Deng Yingchao

Deng Yingchao (; 4 February 1904 – 11 July 1992) was the Chairwoman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference from 1983 to 1988, a member of the Chinese Communist Party, and the wife of the first Chinese Premier, Zhou Enlai. Early life With ancestry in Guangshan County, Henan, she was born Deng Wenshu in Nanning, Guangxi. Growing up in a poverty-stricken family, her father died when she was at a young age and her single mother taught and practiced medicine. Deng studied at Beiyang Women's Normal School. Deng participated as a team leader in the May Fourth Movement, where she met Zhou Enlai in 1919. They married on 8 August 1925 in Guangzhou. Deng joined the Communist Youth League of China (CYL) in 1924 and became a member of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1925. After the White Terror massacres in 1927, Deng worked underground in Shanghai for five years. Chinese Civil War Deng was one of the few women to survive the Long March. However, during the Long March she developed pulmonary tuberculosis. After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, Deng Yingchao, as the only female representative of the Chinese Communist Party, attended the first Political Consultative Conference in Chongqing . In 1946, she was elected as a council member of the International Democratic Women's Federation. In March 1947, she has served as a member of the Rear Working Committee of the CCP Central Committee and acting secretary of the Women's Committee of the CCP Central Committee. In June 1949, she was elected as a member of the Preparatory Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and became a member of the drafting group of the " Common Program ". Later, entrusted by Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, she personally went to Shanghai and invited Soong Ching Ling to Beijing to participate in the preparation of the Central People's Government of the People's Republic of China.