Kang Sheng

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these messages) You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Chinese. (August 2020) Click [show] for important translation instructions. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Chinese Wikipedia article at [[:zh:康生]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|zh|康生}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation. This article contains too many or overly lengthy quotations. Please help summarize the quotations. Consider transferring direct quotations to Wikiquote or excerpts to Wikisource. (August 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Kang Sheng
康生
Vice Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party
In office 9 October 1959 – 16 December 1975
Chairman	Mao Zedong
Vice Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress
In office 3 January 1965 – 16 December 1975
Chairman	Zhu De
Vice Chairperson of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference
In office 17 April 1959 – 20 December 1964
Chairman	Zhou Enlai
Director of the Central Social Affairs Department
In office 1939–1945
Personal details
Born	4 November 1898 Zhucheng, Weifang, Shandong, Qing dynasty
Died	16 December 1975(1975-12-16) (aged 77) Beijing, People's Republic of China
Political party	Chinese Communist Party (expelled posthumously)
Spouse(s)	Chen Yi (陳宜) Cao Yi'ou (曹軼歐)
Occupation	Intelligence Chief, Spymaster
Nickname	“China's Beria”

Kang Sheng (Chinese: 康生; pinyin: Kāng Shēng; 4 November 1898 – 16 December 1975), born Zhang Zongke (simplified Chinese: 张宗可; traditional Chinese: 張宗可; pinyin: Zhāng Zōngkě), was a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) official, best known for having overseen the work of the CCP's internal security and intelligence apparatus during the early 1940s and again at the height of the Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s and early 1970s. A member of the CCP from the early 1920s, he spent time in Moscow during the early 1930s, where he learned the methods of the Soviet NKVD and became a supporter of Wang Ming for leadership of the CCP. After returning to China in the late 1930s, Kang Sheng switched his allegiance to Mao Zedong and became a close associate of Mao during the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Chinese Civil War, and after. He remained at or near the pinnacle of power in the People's Republic of China from its establishment in 1949 until his death in 1975. After the death of Mao and the subsequent arrest of the Gang of Four, Kang Sheng was accused of sharing responsibility with the Gang for the excesses of the Cultural Revolution and in 1980 he was expelled posthumously from the CCP.^[1]