Feng Sutao

Feng Sutao was born on 8 February 1906 in Lufeng, Yunnan. In 1920, he was admitted to Yunnan Provincial No. 1 Middle School. He later enrolled at Nanjing University in 1924, where he participated in the Xin Yunnan Society, an organization associated with the Chinese Communist movement in Shanghai. In 1926, he entered Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, where he joined the Xin Dian Society and took responsibility for its general affairs and organizational work. That same year, he joined the Chinese Communist Party.^[2]

During the revolutionary period, Feng participated in the Guangzhou Uprising in 1927. Following the failure of the revolution, he lost contact with the Communist Party. In 1928, he became involved in organizing activities related to the League of Left-Wing Writers and other intellectual circles.^[3] By 1933, he was serving as secretary-general of the Anti-Imperialist Alliance in Shanghai.^[4]

In 1935, Feng worked as a teacher at Beicang Girls' Middle School in Kaifeng, Henan, while also lecturing at Henan University. During this time, he actively guided students in participating in patriotic movements, including demonstrations supporting the December 9th Movement. In 1937, he left Kaifeng and traveled to Yan'an.^[5]

After the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War, Feng served in August 1937 as a team leader in a wartime cadre training program in Shanghai. Later that year, he moved to Kunming, where he taught at Yunnan University and its affiliated middle school, while also editing the publication Wartime Knowledge. He became a leading figure in cultural resistance organizations, serving as chairman of the Kunming branch of the All-China Association of Writers and Artists for Resistance and head of the Yunnan Cultural Resistance Association.^[6]

In the early 1940s, Feng held multiple leadership roles in intellectual and cultural organizations in Kunming, including convenor of the Constitutional Association of Cultural Circles and editor-in-chief of Wartime Knowledge.^[7] He also participated in academic groups such as the Southwest Academic Research Society and the Rural Economy Research Society.^[8] In July 1944, he joined the China Democratic League, and by 1945 he had become a member of its Central Committee, as well as a standing committee member and head of the organization department of its Yunnan branch.^[9]

After the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, Feng relocated to Beijing with the China Democratic League headquarters. In 1950, he worked in the Ministry of Culture and Education of the Southwest Military and Administrative Commission.^[10] In 1953, he became a professor of political economy at Beijing Agricultural University, while also serving as executive deputy director of the Education and Culture Committee of the China Democratic League Central Committee.^[11]

From 1957, Feng served as deputy dean of academic affairs at the Central Institute of Socialism. In 1958, he was appointed chairman of the Shanxi Provincial Committee of the China Democratic League.^[12] He later served as vice chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference Shanxi Committee across several terms and, from 1979, as vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress of Shanxi Province.^[13]

In 1988, Feng rejoined the Chinese Communist Party. He retired in 1995. Over the course of his career, he also served as a member of the Standing Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference at the national level. Feng Sutao died on 7 April 2010, in Taiyuan, Shanxi, at the age of 105.^[14]