Wang Li

Wang Li (; August 11, 1922 – October 21, 1996), born Wang Guangbin was a Chinese Communist propagandist and prominent member of the Cultural Revolution Group, in charge of overseeing the Cultural Revolution movement of Mao Zedong. Wang joined the Communist movement in his youth and became a specialist in theory and propaganda work. He was one of the leading figures of party propaganda at the outset of the Cultural Revolution, and contributed to the synthesis of Mao's theory of "continuous revolution." Despite being one of the leading proponents of the mass movement, Wang became one of its victims. He was purged on orders from Mao in 1967, shortly after he delivered an incendiary speech in support of rebellion at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and was sent to prison. He was retroactively denounced as a secret agent and extremist, and assigned blame for the Cultural Revolution's early excesses. He was released in 1982, and, having lost favor with both the Maoist and reform wings of the Communist Party, was duly expelled from the party in 1983. Early career Wang was originally from Huai'an, Jiangsu province. In October 1935, he joined the Communist Youth League. He joined the Communist Party of China in 1939 on the recommendation of Gu Mu. He joined the military expedition force in northeastern China, then began working for Masses Daily, the party mouthpiece in Shandong province, as a reporter, then he became lead editor. In 1943, he became the editor-in-chief of the Communist revolutionary agitation periodical Struggle, then he authored a book Sunny Skies under the pseudonym Wang Li, under which he became known. During the Chinese civil war, he worked as a member of the land reform team in the Bohai Sea region of Shandong, working on training Communist land reform officials. After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, Wang worked as a propaganda official in Shandong province. In 1953, under orders from the authorities, Wang became a propaganda advisor to the Communist Party of Vietnam. He returned to China in October 1955, when he joined the party's commission on international activities. In 1958 he began working for the flagship Communist Party periodical Red Flag. From 9 to 14 July, h was a member of the Chinese delegation led by Mao Dun to the World Peace Congress held in Moscow, Soviet Union, where he had conversations with Yuri Andropov.