Xiang Zhongfa
Encyclopedia
Xiang Zhongfa (1880 - June 24, 1931) was one of the early senior leaders of the Communist Party of China
Communist Party of China
The Communist Party of China , also known as the Chinese Communist Party , is the founding and ruling political party of the People's Republic of China...

 (CPC).

Early life

Xiang was born in 1880 to a poor family living in Shanghai
Shanghai
Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...

. He dropped out of elementary school to move with his parents to their ancestral home in Hubei
Hubei
' Hupeh) is a province in Central China. The name of the province means "north of the lake", referring to its position north of Lake Dongting...

. When he was 14 years old, he became an apprentice in an weapons
Arsenal
An arsenal is a place where arms and ammunition are made, maintained and repaired, stored, issued to authorized users, or any combination of those...

 factory in Hanyang
Hanyang
Hanyang was one of the three cities that merged into modern-day Wuhan, the capital of the Hubei province, People's Republic of China. Currently, it is a district and stands between the Han River and the Yangtze River, where the former falls into the latter...

, a county of Wuhan
Wuhan
Wuhan is the capital of Hubei province, People's Republic of China, and is the most populous city in Central China. It lies at the east of the Jianghan Plain, and the intersection of the middle reaches of the Yangtze and Han rivers...

.

When the factory closed, Xiang found work as a servant in Jiangxi
Jiangxi
' is a southern province in the People's Republic of China. Spanning from the banks of the Yangtze River in the north into hillier areas in the south, it shares a border with Anhui to the north, Zhejiang to the northeast, Fujian to the east, Guangdong to the south, Hunan to the west, and Hubei to...

. Three years later, he was recommended by his employer to work for a liner
Ocean liner
An ocean liner is a ship designed to transport people from one seaport to another along regular long-distance maritime routes according to a schedule. Liners may also carry cargo or mail, and may sometimes be used for other purposes .Cargo vessels running to a schedule are sometimes referred to as...

 company in Wuhan. He received a promotion to Second Mate
Second Mate
A second mate or second officer is a licensed member of the deck department of a merchant ship. The second mate is the third in command and a watchkeeping officer, customarily the ship's navigator. Other duties vary, but the second mate is often the medical officer and in charge of maintaining...

 four months later and became Chief Mate
Chief Mate
A Chief Mate or Chief Officer, usually also synonymous with the First Mate or First Officer , is a licensed member and head of the deck department of a merchant ship...

 after two years.

After several years, Xiang transferred to a ship of the major liner company Han Zhiping. There, he was elected as a labor union leader because of his literacy and activity in worker movements. In 1921, Xiang became the Vice Chairman of Han Zhiping's labor union and joined the Communist Party of China
Communist Party of China
The Communist Party of China , also known as the Chinese Communist Party , is the founding and ruling political party of the People's Republic of China...

.

Rise to power

During the Northern Expedition, the army of Koumintang (KMT) took over some parts of Hubei and marched towards Wuhan. Xiang and Xu Baihao mobilized workers for strikes against local warlords and set up the labor union of the Hubei province, greatly assisting the KMT army. After the CCP headquarters moved to Wuhan, Xiang was elected a member of the Central Committee of CCP for his contributions. Xiang was then among the most prominent worker activists, along with Su Zhaozheng
Su Zhaozheng
Su Zhaozheng , early phase leader of the Communist Party of China, labour movement activist. A native of the Qi'ao Island of Xiangshan County, Guangdong Province, he became a sailor, active in Sun Yatsen's nationalist organization Tongmenghui, and took part in organizing the Sailors' Union in 1920...

, Wang Hebo
Wang Hebo
Wang Hebo , whose forebears had come from Taiyuan, Shanxi, born in Minhou, Fujian, joined the CPC in June 1922. He led the strike of the Tianjin-Pukou Railway workers in 1923, which effectively supported the General Strike of February 7...

 and Deng Pei.

The CCP-KMT alliance was facing uncertainty with occasional conflicts arising between these two parties. Xiang expressed his discontent directly, as compared to the more compromising attitude of Chen Duxiu
Chen Duxiu
Chen Duxiu played many different roles in Chinese history. He was a leading figure in the anti-imperial Xinhai Revolution and the May Fourth Movement for Science and Democracy. Along with Li Dazhao, Chen was a co-founder of the Chinese Communist Party in 1921. He was its first General Secretary....

, who didn't attach much importance to worker leaders. The resolute standpoint of Xiang made a great impression on the Comintern
Comintern
The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...

