Talk:Kang Sheng

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Can Mr Adam Carr stop his stupid action of deleting my contribution? He should pay more time on my grammatic problems instead of deleting other's contribution.Or he should spent more time on studying the history of CPC. For example, when Kang went to Moscow, he was sent as delegate of CPC in Comintern, not to study security.Cna Mr Carr be more modest and tolerable?He can spent more time on correcting my grammatic problem instead of boasting about his contribution of more than 10000 articles. I protest about his being rude and intolerable.

When you stop trying to insert a large number of unsourced and unformatted photos into the article, I will stop being intolerable, OK? Also, please SIGN YOUR COMMENTS or I won't bother talking with you further. Adam 12:41, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

This article has now been rewritten and filled with assertions the truth or otherwise of which I don't know and can't find out. So I am taking it off my watchlist and someone with more knowledge of Chinese history than me can worry about it. Adam 01:34, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Any additions which label Kang and/or the communist system a "devil" will be reverted, as will any similarly POV claims. If you want to have your work included, respect our fundamental Neutral point of view principle. 01:08, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

My dear foreign friends ,thank you for your interests in Chinese history. Firstly I think it is a principle in history study ,which is It Is Much Easy To Prove Sth Than To Noth. As some histories you don't know, you can't take it for granted that it didn't happen. Rely on more resources, especially on some Chinese resources!There are still some true and original documents in China.Secondly I advocate the policy of NPOW, but it doesn't mean you have no comment on some general accepted facts. Can't you agree that Fascism, Hitler or authoritarianism are devils? Most of the crimes committed by Kang could be found in documents by in China and abroad. Why can't I call him a devil? Giant 10:07 7 Sept 2005

That Kang and the system were "devils" are not generally accepted facts. Even among people who hold such views, "devils" would sound like angry rhetoric, not serious history. People who do not hold such views (myself included) would regard such terminology as just flat wrong. Everyking 02:25, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

About the devil word, I would say there is always word difficult to tell from being neutral or negative.For example, when you use the word "persecution" for Hitler's treatment of Jews in WW2, from the POW of historians it might be neutral, but in the dictionary the word is certainly negative. Can you avoid using this word in every article for that reason? Even if you don't agree with the devil word, How could you abuse your privilege to delete other contents? If you don't like it, it is OK.But please prove I am wrong.Don't take that westerners know everything more deeply than others for granted.For example ,in the version you kept, it said that Kang was sent to Moscow to study security technics but truth it is he was sent to as delegates to Comintern. And he didn't hold the position of social affairs department till 1949, during which he was demoted to Shangdong for his faults in "rectification"movement. Pardon me for my poor computer skill so that I can't give you the relevant linkage you need. But all these facts I provided could be found in the documents published by CPC and verified by memoirs of famous CPC dissidents such as Zhang Guotao and Wang Ming.So do respect my hard work.And if you think there is sth wrong in my statement, please leave them there for anyone more knowledgeable to correct instead of deleting without any further explanation. Giantcn 12:07 7 Sept 2005

Before joining Mao

This section needs more references; much of it seems to be based on questionable sources such as Jung Chang’s Mao The Unknown Story.DOR (HK) (talk) 08:10, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

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This article needs serious attention to NPOV. I'll be working on it from time to time. DOR (HK) (talk) 03:01, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

First serious edit, for discussion:

Kang Sheng’s (康生)early life is documented as if relating to different people. He was born in Shandong to a gentry family and named Zhao Rong in 1903,< ref> Snow, Edger, Red Star Over China,Grove Press (New York: 1938), p. 473-474</ ref> or as Zhang Zongke< ref>http://www.iisg.nl/~landsberger/ks.html</ ref>, perhaps in 1893,< ref> http://rulers.org/chinprov.html </ ref> or 1898.< ref> http://www.amazon.ca/Claws-Dragon-Sheng-Genius-Peoples/dp/product-description/0671797166</ ref>

He served on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Politburo and its Standing Committee throughout the Great Proletariat Cultural Revolution, and was a Vice Chairman of the 3rd (1965) and 4th (1975) National People’s Congresses.< ref>Lamb, Malcolm, Directory of Officials and Organizations in China, 1968-83, M.E. Sharpe (Armonk: 1983), pp. 1, 7, 53.</ ref> He was posthumously vilified as a close ally of the Gang of Four and therefore one of the key people responsible for the Cultural Revolution.

