famine On January 3, 1961, at the third briefing of the Central Committee working conference to discuss the 1961 national economic plan, Liu said: "It seems that last year, the increase from 18.4 million tons of steel to 20.4 million tons was a mistake. The basic spirit of this year's plan is to ease the situation and contradictions and to leave room for maneuver. There is room for maneuver in every matter." On January 9, at the fifth briefing of the Central Committee working conference, he said: It seems that the peasants are very vulnerable in terms of economy. Being vulnerable in terms of economy, they are also vulnerable in terms of resistance to illegal and disorderly conduct. This economic vulnerability and political vulnerability are very easy to cause problems. In the future, our leaders at all levels should be particularly careful in dealing with peasant issues and make peasants' lives better." On April 1, he arrived in Changsha from Guangzhou and began to conduct in-depth investigations and research in rural Hunan. During the visit, he learned the damage caused by the Great Leap Forward. After conducting on-site investigations in his hometown in Hunan and visiting various places, Liu's thinking changed significantly. He decided to disband the canteens, emphasize investigation and research, and begin to correct the excesses of the Great Leap Forward.
Seven Thousand Cadres Conference On 27 January 1962, Liu delivered a report on behalf of the Central Committee and officially sent it to the delegates of the Enlarged Meeting of the Central Committee, known as the Seven Thousand Cadres Conference. At the meeting, Mao, as Chairman of the CCP, assumed the responsibilities of the Central Committee, while Deng Xiaoping and Zhou Enlai, representing the Secretariat of the CCP Central Committee and the State Council respectively, made self-criticisms. Liu organized criticism of the lessons learned from the Great Leap Forward and other campaigns, sharply pointing out that the Great Leap Forward was "three parts natural disaster and seven parts man-made disaster." As the State Chairman in charge of frontline work, Liu demanded that the entire Party correct its shortcomings and errors, overcome difficulties, and do a good job in adjusting the national economy. The report proposed strengthening centralized and unified leadership, opposing decentralism, and striving for a more rapid fundamental improvement in the national economy. The report elaborated on the Party's fine traditions and style, such as seeking truth from facts and adhering to the mass line, and seriously criticized the phenomena of falsehood, exaggeration, coercion, and serious detachment from the masses among cadres in recent years. It demanded that the entire Party overcome subjectivism, bureaucracy, commandism, decentralism, and other bad ideas and styles, and greatly strengthen the Party's fighting capacity." Liu's characterization made it impossible for Peng Dehuai to be exonerated. Liu also made a severe characterization. After the Seven Thousand Cadres Conference, on February 8, Liu spoke at the Central Committee. He said: "We must create an atmosphere in which people can speak freely. This is true within the Party and even more so outside the Party. Under no circumstances should the Party replace the government or the trade unions, because Party members are always a minority. We must give full play to the role of the people's congress system and implement people's democracy through this system." Mao believed that this was an allusion to himself. During the Cultural Revolution, this reprint was severely criticized and called "Black Cultivation". From July 25 to August 24, the Central Committee held a working conference in
Beidaihe. In 1962, Mao reiterated the class struggle and criticized the "dark wind", "reversal of verdicts" and "individual farming" within the CCP. These "three winds" were more or less related to Liu. Liu accepted Mao's theory of anti-revisionism and prevention of revisionism. He not only made self-criticism and severely criticized the "three winds", but also said that "the question of who wins and who loses between the two classes has not yet been resolved" and "we must strengthen socialist education and prepare for capitalist restoration." However, at this time, Liu did not regard "capitalist restoration" as a real danger. The targets of the class struggle he mentioned at that time were only social problems such as "speculation and profiteering, embezzlement and theft, as well as some serious extravagance and waste, serious degeneration and deterioration, lawlessness and disorder, and serious decentralism". This was significantly different from Mao's understanding of the seriousness of class struggle. From September 1963, the Sino-Soviet polemic was fully launched. Against the backdrop of international "anti-revisionism" and domestic "prevention of revisionism", Liu began to shift his energy to the socialist education movement that was being fully launched (the "Four Cleanups" in the countryside and the "Five Antis" in the cities). Liu presided over the revision of the "Later Ten Articles," which was approved by Mao and distributed to the entire people along with the "First Ten Articles," thus launching the "Four