, which issued a telegram on July 14, 1927 to denounce the central organs of the CCP, saying there were signs of opportunism in its compromise policy in relation to the KMT, and decreeing that all CCP members should fight against this opportunism. The basic task of reform "should make leaders of workers and peasants have decisive influence in the CCP", according to the Comintern. This view was more in line with Xiang's hard stance.

As a result, at the August 7, 1927 Conference of the CCP, the CCP fired Chen Duxiu and selected Su and Xiang as interim members of the politburo
Politburo
Politburo , literally "Political Bureau [of the Central Committee]," is the executive committee for a number of communist political parties.-Marxist-Leninist states:...

 of the CCP. Even so, the CCC's new leadership of Qu Qiubai
Qu Qiubai
Qu Qiubai was born in Changzhou, Jiangsu, China. He was a leader of the Communist Party of China in the late 1920s.-Early life:...

 and Li Weihan
Li Weihan
Li Weihan was a Chinese Communist politician who was the first principal of the Party School of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, the highest training center for party workers and leaders. Li served as principal from 1933 to 1935 and again from 1937 to 1938.-External links:*...

 was still dominated by intellectuals, contrary to the Comintern's ideals.

In October 1927, the Comintern asked the CCP to organize a delegation to Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

 to attend the celebration ceremony of 10th anniversary of the October Revolution
October Revolution
The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...

. Many CCP leaders had taken refuge in Guangdong
Guangdong
Guangdong is a province on the South China Sea coast of the People's Republic of China. The province was previously often written with the alternative English name Kwangtung Province...

 and Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...

 after the failure of the Nanchang
Nanchang
Nanchang is the capital of Jiangxi Province in southeastern China. It is located in the north-central portion of the province. As it is bounded on the west by the Jiuling Mountains, and on the east by Poyang Lake, it is famous for its scenery, rich history and cultural sites...

 Uprising, and were still there. Su and Li Weihan were still on their way from Wuhan to Shanghai
Shanghai
Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...

. This left the CCP central organization in disarray, and Xiang was elected to be the director of the delegation to the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

.

On October 15, 1927, Xiang and eight other delegates left for the Soviet Union. They reached Moscow in November, and were warmly welcomed by their Russian counterparts. Xiang attended a celebration ceremony and several major conferences for joint Comintern and Soviet communist activities, and gave talks on Soviet radio.

His experience and understanding of workers' movements in China earned him prestige in the Comintern. The Eastern Department of the Comintern was happy to have Xiang help them handle Chinese affairs, such as stopping a Chinese student protest in Moscow Eastern University.

At the same time, the interim politburo of the CCP had an extended meeting in Shanghai with the new elected Zhou Enlai
Zhou Enlai
Zhou Enlai was the first Premier of the People's Republic of China, serving from October 1949 until his death in January 1976...

 and Luo Yinong being intellectuals too, and with Wang Hebo being executed by the KMT early before and Su coming to Moscow as delegate to Comintern, there was no representative of worker in this central organ of CCP, which should be a direct violation of Comintern policy.

In January 1928 Xiang wrote letters to Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...

 and Nikolai Bukharin
Nikolai Bukharin
Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin , was a Russian Marxist, Bolshevik revolutionary, and Soviet politician. He was a member of the Politburo and Central Committee , chairman of the Communist International , and the editor in chief of Pravda , the journal Bolshevik , Izvestia , and the Great Soviet...

, denouncing the CCP. These letters won attention of Stalin and Bukharin, who became concerned at what Xiang pointed out. Then in March 1928, the Comintern asked the CCP to hold its 6th National Congress in Moscow, which should have reshuffled the leadership of the CCP. With the opening of this congress on June 18, Xiang was appointed as the chairman of the opening and closing sessions, which implied that a promotion was at hand. In this congress, Xiang attacked both the leftism of Qu Qiubai and the rightism of Zhang Guotao
Zhang Guotao
Zhang Guotao was a founding member and important leader of the Chinese Communist Party and bitter rival to Mao Zedong. During the 1920s he studied in the Soviet Union and became a key contact with the Comintern and organized the CCP labor movement in the United Front with the Guomindang...

, essentially claiming himself to be the only orthodox representative of Chinese revolution. The day before the closing session of this congress, Pavel Mif
Pavel Mif
Pavel Mif was the pseudonym of Mikhail Alexandrovich Fortus , Russian Bolshevik Party member from May 1917, historian with a Doctor's degree in economics , participant of Russian civil war , a student at Yakov Sverdlov Communist University , did communist party work in Ukraine...

