Zhang Xiuyan

Zhang Xiuyan, born in 1923, graduated from Beijing Women's Higher Normal School. She joined the Chinese Communist Party in 1926 and subsequently engaged in educational work in multiple cities, including Xiamen in Fujian Province, Beijing, and Tianjin. During her time working in Tianjin, she served as the Secretary of the Communist Party's Tianjin Left-wing Cultural League.

In 1934, Zhang Xiuyan was transferred to work with the Tianjin Municipal Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. In 1935, her husband, Li Tefu, Minister of Propaganda of the Hebei Provincial Committee, was criticized and persecuted for criticizing Wang Ming's "Left" sectarianism and later died in Yan'an. In the spring of 1936, after the reorganization of the Northern Bureau of the Chinese Communist Party, she was appointed as a Standing Committee member and Minister of the Women's Department of the Shaanxi Provincial Committee. She actively carried out anti-Japanese patriotic work in Shaanxi, established women's organizations, collected supplies to support the front lines, and trained female cadres.

At the end of 1939, Zhang Xiuyan went to Yan'an to report to the Central Women's Work Committee. She refused to work under Wang Ming and his wife, transferred to the Organization Department of the Central Committee, participated in the Yan'an Rectification Movement, and criticized Wang Ming's leftist errors. Her work experience during the land revolution period was affirmed by the central authorities. In 1945, she participated in the Seventh Party Congress and devoted herself to new struggles after the war.

In the spring of 1947, she was transferred to work in the Urban Work Department of the Central Bureau of Jin-Cha-Ji (Jin refers to Shanxi, Cha refers to Chahar, and Ji refers to Hebei). In 1949, she went into Beiping (now Beijing) with Ye Jianying and others to prepare for the Communist Party's entry into the city. On October 1, 1949, she attended the founding ceremony of the People's Republic of China. Afterwards, she served successively as a member of the Beijing Municipal Party Committee, Secretary of the Women's Committee, Deputy Secretary of the Party Leadership Group of the State Council's Supervisory Committee, Assistant to the Minister of the Ministry of Supervision, and a Standing Committee member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), as well as an executive member of the All-China Women's Federation.

During the Cultural Revolution, Zhang Xiuyan was persecuted. In 1979, her unjust case was posthumously rehabilitated, and her reputation was restored. She died in Beijing on December 23, 1968, at the age of 45.