Cleanups" movement in full swing. As the movement progressed, Liu's understanding of carrying out the socialist education movement also underwent a major change. He accepted Mao's theory of "opposing revisionism and preventing revisionism" and believed that "revisionism is a kind of bourgeois ideology, a reflection of bourgeois ideology within socialist countries and within the Communist Party." In November 1963, Liu Shaoqi's wife, Wang Guangmei, joined the "Four Cleanups" work team and went to Taoyuan Brigade, Luwangzhuang Commune, Funing County, Hebei Province to guide the "Four Cleanups" campaign. The "Taoyuan Experience", which she summarized, served as the blueprint for the "Socialist Education Movement" of "focusing on key points to drive overall progress." At the beginning of the movement, Liu's assessment of the situation and his proposed policies were approved by Mao. However, as the movement deepened, excessive actions emerged, and the differences between Liu and Mao in their understanding and practice of class struggle gradually surfaced. Liu believed that the focus of "anti-revisionism and prevention of revisionism" was at the grassroots level, and the "Four Cleanups" movement he spearheaded aimed to severely crack down on "landlords, rich peasants, counter-revolutionaries, and bad elements" and grassroots cadres deemed to have become revisionists. Mao, on the other hand, believed that the root of revisionism lay in the upper echelons of the Party, stating that a "bureaucratic class" had formed within the Party. At the Central Work Conference at the end of 1964, the differences between Mao and Liu became public. Mao proposed that the main contradiction at that time was the contradiction between capitalism and socialism, and the focus of the movement was to rectify the capitalist road faction in the Party and oppose pointing the spearhead at the grassroots level. Liu said that the nature of the movement was the intertwining of contradictions among the people and contradictions between the enemy and ourselves, and opposed elevating all contradictions to the nature of the enemy and ourselves. At the meeting, Mao had the upper hand, and the "Four Cleanups" movement was redeployed according to Mao's opinion, which to some extent corrected the excessive bias of cracking down on grassroots cadres. However, Mao's proposal of "focusing on rectifying the capitalist road faction in the Party" expanded the class struggle and prepared the theoretical premise for launching a larger-scale movement in the next step. At this time, Mao had already linked Liu with "revisionism in the Central Committee", and the two policies on class struggle represented by Liu and Mao in the Central Committee were finally no longer compatible. During preliminary work on the Third Five Year Plan, Liu stated: After Mao succeeded in restoring his prestige during the 1960s, Liu's eventual downfall became "inevitable". Liu's position as the second-most powerful leader of the CCP contributed to Mao's rivalry with him at least as much as Liu's political beliefs or factional allegiances in the 1960s, On June 27, 1966, at a symposium with democratic figures convened by the Central Committee in the Anhui Hall of the Great Hall of the People, Liu discussed the issues of Peng Zhen, Luo Ruiqing, Lu Dingyi, and
Yang Shangkun. "The relationship between Peng, Luo, Lu, and Yang is abnormal… Their common characteristic is that they oppose Chairman Mao and Mao Zedong Thought, and they are all engaged in underground activities." "The Peng, Luo, Lu, and Yang incident has the potential to lead to a coup, which is a reflection of the intense international and domestic class struggle within our party leadership." He concluded by saying, "We now support Chairman Mao, and we will support Chairman Mao after he passes away. Mao Zedong Thought must continue, and Chairman Mao’s works should become the textbooks of the people of the whole country, the action guide of the people of the whole country, and the action guide of all party members. Mao Zedong Thought is the beacon of mankind and the sharp weapon of world revolution. Mao Zedong Thought can change the face of China and the face of the world. We have used Mao Zedong Thought to defeat all anti-party elements, and we can also defeat all domestic reactionaries and all foreign reactionaries." However, the differences between the two sides gradually increased. In dealing with some specific issues of the Cultural Revolution, the contradictions between the two sides rose and fell. In June 1966, Liu and Deng Xiaoping organized work teams to enter universities and middle schools, prohibiting students from marching and demonstrating and posting big-character posters, and directing the struggle against the "five black categories". Mao was very annoyed by this: "Communists are afraid of student movements, which is anti-Marxist." He ordered the work teams to be withdrawn. On July 18, after returning to Beijing from swimming in the Yangtze River in Wuhan, Mao refused Liu's request to meet and first listened to the report from Jiang Qing and others. From July 19 to 23, Liu presided over the "Report Meeting on the Situation of the Cultural Revolution". There were obvious differences of opinion on the issue of sending work teams.
