[2] Gong was born in Xiangtan, Hunan, on 26 December 1929, while his ancestral home in Changsha County.
[2] Gong worked in the Publicity Department of the Chinese Communist Party after university.
[2] In 1966, Mao Zedong launched the Cultural Revolution, he was sent to the May Seventh Cadre School to do farm works in Helan County, northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.
[2] In early 1977, he and Zheng Bijian jointly drafted an editorial entitled "Learning Documents Well and Grasping the Outline" (学好文件抓好纲), which officially put forward the "Two Whatevers".
[2] In March 1988, he was appointed deputy head of the Publicity Department of the CCP, responsible for theoretical work.