ABSTRACT
An Zhiwen studied at the Anti-Japanese University in Yan’an, where he joined the Communist Party. After the revolution, he held leadership positions at the Policy Research Office and the Ministry of Industry in Dongbei. He became deputy director of the State Planning Commission in 1956 and returned as economic reform leader in the 1980s, first at the Ministry of Machinery and Industry and then at the National Economic System Reform. Bai Nanfeng was a member of both the Rural Development Group and the System Reform Institute. He was one of the leading young reform intellectuals of the 1980s. A sent-down youth in Shaanxi during the Cultural Revolution, he identified with the problem of rural poverty and the challenge of poverty alleviation. Deng Liqun studied economics at Peking University but dropped out to join the Communist Party in his first year. During the civil war, he was sent to the Northeastern Communist base area, where he got to know Chen Yun.