Chen Boda, Kang Sheng, Guan Feng and others expressed their opposition. On July 24–25, Mao convened the Standing Committee of the Central Committee, members of the
Cultural Revolution Group, and secretaries of the Central Bureau, and harshly criticized Liu and Deng Xiaoping for sending work teams to suppress the student movement. He said that only the Beiyang warlords suppressed the student movement, and accused them of setting up frameworks such as "distinguishing between insiders and outsiders" to lead the movement astray. He also said that the work teams "have a bad effect on the movement and hinder the movement", and that the work teams should be abolished and their leaders dismissed. At the eleventh plenum in August 1966, the "Decision of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party on the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" was adopted. Mao directly targeted Liu with the goal of "
bombarding the bourgeois headquarters". At the same time,
Lin Biao replaced Liu as the second-in-command of the CCP. Although Liu was still a member of the Standing Committee of the Politburo, his ranking dropped to 8th. At the same time, his status as Vice Chairman of the CCP Central Committee was no longer mentioned. At the enlarged meeting of the Politburo on October 16, Liu was criticized by Chen Boda, Lin Biao and others. Subsequently, the rebels used big-character posters and other means to criticize Liu and Deng Xiaoping repeatedly. Mao criticized this approach, and Zhou Enlai, Tao Zhu and others stepped forward to stop it on many occasions. On January 6, the rebels at Tsinghua University set a trap to lure Liu and Wang Guangmei out of Zhongnanhai and forcibly detained Wang Guangmei. She was later released after Zhou Enlai intervened. In early March 1967, Chen Boda and Kang Sheng conveyed Mao's instructions at a meeting of cadres above the rank of army and began to criticize "On the Self-Cultivation of Communists". On May 8, in the name of the editorial department of ''People's Daily
and Red Flag'', a long critical article entitled "The crux of'Self-Cultivation' is betrayal of the dictatorship of the proletariat" was published. On May 11, a special notice from the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party was issued, saying that the article had been discussed and approved by the enlarged meeting of the Standing Committee of the Politburo and personally approved by Mao. "It is hoped that the revolutionary comrades in all units will seriously organize study and discussion, and further carry out a major criticism movement against the largest handful of capitalist roaders in power in the Party." On the 18th, ''People's Daily
and Red Flag'' published an editorial department article entitled "The Great Historical Document", using "China's Khrushchev" as a synonym to criticize Liu Shaoqi in an exaggerated way. At a meeting to criticize Liu Shaoqi in June, someone found Liu Shaoqi's ex-wife Wang Jian through connections and asked her to expose and criticize Liu at the meeting. Whatever its other causes, the Cultural Revolution, declared in 1966, was overtly pro-Maoist, and gave Mao the power and influence to purge the Party of his political enemies at the highest levels of government. Along with closing China's schools and universities, and Mao's exhortations to young Chinese to randomly destroy old buildings, temples, and art, and to attack their teachers, school administrators, party leaders, and parents, the Cultural Revolution also increased Mao's prestige so much that entire villages adopted the practice of offering prayers to Mao before every meal. In both national politics and Chinese popular culture, Mao established himself as a demigod accountable to no one, purging any that he suspected of opposing him and directing the masses and
Red Guards "to destroy virtually all state and party institutions". Liu was labeled as the "commander of China's bourgeoisie headquarters", China's foremost "capitalist roader", "the biggest capitalist roader in the Party", and a traitor to the revolution; Liu's major economic positions were attacked, including his
Three Freedoms and One Guarantee (which promoted private land plots, free markets, independent accounting for small enterprises, and household output quotas) and "four freedoms" (which permitted individuals in the countryside to lease land, lend money, hire wage laborers, and engage in trade).The biggest capitalist roader in power within the Party defended himself by saying that he was an "old revolutionary who encountered new problems." Could there really be such an "old revolutionary" who was so crazy about capitalist restoration? Could there really be such an "old revolutionary" who was so rampant in opposing the great leader Chairman Mao and the great Mao Zedong Thought? There is only one answer: you are not an "old revolutionary" at all, you are a fake revolutionary, a counter-revolutionary, you are Khrushchev sleeping next to us!On 8 August 1967, Liu resigned again, but his subsequent letters went unanswered. Liu eventually realized that arguing was futile, so he gave up writing letters and making appeals and remained silent, ultimately choosing to express his silent resistance. However, the criticism did not decrease; on August 27 and August 30, 1967, the ''People's Daily'' published front-page news, directly pointing out that Liu was "China's Khrushchev".