Kang studied at Shanghai University and joined the party, both in 1924-25. He participated in uprisings in that city under the leadership of Zhou Enlai (1926-27), and in 1930 was sent to study in Moscow. He remained in Moscow until 1937, working in the Comintern under Wang Ming and, at least at times, along side Chen Yun. All three returned to China, to Yenan, in 1937 and taught at the Anti-Japanese University (Kang Da).

Kang was appointed to the CCP CC Secretariat in 1938. There are conflicting reports about his role, or fate during the 1942 Rectification Campaign (Zheng Feng): One source says he was criticized, and then replaced Li Weihan as head of the CCP Party School,< ref>ibid</ ref> while another says he was responsible for turning Mao’s innocent effort to educate newly arrived cadres into a violent purge.< ref> http://www.iisg.nl/~landsberger/ks.html</ ref> In his August 1943 speech< ref>http://www.indiana.edu/~easc/resources/working_paper/noframe_7a_names.htm</ ref>, Kang explained how he and his colleagues used rectification to expose spies and trick anti-Party elements into reveling themselves. The strategy calls to mind the 1950s Hundred Flowers Movement and its aftermath.

Implemented. DOR (HK) (talk) 02:07, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Further additions to pre-1949 period, from a new source. DOR (HK) (talk) 02:07, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

References

Legacy

Is there any source to cite for the second paragraph of this section? DOR (HK) (talk) 02:47, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

OK, it has been long enough with nothing more than "citation needed." I have removed the section and will post it here, in the event anyone has any sources. DOR (HK) (talk) 03:33, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Legacy

Had Kang not died, he would certainly have been removed from power along with the Gang of Four (Jiang Qing and her associates) after Mao's death. In a secret speech delivered in 1978, Hu Yaobang (who became CPC General Secretary in 1981) compared Kang to Soviet secret police chiefs Felix Dzerzhinsky and Lavrenty Beria. He was posthumously expelled from the Party in 1980, and his remains were removed from Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery in Beijing, where the remains of many prominent CPC leaders are interred.

In contrast to Dzerzhinsky, who was a pious believer in communism and who lived a very simple and modest daily life, Kang lived an extravagant and corrupt lifestyle. As the best calligraphist among senior leaders of CPC, as well as a painter, art and antique connoisseur, poet, and historian, Kang had a great appetite for valuable Chinese antiques and used his power to embezzle many from the Forbidden City and from the storehouses of the Cultural Relics Bureau during the Cultural Revolution, a fact uncovered only after his death. According to the audits by the Chinese government and researches by the Japanese, Kang Sheng was both the very first millionaire and the first multi-millionaire in China, based on the value of artifacts he owned (or more precisely, robbed and stole) in 1970s price. Furthermore, it was rumored that he had kept an affair with the sister of his wife Cao Yi'ou for quite a long time, and he built several villas for their rendezvous.

The "secret speech" by Hu Yaobang referred to above was, it appears, either a (whole or partial) forgery OR a speech delivered by someone else and mistakenly attributed to Hu. It was published on Taiwan: a PRC transcript/text has never been seen or cited by anyone. People who worked close to Hu at the time and whom I spoke to about this later, in Beijing back in 1988, told me as much, emphatically. Villa Giulia (talk) 20:15, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Blockquotes

I've removed several blockquotes and incorporated the content into the main text, to make it less of a MacFarquhar book review. DOR (HK) (talk) 10:24, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Wang Li fansi lu is a useful source on Kang.Villa Giulia (talk) 18:31, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Deleted ref to Kang as being made head of Central Party School in 1959: if that's what MacFarquhar said in org. source/ref, then he got that wrong.Villa Giulia (talk) 15:16, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Villa Giulia, do you have a source on the Central Party School slot?DOR (HK) (talk) 06:00, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

My information is that Li Weihan was president of the Central Party School (中共中央党校 located, at the time, in 延安城东桥儿沟) until Kang Sheng took up the post in March 1938, and that Kang only held it until September that same year 1938, when he in turn was succeeded by Chen Yun. See Wang Jianying, Zhongguo gongchandang zuzhi shi ziliao huibian lingdao jigou yange he chengyuan minglu (1995), page. 427. Deng Fa did not become president until December 1941, succeeding Chen (same, p. 551), so I'd say the WIKI fact "slot" is incorrect.Villa Giulia (talk) 14:54, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Our article says Li Weihan ran the Ruijin-based CCP CC ‘Marxism and Communist School’ in 1933-35, and that it was renamed and moved to Yan’an in 1935 and placed under the direction of Dong Biwu (1935-37) and later Li Weihan (1937-38) and Kang Sheng (1938-39). Chen Yun isn’t listed at all. I’m not saying the article is flawless, but we should reconcile the two. DOR (HK) (talk) 06:53, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

