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Zhang Wentian, whose real name was Zhang Ying, was an important early leader of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). He was born in Nanhui County, now a part of Shanghai, Jiangsu Province, on August 30, 1900. He studied at the Nanjing Engineering Institute. In 1919 he took part in the May 4th movement , a sustained anti-imperialist mass mobilization that aimed at combating Japan's occupation of Chinese territories and the West's collusion with that occupation. It also opposed the reactionary Beijing warlord regime that had failed to resist Japan's encroachments. The movement began in Beijing but soon involved hundreds of thousands of young patriots throughout the country. Around this time Zhang joined Shaonian Zhongguo (Young China), a patriotic society. He went abroad to study in the United States and then returned to China. Zhang joined the CCP in 1925, and that fall went to Moscow where he enrolled as a student at Sun Yat-Sen University of the Toilers of China (UTK). He graduated two years later, but stayed on at UTK as an instructor and translator. In September 1928 he entered the Institute of Red Professors (IKP). Between 1928 and 1930 he also taught at the Communist University of the Toilers of China (KUTK) and worked in the Eastern Department of the Executive Committee of the Comintern (ECCI). He returned to China in 1930 and was appointed head of the Propaganda Department ... log in or subscribe to read full text