Rest in Peace, Wang Guangmei

Wang Guangmei, the widow of former People's Republic of China President Liu Shaoqi died on October 13 and a funeral was held for her today. She worked with her husband after their marriage in 1948. According to Wikipedia:

After the establishment of the People's Republic of China, Liu worked mainly in economic areas. An orthodox Soviet-style Communist, he favoured state planning and the development of heavy industry. He was therefore skeptical about Mao's Great Leap Forward movement which began in 1958. Alerted by his sister to the developing famine in rural areas in 1960, he became a determined opponent of Mao's policies. In the wake of the Great Leap Forward's catastrophic failure he replaced Mao as Chairman of the People's Republic, and began to be seen as Mao's likely successor. His more moderate economic policies help to lead China from the depths of the Great Leap Forward. Liu Shaoqi favoured the introduction of piece work, greater wage differentials and other measures that sought to undermine collective farms and factories.

Half way through the 1960s, however, Mao rebuilt his position in the Party and in 1966 he launched the Cultural Revolution as a means of destroying his enemies in the Party: Liu and Deng Xiaoping, along with many others, were denounced as "capitalist roaders." Liu was labeled as a "traitor", "scab", and "the biggest capitalist roader in the Party". In July 1966 he was displaced as Party Deputy Chairman by Lin Biao. By 1967 Liu and his wife Wang Guangmei were under house arrest in Beijing.

Liu was removed from all his positions and expelled from the Party in October 1968 and disappeared from view. Only after Mao's death in 1976 was it revealed Liu had been confined under terrible conditions in an isolated cell in Kaifeng, which led to his death from "medical neglect" (untreated diabetes and pneumonia) in 1969.

In 1995, the "Project of happiness - Help Impoverished Mothers" was officially launched under Wang Guangmei's guidance. Thanks to her efforts, the project has raised 310 million yuan (39.9 million U.S. dollars) to relieve 154,000 rural mothers and households from poverty, benefiting 695,000 people.

Rest in Peace.