Yang Zhihua

Yang Zhihua, an early female cadre of the Chinese Communist Party in the 20th century. She studied at a girls’ normal school in Hangzhou, and in 1919, under the influence of the May Fourth Movement, she came into contact with progressive books and pursued freedom and democracy. At the end of that year she went to Shanghai to work at the Xingqi Pinglun She (Weekly Commentary Society). In spring 1921 she entered the church-run Shanghai Women’s Youth Physical Education Teachers College, but was expelled for anti-religious activities. In the autumn of the same year she returned to Xiaoshan to establish a rural primary school. In 1922 she returned to Shanghai and joined the Chinese Socialist Youth League, taking part in Xiaoshan’s early peasant movement. In 1923 she entered Shanghai University, working in women’s labor under the leadership of Xiang Jingyu. In 1924 she joined the Chinese Communist Party, worked as a night-school instructor for workers at a Shanghai West Silk Factory; in November she married Qu Qiubai, and in December became a member of the Shanghai Women’s National Conference Facilitation Committee. In 1925 she participated in the workers’ strike and the May Thirtieth Movement; the Shanghai Federation of Women from all walks of life was founded, and she served as director while also serving as a member of the Workers’ Movement Committee.

In April 1926 she was appointed head of the Women’s Movement Committee of the CCP Shanghai District Committee, leading the Shanghai women’s emancipation movement. In 1927 she took part in the Shanghai Third Workers’ Armed Uprising; she went to Wuhan to attend the Fifth Congress and was elected a Central Committee member of the CCP, afterward serving as a leader in the Wuhan Central Women’s Committee. After the failure of the Great Revolution, she returned to Shanghai to continue underground work.

In 1928 she went to Moscow to attend the Sixth Congress, studied in the Soviet Union, and opposed Wang Ming’s leftist line. In 1930 she returned to Shanghai, serving as a member and secretary of the CCP Women’s Movement Committee, and later also as minister of the Women’s Department of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions. In 1931, due to leftist factionalism, she was removed from her post and went into hiding in Shanghai. In 1934 she served as secretary of the Organization Department of the Shanghai Central Executive Committee; in 1935 she went to the Soviet Union to attend the Seventh Congress, serving as a member of the Standing Committee of the International Red Aid. In 1938 in Moscow she resumed organizational life. In 1941, on the way back from Xinjiang’s Dihual (Dihua), she was detained for four years; after the anti-Japanese War ended, she was released and returned to Yan’an to serve as a member of the CCP Women’s Movement Committee.

In 1947 she served as the Minister of the Women’s Department of the Jin-Ji-Lu-Yu Central Bureau, participating in land reform and supporting the North China Liberation War; in 1949 she attended the First National Women’s Congress, serving as an executive member of the All-China Democratic Women’s Federation and as head of its International Department. After the founding of the People’s Republic, she served as vice-chairwoman of the All-China Women’s Federation and as minister of the Women’s Department of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, later being elected at the Eighth Central Committee's Tenth Plenum as a candidate member of the Central Supervisory Commission, and she became a deputy to the First through the Third National People’s Congresses. During the Cultural Revolution she suffered persecution; she died in Beijing in 1973. She was rehabilitated in 1979, and she authored An Overview of the Women’s Movement and edited Qu Qiubai’s posthumous writings. The 2011 film Autumn’s White Hua features her as a character.