Hu Sheng

Hu Sheng was a prominent Chinese Marxist theorist and historian who lived in both mainland China and Taiwan. He was born on 11 January 1918 in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province. He enrolled in the philosophy Department of Peking University in the year of 1934. He started involving in the communist revolutionary activities in Shanghai from 1935, mainly in the cultural activities and campaigns of resistance led by the Chinese Communist Party against the Japanese. After the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1937, he moved to Central China and joined the Chinese Communist Party. From the age of 17 to 30, Hu wrote numerous articles for the Communist and other progressive newspapers and magazines and his published works summed up more than 1 million Chinese characters and had a great impact on ideological and cultural circles as well as young intellectuals. Hu was responsible for the Party's theory research and publicity works for a long time after the People's Republic of China was formed in 1949. He also wrote a number of major works on Chinese and the Chinese Communist Party's history, such as Ancient Chinese Culture and the Chinese Intellectuals, The History of Chinese Ideologies, and The Biography of Chinese Heroes. He was known for his controversial views on cross-strait relations and unification. He visited mainland China in 1988 and met with Deng Yingchao, which led to his expulsion from the Kuomintang. He was the president of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences from 1985 to 1998. In 1996, Hu donated most of his books to a library in Hubei Province and established a fund to award outstanding young intellectuals. He became the member of the 12th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party from 1982 to 1987. In 1988, he became the vice-chairman of the National Committee of the 7th Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. He served for the second term and retired from office in 1998. He was also vice chairman of the Hong Kong Basic Law Drafting Committee which was responsible for drafting the Hong Kong Basic Law, the constitution of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region after it was handed over to China 1997. Hu died of an illness on 5 November 2000 in Shanghai at the age of 82. Entrusted by the party's Central Committee, the Vice President Hu Jintao came to Shanghai to bid farewell to Hu Sheng, and to convey to Hu Sheng's family members. There were also concerns expressed from General Secretary Jiang Zemin and other members of the Politburo Standing Committee of the party's Central Committee.