The last surviving member of the eight “Immortals”, Bo Yibo was at his death the senior member of the Communist Party of China. His death marks the end of an era when a small group of senior party stalwarts who had proved their worth during the 1934-35 Long March and survived the purges of the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution joined forces to nudge China into the age of market-orientated economic reform.

A committed Communist from the age of 17, he had taken part in most of the milestone events of the party’s struggle against Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang (Nationalists) in the 1930s, including the 3,000-mile Long March, in which Communist forces retreated from Nationalist forces and found safety in a new headquarters at Yenan, in Shensi province.

He had then participated in guerrilla warfare against the Japanese, and after 1945, in the renewed struggle against the Nationalists that eventually led to the Communist victory under Mao Zedong, and the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949.

In the early years of the People’s Republic he enjoyed favour and high office as Finance Minister and as a vice-prime minister. But like many of his generation, he and his family endured humilitation and severe privation during the chaotic years of the Cultural Revolution.

Rehabilitated in 1978 after a decade in oblivion, he yet again wielded influence during the years of reform. He was a close associate of the leader Deng Xiaoping, with whom he had served in China’s civil war of 1946-49. Although an economic progressive, he was associated with the hard line over the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests of 1989 which led to civilian deaths when soldiers opened fire on participants.

Tall, thin and stooped, Bo appeared to be one of the more reticent of the group of eight leaders who formed a ruling clique around Deng after he took over rule of China in 1978, two years after the death of Mao.

Born in 1908, Bo Yibo joined the Communist Party in 1925, and served as commissar for the People’s Liberation Army during the Second World War and in the civil war against the ruling Nationalists.

During the former, he founded the Shanxi Suicide Squad for the Liberation of China — later acclaimed by the party for its courageous attacks against both Japanese invaders and during the civil war. He helped to persuade a warlord of the time, Yan Xishan, to join the Communists, bringing with him 200,000 troops.

Bo did not retain his military uniform after the Communist Party took power in 1949. In that year Mao appointed him his first Finance Minister.

His job was far from easy. In his memoir Recollections of Certain Major Decisions and Events, Bo recounted how Mao discussed matters of state in the pool. One day the hard-of-hearing Mao asked his finance minister what the production of iron and steel would be for the next year. Bo chose not to reply but told his boss that he was going to take a sharp turn in water.

Mao misunderstood him and thought he had said “double”. Bo recalled: “Later in the day, I heard Mao announcing that the national production of iron and steel would be double next year.”

But Bo’s intimacy with Mao ended with the Cultural Revolution. Like many senior figures in Mao’s Government he was purged. He was humiliated by the Red Guards who smashed and looted his home. His family endured a decade of poverty, disgrace and imprisonment during which his wife died of her ill-treatment.

But in 1978 Deng brought his friend and comrade-in-arms back from political exile to help to push through far-reaching economic reforms that would transform China into a market economy. Bo supported faster economic liberalisation and cautioned that China’s future hinged on greater prosperity. He once said: “If we want to survive and maintain a foothold in the world, we have to have a sense of urgency.”

But his embrace of economic liberalisation did not include political reform. He was believed to have been a firm supporter of Deng’s decision to send in the army to crush the 1989 student demonstrations in Tiananmen Square.

Bo Yibo had six children, who endured imprisonment and internal exile with him. One of his sons, Bo Xilai, who is now Commerce Minister, made his reputation as a moderniser in the 1990s, when as mayor of the port city of Dalian he transformed a drab backwater into a showcase for foreign investment and tourism.

Bo Yibo, Chinese politician, was born in 1908. He died on January 15, 2007, aged 99