A symposium was held Saturday to commemorate the 90th birthday anniversary of the late senior leader of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Hu Yaobang at his hometown in central China's Hunan province.

Addressing the commemoration, Yang Zhengwu, secretary of the CPC provincial Committee, said, "Comrade Hu Yaobang was a long-tested and staunch communist champion, a great proletarian revolutionary and statesman, an outstanding political leader for the Chinese army, and a prominent leader who had long assumed crucial leading posts of the CPC."

Hu was born to a poor peasant family in Cangfang village in Zhonghe township, Liuyang City on Nov. 20, 1915.

In December 1978 at the landmark third plenum of the 11th CPC Central Committee, Hu was elected a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee. In February 1980, he was elected general secretary of the CPC Central Committee. In September 1982, he again took the post of general secretary of the CPC Central Committee. In November 1987, he was elected a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee.

After being appointed head of the CPC Central Committee Organization Department at the end of 1977, Hu helped correct numerous unjust cases of the Culture Revolution (1966-1976) period and exonerate more than three million purged cadres, Yang said.

"In his revolutionary career of six decades," Yang said, "he contributed all his life and built immortal merits for the liberation and happiness of the Chinese people, for the development and prosperity of Chinese-style socialism, for implementation of the reform and opening-up policy as well as the country's socialist modernization drive."

Comrade Hu Yaobang showed great concern for the construction and development in Hunan, said Yang.

Yang called on Party members and cadres to learn from Hu's devotion, innovation and open-mindedness, and his work style.

Some 200 people, including senior provincial officials and Hu's relatives attended the commemoration, organized by the CPC provincial Committee of Hunan.

Source: Xinhua