Kang Sheng
Kang Sheng (Chinese: 康生; pinyin: Kāng Shēng; 4 November 1898 – 16 December 1975), born Zhang Zongke (simplified Chinese: 张宗可; traditional Chinese: 張宗可; pinyin: Zhāng Zōngkě), was a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) official, politician and calligrapher best known for having overseen the work of the CCP's internal security and intelligence apparatus during the early 1940s and again at the height of the Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s and early 1970s. A member of the CCP from the early 1920s, he spent time in Moscow during the early 1930s, where he learned the methods of the Soviet NKVD and became a supporter of Wang Ming for leadership of the CCP. After returning to China in the late 1930s, Kang Sheng switched his allegiance to Mao Zedong and became a close associate of Mao during the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Chinese Civil War, and after.