Comrade Cai Chang was one of the first progressive women in China to believe in communism, she joined left-wing groups as early as 1920, organized and led peripheral revolutionary activities many times, and in 1922, she was introduced by a friend to join the Communist Youth League, and the following year she became a member of the Communist Party of China. In 1925, she participated in the vigorous Great Revolution, and engaged in women's emancipation work with He Xiangning, Song Qingling and others, which effectively promoted gender equality and accelerated the collapse of feudal etiquette.
After the defeat of the Great Revolution in 1927, the Kuomintang spies hunted down the Communists everywhere, causing a series of bloody cases, Cai Chang was working in Wuhan at that time, and the comrades were worried that her life would be in danger, so they persuaded her to temporarily leave Hubei and take refuge in the countryside. However, Cai Chang insisted on staying and fighting side by side with everyone, facing the low tide of the revolution and resisting the suppression and persecution of the Kuomintang reactionaries.
In 1928, Cai Chang was ordered to go to Moscow to attend the Sixth National Congress of the Communist Party of China and delivered an important speech on the current revolutionary situation. In 1931, she was transferred to the Central Soviet District, where she was in charge of logistics support and material supply.
In 1932, the Kuomintang reactionaries intensified the economic blockade and encirclement of the central Soviet areas in a vain attempt to trap and starve the Red Army to death. In order to smash the enemy's conspiracy, the Red Army, under the call of the Party Central Committee, carried out an extensive "production campaign" and cultivated its own land and became self-sufficient. During this period, in order to boost the morale of the officers and soldiers and stabilize the morale of the troops, Cai Chang set an example by working in the fields and sharing weal and sorrow with everyone.
In the autumn of that year, torrential rains fell in Jiangxi Province and triggered flash floods, which washed away many people's crops and almost lost their grain. Soon after, there was a famine in the affected area, and many people were starved to death. After Cai Chang learned of the incident, he reported the relevant situation to the Party Central Committee and asked for appropriate assistance to the disaster area. The Red Army's grain reserves were not much, but even so, the Party Central Committee decided to allocate a batch of grain for disaster relief at Cai Chang's request, saving many people who were in a desperate situation.
In the spring of the following year, a large number of aspiring young people rushed to apply to join the Red Army, and the ranks of the Red Army expanded dramatically, with more than 100,000 regular troops alone, an unprecedented scale. However, what is unexpected is that because of the wrong command of Bogu and Li De, the Red Army suffered heavy losses in 1933 and 1934 one after another, and some units even suffered casualties in the battle! By the end of 1934, Gannan had completely lost its strategic value, and if the Red Army wanted to survive, it had to leave this place and reopen the revolutionary base areas elsewhere. In October of that year, after a long period of discussion and demonstration, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China decided to lead the main force of the Red Army to move to the southwest, and the Long March began.
Cai Chang followed the central column at that time, and on the way, she spontaneously assumed the responsibility of political propaganda, and posted notices everywhere she went, spreading red ideas and winning the support of the local people. In addition, she also took great care of the wounded and sick, and even gave up her horse for the wounded and sick to ride, never giving up on any comrade!
After the end of the Long March, she first studied at the Northern Shaanxi Public School for half a year, and then entered the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningbo Border District Government, and in 1945, she was invited to participate in the "Seventh National Congress" and was elected as a member of the Central Committee. During his residency and interview in Yan'an, the American left-wing writer Snow particularly admired and appreciated Cai Chang, and he praised Cai Chang's ideological progress and great personality in his documentary report, and even called Cai Chang "the best female revolutionary in the world's modern history".
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Cai Chang served as the chairman of the Women's Federation, and the official reached the provincial and ministerial level. But she refused the kindness of the Party Central Committee, returned the car, and insisted on commuting by bicycle every day, rain or shine, and Cai Chang was also very frugal in his usual life, with food, clothing, housing and transportation no different from ordinary people, and never extravagant and wasteful.
It is worth mentioning that Cai Chang's eldest brother is Comrade Cai Hesen, the core founder of the Communist Party of China, who once served as a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and enjoys a high reputation in the party. But unfortunately, Cai Hesen was unfortunately hunted and killed by the enemy in 1931, at the age of Chinese New Year's Eve. Cai Chang's husband, Comrade Li Fuchun, was also an outstanding proletarian revolutionary, he was in charge of the country's financial, political and legal work for a long time, and won the trust of Chairman Mao and Premier Zhou, and in 1975, Li Fuchun died of illness at the age of 74.
At the end of the 70s, Cai Chang left the front-line post and transferred to the National People's Congress as vice chairman, in the early 80s, she officially retired and began to live a recuperation life, in 1990, she unfortunately died of illness at the age of 90. Cai Chang is a descendant of Zeng Guofan, so after her death, her life deeds were recorded in the Zeng family tree for future generations to pay respect, and the ancestral home where she lived in her childhood was renovated by the people's government and converted into a memorial hall and a red education base to comfort her soul in heaven.