Liu Qunxian

Liu Qunxian, originally named Liu Qinxian, was born in 1907 in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province. In childhood she served as a child bride and came from a textile worker family. She joined the Communist Party of China in 1926. In early 1927 she was elected a member of the Wuxi General Trade Union; in June of that year she went to Wuhan to attend the National Labour Congress. In October 1927 she went to Sun Yat-sen University in Moscow to study, where she met her fellow townsman Qin Bangxian (Bo Gu); the two married in May 1928. In May 1930 she returned to China and served in the General Trade Union as a propaganda officer and as Minister of the Women's Department. In June 1933 she accompanied Li De through Shantou into the Minxi and Jiangxi Soviet areas, where she was responsible for the women workers’ movement in the Soviet base union. In February 1934 she was elected as a member of the Second Central Executive Committee of the Chinese Soviet Republic; in October of the same year she took part in the Central Red Army’s Long March, and after reaching Shaanbei she served as minister of the Women’s Department of the General Trade Union. During the Anti-Japanese War period she worked at the Eighth Route Army offices in Wuhan and Chongqing. Overwork and long-term surveillance by Kuomintang agents caused a nervous illness; she was sent to Macau for treatment, but it proved ineffective. In 1939 she went to Moscow for treatment and recuperation. She died in the Soviet Union in 1942 during the Great Patriotic War.