At this point, Zhang Wentian became exposed to the Chen Duxiu's journal New Youth, and started to lean toward the idea of Bolshevik revolution.

[7] In January 1921, Zhang Wentian returned to China, and became an editor for Zhonghua Book Company, working with colleagues Zuo Shunsheng, Tian Han, Li Da, He Shuheng.

[19] The power struggle between the two factions in Moscow reached its peak in the summer of 1928, and a ten-day meeting was held to discuss the workings of the school office.

[24] In September of the same year, the provisional central political bureau was established by Bo Gu, Zhang Wentian, Lu Futan, Li Zhusheng, Kang Sheng, Chen Yun, Huang Ping, Liu Shaoqi, Wang Yun Cheng and other nine; Bo Gu, Zhang Wentian, Lu Futan as the Standing Committee.

[25] After the outbreak of January 28 Incident in 1932, Zhang Wentian was disturbed by the class struggle mode of thinking, which denounced the Nineteenth Route Army generals as reactionary and counter-revolutionary "anti-Japanese warlords".

Communist cadre including Zhang Dingcheng, Liu Xiao, Deng Xiaoping, Mao Zedong, Xie Weijun, and He Shushing were involved in this movement.

At the meeting, Bo Gu took the lead in making a report to discuss the errors of military command during the fifth anti-encirclement campaign, but mainly asserted that the difficulties were unavoidable due to circumstances.

The meeting was held for three days, and the final decision was to dismiss the leadership of Bo Gu, Li De, and Zhou Enlai.

During this period, Zhang Wentian, Mao Zedong, and Zhou Enlai cooperated to push the anti-Japanese national united front into the CCP's focus.

After the full-scale Sino-Japanese War broke out in China in August 1937, the CCP Central Committee held a Political Bureau meeting in Fengjia Village, Luochuan, Shaanxi Province.

[51] Zhang Wentian presided over the December Politburo meeting and made a report on "The Current Political Situation and the Task of the Party.

[57] Zhang proposed providing economic incentives to boost commerce and new capitalism, but his report was suppressed as it went directly against Mao Zedong's plan for organising collective farms and mutual aid teams.

After regaining trust from Mao Zedong after continuous self-criticisms, Zhang was sent to Hejiang province in northeast China to take charge of it.

[17] On October 22, 1945, Zhang Wentian and Gao Gang, Li Fuchun, Wang Heshou, Kai Feng, Chen Guang and Zhu Rui took a plane from the U.S. mediation team to Handan, and arrived in Shenyang on 22 November.

Because of the large number of bandits in Hejiang Province at the time, Zhang Wentian first conducted a social investigation in Ning'an County.

[66] Zhang strongly objected to forceful collectivisation and proposed to the Party that the emphasis should be in encouraging rural production, rather than class struggle.

[71] Since earlier periods of the CCP, Mao Zedong's emphasis on collective farms as the correct form of rural socialism differed from Liu Shaoqi and Zhang Wentian's line of supporting the supply and marketing cooperative (SMCs).

[73] Zhang Wentian paid attention to studying international issues and actively submitted the analysis and policy proposals to the Central Government.

In September 1956, the 8th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party elected Zhang Wentian as alternate member of the Political Bureau of the CCP Central Committee.

However, Peng subsequently pointed out the problems of the Great Leap Forward, "Now looking back, the basic development in 1958 was overly rapid and a bit too much.

In the year 1959, not only the pace could not be slowed down, nor was it properly controlled, and continuing the Great Leap Forward did not lead to immediate regulation of imbalances, but only added new temporary difficulties."

[78] On July 19, Huang Kecheng, chief advisor of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, and Zhou Xiaozhou, the first secretary of the CCP Hunan Provincial Committee, spoke in support of Peng Dehuai.

[79] On 21 July, Zhang Wentian made a speech for three hours and used more precise theoretical terms to criticize the leftist mistakes of the Great Leap Forward and the People's commune.

[88] On 1 October, Zhang Wentian took part in the celebration of the National Day and went up to the Tiananmen Gate Tower with Mao Zedong to have a conversation.

He criticised the ultra-leftist line and errors of the Cultural Revolution and elaborated on the views on the basic issues of China's socialist construction.

In his writing, Zhang Wentian wrote that the foremost task of socialist society is to develop productive forces, and "it is absurd to curse the principle of struggle for the material interests of the people as a revisionist, that is to say, unacceptable confusion and deceit!"

On 25 August 1979, the CCP Central Committee held a memorial service to Zhang Wentian in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

During the Yan'an period, Mao Zedong once remarked: "Zhang Wentian was an influential figure in the Central Soviet Area, not only because of his status and position, but also for his own qualities."

Even though his adherence to Bukharin's interpretation of Lenin's "Cooperative Plan" set himself against Mao Zedong, who followed Stalin's way of collectivisation, and caused constant fluctuations in terms of his political career, Zhang never ceased to speak up.

Jiang Zemin said in his letter to Zhang Wentian's wife Liu Ying in August 1990, "With his firm unwavering belief in communism, his generous heart as a politician and the cautious demeanour as a scholar, he adhered to the truth for the benefit of the people.