Expulsion from the CCP At the twelfth plenum of the 8th Central Committee in 1968, some members of the Central Committee were deprived of their right to attend the meeting. Some members of the Central Committee who attended the meeting were continuously criticized and struggled against. Among the members and alternate members of the 8th Central Committee, those who were labeled as "traitors," "spies," "colluding with foreign countries," and "anti-Party elements" accounted for 71% of the total. On May 20, 1968, Mao said in "Talk with Members of the Central Cultural Revolution Group Meeting": "The case of Liu Shaoqi is almost over now." On October 18, the Central Committee Special Case Review Group, including Zhou Enlai, Jiang Qing, Kang Sheng, Xie Fuzhi, and others, put forward the "Report on the Investigation of the Crimes of Traitor, Spy, and Scab Liu Shaoqi", which included the investigation results of Liu's counter-revolutionary crimes of being arrested, betraying, surrendering to the enemy, acting as a spy, and scab in 1925, 1927, and 1929. On October 31, the twelfth plenum of the 8th Central Committee approved the report, which considered him to be "Liu Shaoqi, the number one capitalist roader in power in the Party, a traitor, spy, and scab buried in the Party, and a lackey of imperialism, modern revisionism, and the Kuomintang reactionaries with a long list of crimes." The resolution was passed: "Liu Shaoqi is to be expelled from the Party forever, removed from all his posts inside and outside the Party, and continue to settle accounts with Liu Shaoqi and his accomplices for their crimes of betraying the Party and the country." It also called on "all comrades in the Party and the people of the whole country to continue to carry out a large-scale revolutionary struggle to eliminate the counter-revolutionary revisionist thoughts of Liu Shaoqi and the largest handful of capitalist roaders in the Party." Among all the attendees, only Chen Shaomin opposed the resolution. After Liu was dismissed, the position of State Chairman was vacant for a long time until the
4th National People's Congress was held in 1975 to amend the Constitution and formally abolish it. On October 17, the ''People's Daily'' published the Central Committee's decision to continue attacking Liu as China's Khrushchev. On November 27, the ''People's Daily'' "exposed" Liu's attacks on the three red banners of the General Line, the Great Leap Forward, and the People's Commune, which Mao had personally established, and his rampant peddling of Khrushchev's revisionist black goods. He was also frantically carrying out criminal activities against the Party, socialism, and Mao Zedong Thought. He was a lackey of American imperialism and Soviet modern revisionism, and an accomplice of the reactionaries. On April 1, 1969, the
9th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party was held, where Liu was denounced as a traitor and an enemy agent. At the formal meeting of the 9th Congress, Lin Biao delivered a political report on behalf of the CCP Central Committee which stated that the Cultural Revolution had "destroyed the bourgeois headquarters headed by Liu Shaoqi, a traitor, spy, and scab, exposed a small handful of traitors, spies, and unrepentant capitalist roaders in power within the Party, with Liu Shaoqi as the general representative, and crushed their conspiracy to restore capitalism". Zhou Enlai read the Party verdict that Liu was "a criminal traitor, enemy agent and scab in the service of the imperialists, modern
revisionists and the
Kuomintang reactionaries". Liu's conditions did not improve after he was denounced in the Congress, and he died soon afterward. == Illness and death ==