He Jiadong (September 1932 - October 16, 2006) was a writer and publisher. In 1938 he joined the Nationalist government army to fight for China against Japan. In 1945, he joined the Chinese Communist Party. In 1949, he founded the Workers' Publishing House and served as manager, editor, and reporter for *Workers' Daily*, an official party organ of the Chinese labor movement.
In 1957, He was labeled a Rightist, expelled from the Party, and dismissed from his post because he published Liu Binyan's novel *The Inside Story of Our Newspaper*, which criticized CCP’s press control and was later declared to be anti-party. In 1965, He was exiled to Chenwu County, Shandong Province, where he labored for 14 years. In 1979, he was rehabilitated and became executive vice president and deputy editor-in-chief of the Workers' Publishing House. In 1983, he founded the monthly *Ren Sheng (Life)* magazine; in 1984, he founded and became editor-in-chief of the literary magazine *Kai Tuo (Pioneer)*. He, however, was punished for publishing in the inaugural issue Liu Binyan’s *"A Second Kind of Loyalty"*, a reportage literature work about those who dared to confront the authorities. He resigned and retired in 1985. In the same year, he was invited to serve as president of the China Administrative Management Correspondence University, and in 1987 became an advisor to the Beijing Institute of Social and Economic Sciences. In 1988, the Institute took over the *Economics Weekly* and He served as editor-in-chief. During the 1989 democracy movement, the newspaper reported on the movement and published a number of commentaries. On June 11 of the same year, the newspaper was shut down. He died on October 16, 2006, in Beijing due to illness.
In his later years, He wrote extensively promoting liberal ideas and advocating the introduction of political reforms and the establishment of constitutional democracy in China. However, due to censorship by the authorities, his freedom of publication was severely restricted. He's last wish was to have his collected works printed and given to friends and family, but the printed books were seized by the Chinese authorities, and Ding Dong, the scholar who coordinated the publication of the book, was summoned by the police the day after He's death. *The Collected Works of He Jiadong* was later published in Hong Kong by Fellow Press of America.