, the minister of the Eastern Department of the Comintern, also known as the president of Moscow Sun Yat-sen University
Moscow Sun Yat-sen University
Moscow Sun Yat-sen University, officially the Sun Yat-sen Communist University of the Toilers of China, was a Comintern school, which operated from 1925-1930. It was a training camp for Chinese revolutionaries from both the Kuomintang and the Communist Party of China .-Origins:In 1923, Dr...

 and mentor of 28 Bolsheviks
28 Bolsheviks
The 28 Bolsheviks were a group of Chinese students who studied at the Moscow Sun Yat-sen University from the late 1920s until early 1935, also known as the "Returned Students". The university was founded in 1925 as a result of Kuomintang's founder Sun Yat-Sen's policy of alliance with the Soviet...

, on behalf of the Comintern brought forward a list of candidates for the Central Committee of the CCP. The Central Committee at that time consisted of 36 members, with 22 workers among them, and stressed obedience to Comintern policy. Xiang was elected as member of the Politburo
Politburo
Politburo , literally "Political Bureau [of the Central Committee]," is the executive committee for a number of communist political parties.-Marxist-Leninist states:...

 and made General Secretary of the CCP, which was no great surprise. This ending was a certainty from the beginning, for of the 84 delegates attending this congress, 50 of them were proletariat, compared with the previous congress in 1926, when 71 of the 82 delegates were intellectuals. So it was no wonder that Zhou Enlai would express his discontent by saying there were "a lot of mobs" in this 6th National Congress.

Decline and fall in Shanghai

Once Xiang was elected paramount leader of the CCP, it was inappropriate for him to stay in Moscow any longer. So Xiang came back to Shanghai to oversee the daily work of the CCP headquarters, assisted by new members of politburo Cai Hesen
Cai Hesen
Cai Hesen was an early leader of the Chinese Communist Party, and a friend and comrade-in-arms of Mao Zedong. His courtesy name was Run Huan , and he was also known as He Xian , Zhe Ying , and Lin Bin...

 and alternate member Li Lisan
Li Lisan
Lǐ Lìsān was an early leader of the Chinese communists, and the top leader of the Chinese Communist Party from 1928 to 1930, member of Polit Bureau, and later member of Central Committee.-Early years:...

.

Xiang officially ran the headquarters of the CCP after September 1928. There were several notable events under his direction. First, he sacked Cai's membership in the politburo for Cai's extremism towards the Sunzi Division of the CCP, which resulted in severe discontent at the CCP center. Second, Xiang issued the Paper of the Central Committee of the CCP to all CCP members, in which he emphasized that incorrect ideas in the revolution should be corrected, and that the CCP should fight against dangers of bourgeois thoughts and actions. Third, Xiang proposed a series reforms of CCP organs, such as a merger of the labor union with the worker committee, of the propaganda department with the peasant committee, and the establishment of a military committee in the politburo. The boldest proposed reform involved the CCP headquarters taking over the work of the Jiangsu
Jiangsu
' is a province of the People's Republic of China, located along the east coast of the country. The name comes from jiang, short for the city of Jiangning , and su, for the city of Suzhou. The abbreviation for this province is "苏" , the second character of its name...

 Division of the CCP, which was very near Shanghai. But this last proposal was objected to by Zhou Enlai, who won support from other leaders. In the end, Xiang had to give up this proposal.

During the reign of Xiang, Li Lisan gradually began to played an important role. When Xiang sacked Cai, he chose Li to replace Cai, who became one of only four standing members of the politburo, and was named Minister of the Propaganda Department in October 1928. When in 1929 the Far East Bureau of the Comintern issued an order regarding anti-rightism, in which it blamed the CCP for not being active enough in this area, Xiang protested against this decision. He chose Li was an appropriate candidate for the Propaganda Department because he was eloquent and energetic. Thus, Li took the job of handling conflicts with the Comintern. When Xiang sent Zhou Enlai to Moscow to provide further explanations, Li took over Zhou’s former role in the organization too, which gave Li a larger stage to prove his talent.

When Xiang learned of the Comintern’s decision on anti-rightism, he claimed that the Chinese revolution was in its peak period. Li turned this blindness into extremism, which was later known as the Li Lisan line, calling for armed uprising in the cities and extension of revolution to whole country. From June 1930, the Li Lisan line matured under the support from Xiang. The CCP gave up the daily operation from its headquarters, turning it over to divisions in all provinces. It set up action committees in all provinces, and began preparing for a full-scale uprising in October. But the Comintern expressed its discontent by stating that it was working out systemic policies for Chinese revolution, and that the CCP should concentrate instead on the uprising in one or several provinces instead. Xiang stood by Li, both refuting that it was zero hour of Chinese revolution. In several rounds of discussion, the tension between Xiang, Li, and the Comintern rose greatly. The suspicion and criticism by the CCP towards the Comintern was the same as betrayal in the eyes of the Comintern.

