Lu Dingyi

Lu Dingyi (Chinese: 陆定一; pinyin: Lù Dìngyī; June 9, 1906 – May 9, 1996)^[1]: 151 was a leader of the Chinese Communist Party. After the establishment of the People's Republic of China and before the Cultural Revolution, he was credited as one of the top officials in socialist culture.

In this Chinese name, the family name is Lu.

Lu Dingyi
Lu Dingyi in 1942
Vice Premier of China
In office April 1959 – May 1966
Premier	Zhou Enlai
Vice Premier	Chen Yun Lin Biao
Minister of Culture
In office February 1965 – May 1966
Premier	Zhou Enlai
Preceded by	Shen Yanbing
Succeeded by	Xiao Wangdong
Head of the Publicity Department of the Chinese Communist Party
In office December 1944 – 1952
Leader	Zhang Wentian Mao Zedong
Preceded by	Zhang Wentian
Succeeded by	Xi Zhongxun
In office July 1954 – December 1966
Leader	Mao Zedong (Chairman)
Preceded by	Xi Zhongxun
Succeeded by	Tao Zhu
Personal details
Born	(1906-06-09)9 June 1906 Wuxi, Jiangsu, Qing Empire
Died	9 May 1996(1996-05-09) (aged 89) Beijing, People's Republic of China
Alma mater	University of Nanjing
Chinese name
Simplified Chinese	陆定一
Traditional Chinese	陸定一
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Lù Dìngyī Wade–Giles Lu4 Ting4-i1

Biography

Former residence of Lu Dingyi in Wuxi. The house was bought by Lu's grandfather in late Guangxu period.

Lu Dingyi joined the Chinese Communist Party in 1925, while he was studying electrical engineering at the Nanyang Public School. After graduation, he fully joined revolutionary activities, being mainly involved in the Communist Youth League, writing articles for its newspaper Chinese Youth (later renamed Proletarian Youth and then Leninist Youth). In 1927 he took part at both the 5th CCP National Congress and the CYL Congress, being elected a member of the CYL Central Committee working with its Propaganda Department. He was actively involved in countering Chiang Kai-shek's anti-communist coup, organizing communist unities in Guangdong. In 1928 Lu Dingyi took part at the 6th CCP National Congress and the CYL Congress, both of which were held in Moscow, remaining in the Soviet Union until 1930 as a junior representative of the CYL to the Comintern.

Lu Dingyi then returned in China. He was a member of the CCP Propaganda Department starting from 1934. He participated in the Long March, during which he was editor of the Red Star newspaper. Also during the Long March, he was the head of the Propaganda Department of the Eighth Route Army.^[2]: 25 Later, he was the head of the Eighth Route Army's Political Department.^[2]: 25

In 1942, Lu was promoted to chief editor of the Liberation Daily^[1]: 151 after his predecessor Yang Song fell ill. During his editorial tenure, the newspaper increased its focus on promulgating Communist Party policies.^{[2]: 25–26} Because the party relied on grassroots cadre to communicate its messages to the masses at a time when literacy was still limited, the newspaper used simple and direct language.^[2]: 26 In an effort to give clear instruction, it typically published a piece of reporting side-by-side with an instructive editorial.^[2]: 26 Seeking to implement principles of the mass line, the newspaper dispatched reporters to collect news stories from villagers and sought contributions from local cultural workers.^[2]: 26 Circulation methods included village newspaper reading groups, community blackboards and bulletin boards, night study groups, and public meetings.^[2]: 26

Lu established the requirement that the paper's content had to be approved by Party Central.^{[2]: 25–26} During Lu's tenure, the paper became more aligned with those who supported Mao's leadership, and less with the Soviet-leaning members of party leadership.^[2]: 26

During the Yan'an Rectification Movement, Lu Dingyi wrote Our basic view for journalism, which was considered the basis for Chinese communist journalism. In 1943 he was appointed head of the CCP Central Propaganda Department, a post he held until 1952 and then again from 1954. He was elected CCP Central Committee member in 1945.

The Communist Party's first mass campaign against superstition occurred in Yan'an in 1944 and 1945.^[2]: 2 The campaign sought to eliminate shamanic ritual practices, reform shamans into productive workers, and to promote public health and hygiene.^[2]: 3 During this campaign, Lu dispatched Liberation Daily journalists to cover the trials of shamans and called on doctors of traditional Chinese medicine, doctors of Western medicine, schoolteachers, and other educated individuals to help promote modern medicine among the people and to encourage them to avoid shamanic practices.^[2]: 27

A political commissar in the PLA, Lu Dingyi gave important contributions to the revolutionary struggle in Shaanxi along with other top leaders like Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and Ren Bishi, according to his official biography.

After the establishment of the People's Republic of China, Lu Dingyi was deputy chairman of the Culture and Education Committee of the Central People's Government from 1949 and member of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress from 1954. At the 8th Party Congress in 1956, he was re-elected a CCP Central Committee member and promoted to Politburo alternate member, concurrently serving as secretary of the CCP Secretariat from 1962. In 1957 and 1960, he accompanied major Party leaders Mao Zedong, Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping to international meetings of communist parties held in Moscow. His main political activity was in the cultural front, as he directed cultural criticism campaigns.

In June 1958, Mao changed the party and government structure by establishing groups in charge of finance, legal matters, foreign affairs, science, and culture and education which bypassed the State Council.^{[3]: 414–415} Lu was made the head of the culture and education group.^[3]: 415

In 1959 he was appointed a Vice Premier of the State Council, and Minister of Culture in 1965. Lu was criticised and persecuted during the Cultural Revolution.^[4]: 82 Shortly after the Cultural Revolution broke out, Lu was accused of being a promoter of the reactionary line in culture, since he did not adhere to Mao Zedong's idea that culture should extensively serve proletarian politics. In April 1966 he was accused of being part of the "Peng-Luo-Lu-Yang anti-Party clique" (the others being Peng Dehuai, Luo Ruiqing and Yang Shangkun)^[3]: 539 and dismissed. He was also criticised for his activity in the Five Man Group, a Central Committee agency in charge of leading the first stages of the Cultural Revolution led by Peng Zhen, another purged official. He was detained for nearly 13 years.

Lu Dingyi was rehabilitated by the new leadership headed by Deng Xiaoping. His case was among the 445 cases reviewed directly by the Organizational Department over 1979-1980.^{[4]: 70–72} In 1979 he was co-opted in the Fifth CPPCC National Committee as its vice-chairman; in the same year, he was co-opted in the CCP Central Committee as a consultant to the Propaganda Department. He was later a member of the Central Advisory Commission.

Lu opposed the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, contending that the students were "arrogant" and that it was necessary to think about the "negative side effects."^[5]: 503 In 1990, he contended that the turmoil in Eastern Europe demonstrated that had the protestors in Tiananmen Square not been suppressed, they would have implemented "another Cultural Revolution."^[5]: 503

Lu Dingyi died in Beijing in 1996, several years after his retirement. He was hailed as an outstanding Party member and promoter of socialist culture. His knowledge of the English language also allowed him to translate the conversations between Mao Zedong and Anna Louise Strong.