Chen Yun

Chen Yun (, pronounced ; 13 June 1905 – 10 April 1995) was a Chinese revolutionary leader who was one of the most influential leaders of the People's Republic of China during the 1980s and 1990s and one of the major architects and important policy makers for the reform and opening up period, alongside Deng Xiaoping.

He was also known as Liao Chenyun (廖陈云), as he took his uncle's (Liao Wenguang; 廖文光) family name when he was adopted by him after his parents died.

Chen was born in Qingpu, Jiangsu (now part of Shanghai) in 1905.

Chen was typesetter for the famous Commercial Press of Shanghai, which printed revolutionary books and even Protestant Bibles.

He played a prominent role as a younger organizer in the labor movement during the early and mid-1920s, joining the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1924.

Chen was one of the few Communist Party organizers from an urban working-class background; he worked underground as a union organizer in the late 1920s, participated in the Long March, and served on the Central Committee from 1931 to 1987.

He was active throughout his career in the field of economics, despite receiving no formal education after elementary school.

Following the May Thirtieth Movement of 1925, Chen was an important organizer under Zhou Enlai and Liu Shaoqi.

For a time, Zhou and Yun resided at a Church of Christ in Changting which was the site of a revolutionary committee.

After Chiang Kai-shek turned against the CCP in 1927, Chen fled to his hometown, but soon returned to Shanghai and secretly continued his work as a labor unionist.

He served on the Central Committee in the Third Plenary Session of 6th Central Committee of CCP in 1930 and became a member of the Politburo in 1934.

A major Chinese Communist Party (CCP) political figure before the establishment of the PRC, Chen first joined the CCP Central Committee in 1931, and the Politburo in 1934.

In 1933 he evacuated to Ruijin, in Jiangxi province, the headquarters of the CCP's main "soviet" area.

He was in overall charge of the Party's "white areas" work, that is, underground activities in places not under Party control.

On the Long March he was one of the four Standing Committee members of the Political Bureau who attended the January 1935 Zunyi Conference.

He left the Long March sometime in the spring of 1935, returning to Shanghai, and in September 1935 he went to Moscow, serving as one of the CCP's representatives to the Comintern sent by the Fifth Plenum Politburo, although he did not take part in the work of the delegation because he was sent to the Stalingrad Tractor Factory as a punishment for his participation in the Luo Zhanglong faction.

He became the head of the CCP's Organization Department in 1937, and became one of CCP leader Mao Zedong's close advisors.

In 1937 Chen returned to China as an adviser to the Xinjiang leader Sheng Shicai.

Chen later joined Mao in Yan'an, probably before the end of 1937.

In November 1937 he became director of the Party's Organization Department, serving in that capacity until 1944, and by the early 1940s was in the inner circle of Mao's advisers.

During the middle of the 1940s, Chen was a major contributor to the party's strategy of "economic warfare."

Under this concept, reviving the economy in liberated areas was a major contribution to the revolutionary struggle.

Chen argued that economic development and production were critical, explaining that "[o]nly if we can solve the problem of food and clothing for the masses can we become leaders of the masses. Thus, a revolutionary businessman is an outright revolutionary."

A main challenge for the Communists during this period was driving out the Nationalist's competing currency and replacing it with the currencies used in the revolutionary base areas.

Chen argued that the approach should rely on both economic and political mechanisms (as opposed to prohibition), including regulating the value of competing currencies and controlling trade in key commodities.

Another Chen Yun's contribution to the early development of the Chinese economy was his stabilization of prices in Shanghai after the Nationalist government failed to curb the financial crisis caused by speculations of corporate monopolies.

He played an important role in the Yan'an Rectification Movement of 1942, and started becoming responsible for economic affairs that year, ultimately heading the Central Finance and Economic Commission from 1949.

After the establishment of the PRC, Chen was a key figure in moderating many of Mao's radical economic ideas.

His writings on organization, ideology, and cadre training were included in the important study materials for the Yan'an Rectification Movement of 1942, a campaign of political persecutions which consolidated Mao's power within the Party.

During this time, it is known that he protected some comrades accused of being Trotskyites, and criticized the exaggerations of the campaign in the Shandong base area.

Chen's economic career began in 1942, when he was replaced by Ren Bishi as head of the CCP Organization Department.

In his new position, Chen was assigned responsibility for the financial management of Northwest China.

Two years later, he was identified as responsible for finance in the Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Region as well.

He added Northeast China to his portfolio in 1946 (then under the overall leadership of General Lin Biao and Political Commissar Peng Zhen).

Chen was instrumental in China's economic reconstruction following the disastrous Great Leap Forward (1958–1960) along with Deng Xiaoping and Zhou Enlai, advocating for a "bird cage" economy in which the market economy should be allowed to play a role but kept contained like a "bird in a cage".

Chen was demoted during the Cultural Revolution though he returned to power after Mao's death in 1976.

After Deng Xiaoping's rehabiliation, Chen voiced his criticism of Maoist policies, decrying China's lack of economic policies, and later became one of the architects of Deng's reform and opening up policy.

During the 1980s and the 1990s, Chen was regarded as the second-most powerful person in China after Deng and was later recognized as one of the Eight Elders of the Chinese Communist Party.

Initially a strong advocate for economic reforms, Chen increasingly became conservative towards the reforms as they progressed, becoming a key figure in slowing many reforms and becoming the leader of CCP's conservative factions.

Chen resigned from the Central Committee in 1987 though kept his influence as the chairman of the Central Advisory Committee until 1992, when he fully retired from politics.