Hu Yaobang (20 November 1915 - 15 April 1989) was a high-ranking official of the PRC. Born into a poor peasant family in Hunan province, Hu joined the Communist Youth League at the age of 14 as a 'red' activist. He survived the purges in the CCP's revolutionary base in Jiangxi, and on the Long March was wounded by shell fragments. During the civil war, he was a political commissar in the PLA and then worked in the Youth League. He supported Mao during the Great Leap Forward and was rewarded with senior posts in Hunan. He was persecuted during the Cultural Revolution but rehabilitated by Deng Xiaoping in 1975 when he was charged with recreating the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and later the Central Party School. He joined the Politburo in 1979 and served as the Party's General Secretary for nearly eight years until he was ousted in 1987 after student pro-democracy protests. Throughout his years in power he battled with hardliners who accused him of fomenting 'bourgeois liberalism'.

His sudden death as the result of a heart attack, reportedly during a Politburo meeting, triggered the 1989 Tiananmen protests. Some believe he was the most liberal political reformer the CCP has ever had and he rehabilitated millions persecuted by Mao.