Private Secretary to Chairman Mao
President of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Member of Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party Permanent member of Central Advisory Commission President of Xinhua News Agency. Member of Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Hu was an early member of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP),[2]: 70 joining the Communist Youth League of China in 1930 and the CCP in 1932. In the early part of his career, he was, in chronological order, the party secretary (Communist Youth League of China) in Xijiao District, Beiping City (now Beijing) and the head of the Propaganda Department (Communist Youth League of China) in Xijiao District, Beiping City. He was a leader of the anti-Japanese student and worker movement in Beiping. In 1936, he became the general secretary of the Chinese Sociologist League (中国社会科学家联盟), the general secretary of the Chinese Leftism Cultural League (中国左翼文化界总同盟), and a member of the CCP Jiangsu Province Temporary Committee of Labours (中国共产党江苏省临时工人委员会).
From February 1941 (some say 1942) to June 1966, he was Mao Zedong's main secretary. In the beginning, his secretarial work was mainly focused on culture but later shifted to politics. His secretarial career was ended by the Cultural Revolution.
In 1951 Hu wrote "Thirty Years of the Chinese Communist Party".[3] The book emphasised the Mao Zedong's ideological importance, writing that only he was able to correctly interpret and apply Marxism–Leninism to the Chinese situation.[1] It also gave praise and recognition to orthodox Marxism, Joseph Stalin, the Comintern and the Soviet Union, acknowledging their role in the revolution and the formation of the Chinese Communist Party.[1]
Subsequent career and intellectual contributions
Hu was persecuted during the Cultural Revolution and rehabilitated in the 1970s.[2]: 70 After his rehabilitation, Hu was involved in developing a new historiographical model for the CCP.[2]: 70–71 Those contributions included an important role in party discussions on how to address the Cultural Revolution and a central role in preparing the 1981 Resolution on Certain Questions in Our Party's History.[2]: 71
As vice premier, Deng Xiaoping in 1975 sought to re-orient the Chinese Academy of Sciences towards more theoretical research, which had not been a focus during the Cultural Revolution.[4]: 74 Deng assigned CAS vice president Hu Yaobang to draft a plan for overhauling CAS, with Deng and Hu revising the draft, which was issued in September 1974 as "The Outline Report on the Work of the Academy of Sciences".[4]: 74 The Outline described scientific research in China as lagging behind the needs of socialist construction and the state of the advanced countries, and stated that to catch up, China should emphasize basic science in order to develop a sound theoretical foundation.[4]: 74 This approach to scientific reform fell out of political favor in 1976 when Deng was purged, although it continued to be supported by many members within CAS.[4]: 75 A month before Deng's political return in 1977 however, the Outline Report was revived and adopted as CAS's official policy.[4]: 81
In 1977, the Department of Philosophy and Social Sciences was split off of CAS and reorganized into the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and led by Hu.[4]: 86–87
Hu was instrumental in promoting the Second Sino-Japanese War as an academic subject.[2]: 112 He successfully led a national-level campaign to open the War of Resistance Museum.[2]: 112 In the 1980s, Hu advocated a view of history more accepting of incorporating the Nationalists' contributions during the war.[2]: 71 His history of dedication to the party and long-time focus on historiography gave further weight to this approach.[2]: 71
^Susanne Weigelin-Schwiedrzik "Party Historiography" in Using the Past to Serve the Present: historiography and politics in contemporary China, Jonathan Unger, ed. (M.E. Sharpe: New York) 1993, p. 154
