Wang Hongwen

Wang was born to a poor family of farmers in Kaiyuan village, part of the Luyuan district of Changchun, Jilin province. He was the eldest of five children to Wang Guosheng and Wang Yangshi. Wang never enrolled in school and briefly worked as a pig herder in his early teens. In 1950, he joined the army and, in 1951, he took part in the Korean War as a messenger in the communication department and by playing the horn. He joined the Chinese Communist Party in 1953. After the war, he was sent to Shanghai to work in Shanghai No. 17 Cotton Textile Mill as a machine operator and in 1960 he moved to the factory security department for militia work, where he later was placed in charge as a security cadre for all militia work on the factory. == Political career ==

On 12 June 1966, he opposed the factory authorities by posting a Big-character poster where he, and other signatories, accused them of practicing revisionism. Despite at first being admonished for this, he got the blessing of the Cultural Revolution work team dispatched to the factory. This first work team was replaced by a team sent by the Shanghai Provincial Committee which did not support Wang Hongwen's attack. When Wang arrived, his personal guards were asked to stay outside the courtyard, and when several agents from the Central Security Bureau restrained him in the corridor, he shouted, "I'm here for the meeting, what are you doing?" while punching and kicking the agents. Wang came to the hall with his arms restrained, and Hua began to read out the "decision" of the CCP Central Committee to him, but unexpectedly during the reading Wang broke away from the agents and shouted and lunged at Ye Jianying, who was present, but was subdued again before he could reach him. According to historian Immanuel C.Y. Hsü, Wang killed two of the agents trying to capture him, and was wounded himself before being subdued. In 1981, he was tried and sentenced to life imprisonment at Qincheng Prison. ==Personal life==

Wang married Cui Gendi, a co-worker at the Shanghai No. 17 Cotton Textile Mil, in 1958. The couple had three children (two sons and one daughter). Following Wang's arrest, she refused to divorce Wang, stating that "Wang Hongwen committed a crime" and "he's still young and comes from a poor background". Cui died on 14 April 2026 in Shanghai. == References ==