As a result of the extremism and blindness of the Li Lisan line, the CCP suffered great losses. The Comintern sent Qu Qiubai and Zhou Enlai back to China to enforce its policies. The 28 Bolsheviks sent back by their mentors to take charge of the Chinese revolution took advantage of this opportunity to denounce Li. Xiang and Li still didn’t realize the clear and present danger and criticized these young, immature students heavily. Then the Comintern sent a telegram recalling Li to Moscow to account for his policies. Pavel Mif went to Shanghai as an envoy of the Comintern too. Under Mif’s direction, the 4th Plenary Meeting of 6th National Congress of the CCP was held, Li was replaced by Mif’s protégé Wang Ming
Wang Ming
Wang Ming was a senior leader of the early Chinese Communist Party and the mastermind of the famous 28 Bolsheviks group. Wang was also a major political rival of Mao Zedong during the 1930s, opposing Mao's nationalist deviation from the Comintern and orthodox Marxism and Leninism lines...

, and his associates Bolsheviks took other important jobs. Although Xiang sought to tender his resignation, the Comintern and senior leaders of the CCP, such as Qu and Zhou, thought Xiang’s symblic value as a worker among the CCP leadership might still be helpful to the revolution, so they blocked his resignation.

But Xiang’s role as paramount leader was put to an end with the key work of the CCP changing from cities to Soviet territories in the countryside, with which Xiang was unfamiliar and had no experience at all. Wang Ming, then serving as the leader of the CCP, despised the old CCP members, leading labor activists He Mengxiong (Chinese: 何孟雄) and Luo Zhanglong (Chinese: 罗章龙) to attempt to set up a rival Party center. Although this effort failed, He and the other 24 members of this group were arrested and executed by the KMT later, and the CCP’s power in Shanghai was thereby greatly weakened. Aware of being a puppet, Xiang lost confidence in both the revolution and communism. He changed his interest to women and living a luxurious life. Using the party's expense account, Xiang lived in villa with his mistress, which brought about great criticisms from CCP members and made Zhou Enlai nervous, for it was already tough enough for Zhou to ensure the security of senior leaders.

Xiang’s extravagant life lasted only a short time. With the arrest and defection in 1931 of one of Zhou’s senior subordinates, Gu Shunzhang (Chinese: 顾顺章), who was the security guard boss of the CCP at that time, Gu sold Xiang out. Xiang was arrested on June 21, 1931 in the jewelry store he used as a front in the French Concession
Shanghai French Concession
The Shanghai French Concession was a foreign concession in Shanghai, China from 1849 until 1946, and it was progressively expanded in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The concession came to an end in practice in 1943 when the Vichy French government signed it over to the pro-Japanese puppet...

 in the city of Shanghai. Xiang was captured in the company of his mistress, Yang Xiuzhen, a cabaret dancer at local Shanghai nightclubs. In short order, Xiang revealed all he knew to his KMT captors. However, the KMT knew Xiang was useless to them as a puppet, and as a result Chiang Kai-shek
Chiang Kai-shek
Chiang Kai-shek was a political and military leader of 20th century China. He is known as Jiǎng Jièshí or Jiǎng Zhōngzhèng in Mandarin....

 ordered his execution.

Xiang’s role

As the only General Secretary to defect from the CCP and be executed by KMT, Xiang was regarded as a disgrace in CCP history. The CCP sought to erase any memory of him. It was said he had been already dead, only his body was still alive at the time of his execution; he used to be an ambitious and active revolutionist, but the power struggle made him desperate.

During the early years of the CCP, Xiang was not alone as a representative of the proletariat. In the 6th National Congress, the Central Committee elected 22 members from workers, 14 of which defected to the KMT later. It was no surprise that after Xiang’s arrest and execution, another member of politburo, Lu Futan (Chinese: 卢福坦) who also came from the working class, expressed his wish to succeed Xiang as General Secretary. The Comintern rejected the proposal and chose students such as Wang Ming
Wang Ming
Wang Ming was a senior leader of the early Chinese Communist Party and the mastermind of the famous 28 Bolsheviks group. Wang was also a major political rival of Mao Zedong during the 1930s, opposing Mao's nationalist deviation from the Comintern and orthodox Marxism and Leninism lines...

 and Bo Gu, who had studied in the Soviet Union. They were seen as more trustworthy to take the leadership of the CCP, although they had no experience compared to the worker activists.
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