In 1923 he was accepted to the Shanghai University, where he joined the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the next year.

In the winter of 1926, he was appointed secretary-general of the Jiangsu and Zhejiang Provinces of the Communist Youth League.

At the beginning of 1929, he was appointed secretary of Shunzhi Provincial Committee of the Communist Youth League.

In 1931, he was sent to northeast China, where he was Chinese Communist Party Committee Secretary of Manzhou Province.

[citation needed] In 1966, Mao Zedong launched the Cultural Revolution, Lin Biao and Kang Sheng slandered him as a "traitor".