Liu Shaoqui (1898 - 1969), Chinese revolutionary, politician, and theorist. Chairman of the NPC Standing Committee from 1954 to 1959, First Vice Chairman of the Communist Party of China from 1956 to 1966 and Chairman (President) of the People's Republic of China, China's de jure head of state, from 1959 to 1968, during which he implemented policies of economic reconstruction in China. from 1966 onward was criticized, then purged, by Mao. Liu disappeared from public life in 1968as China's foremost "capitalist-roader", and a traitor to the revolution. He died under harsh treatment and torture during the Cultural Revolution.