Gao Gang
Born in rural Shaanxi province in 1905, Gao Gang joined the CPC in 1926 and led a revolutionary guerrilla base there during the Chinese Civil War. He was of peasant background with a low level of education: he is said to have not been very literate. Among his colleagues inside the CPC, he gained a reputation as having great confidence and ambition, as well as of being a womanizer. Trusted by Mao Zedong, Gao was dramatically promoted in the final years of the civil war to become the Party, state and military head of the key Northeast area of China. In 1952 he was ordered to Beijing to become head of the State Planning Commission of China (SPC), where he later attempted a leadership challenge against Liu Shaoqi and Zhou Enlai. His attempt failed and he committed suicide in August 1954.