The Marx School of Communism in Ruijin was set up on 13 March 1933 with Ren Bishi as the first president, later succeeded by Zhang Wentian. Li Weihan did, from what I can see, not hold a position in the school and certainly does not appear to have "run" it. The school will have folded when the Red Army left on the Long March, but that it "moved to Yan'an in 1935" cannot be correct, since the CCP leadership did not settle in Yan'an until mid-January 1937, having first been based in Bao'an after concluding the Long March. Once the school - now the Central Party School - was revived, in the winter of 1936-37, it seems, Dong Biwu became the first president, succeeded by Li Weihan in May 1937. All of this information comes, again, from the revised and expanded edition of Wang Jianying, quoted earlier.Villa Giulia (talk) 07:42, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

According to our article Long March, the 1st Red Army reached Yan’an in October 1935, the 2nd Red Army a year later, and remains of the 4th Red Army sometime between those dates. So, it is entirely possible that the school “moved to Yan’an in 1935.”DOR (HK) (talk) 06:20, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Questionable claim

The intro starts with the claim that Kang was "the head of the People's Republic of China's security and intelligence apparatus at various points until his death." From what a variety of CCP chronologies, Who's Who-type of works state, he was really never the head of the PRC security and intelligence apparatus, and only for the first half of the 1940s the head of the CCP's apparatus of this kind. He was, for a few years at the end of the 1960s the CCP leader to whom the real head(s) reported, but that is a different story. Those WIKI contributors who feel, all the same, that Kang ought to be characterized as the "head" may want to provide more precise dates and sources supporting those dates.Villa Giulia (talk) 17:22, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Villa Giulia, as I think you already know, there isn't necessarily going to be difinitive evidence of who ran the most secret organization in China during which years. I believe no one has been identified as senior to Kang in the intelligence / security sphere at any time from the late 1940s to 1975. Therefore, in the absence of concrete information to the contrary, it is safe to assume that Kang retained his position, even if it wasn't 100% formal. DOR (HK) (talk) 06:16, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

So you believe that Li Kenong reported to Kang while Li was still alive and active? And you believe that Kong Yuan reported, not to Yang Shangkun in the first place, and in difficult matters, to Yang and Deng Xiaoping prior to 1966 (as Yang Shangkun riji claims) but to Kang? And when Deng Xiaoping (according to Wang Li fansilu), hands over responsibility for supervising the work of the CID to Kang in the autumn of 1966, Kang had according to your belief already all along been the "senior" point-person in these matters? And when Kang goes belly up after 1970, you believe he's still running things until 1975? OK, the field is murky, and absolute clarity will certainly never be achieved: however, the claim "head of the People's Republic of China's security and intelligence apparatus at various points until his death" is - you do realize - made entirely in the absence of concrete information to support it. If you have sources that supports it and adds some precision to it as far as dates are concerned, please add them to the WIKI article. Respectfully, Villa Giulia (talk) 09:51, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Patricia Stranahan puts Kong Yuan in Moscow in August 1935, along with Chen Yun and Pan Hannian. That would support his being made head of the CCP CC Liaison Department in 1936. He is later identified as CCP Secretary of Xi’an where he mainly was involved in KMT-CCP negotiations. Next, we find him as CCP CC Yangzi Bureau Secretary (1937-41), CCP CC Social Affairs deputy director under Kang Sheng and deputy of the Central Intelligence Department, which over lapped in responsibilities.

MacFarquhar says there was a major shake-up in the intelligence community in 1955, and Deng Xiaoping took broad – not direct – responsibility, and later Kang Sheng (post-11th Plenum). If Kang couldn’t unseat Deng’s man, the GPCR attacks on Kong Yuan make sense.

I don't have better sources than anyone else, so I'm willing to be convinced. But, we need to footnote the substantial changes. DOR (HK) (talk) 06:16, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Let me see what I can do to support my own list of appointments and responsibilities with the help of solid source notes. It may take a little time, but I'll try.Villa Giulia (talk) 07:03, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

FORMAT

The article is beginning to look more and more like a biography, rather than a conventional WIKI entry about a historical figure.Villa Giulia (talk) 18:49, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

CCP Vice Chair ?

I have not found any evidence that Kang was CCP Vice Chair prior to the 9th National Party Congress ... i.e., 9 Oct 1959 and after. Nor is he listed at that time in our Vice Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party article. DOR (ex-HK) (talk) 17:19, 19 August 2023 (UTC)