Xiang Zhongfa
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-->Xiang Zhongfa (向忠发 in Chinese) (1880 - June 24, 1931) was one of the senior leaders of Communist Party of China in its early stage.
Early life
Xiang was born in Shanghai to a poor family in 1880. He dropped out of elementary school early to move back to Hubei with his parents, where his ancestors lived. When he was only 14 years old, he became an apprentice for an arsenal factory in Hanyang, a county of Wuhan. When the factory was closed, Xiang had to work for a landlord in Jiangxi as a servant. Three years later he was recommended by his employer to work for a liner company in Wuhan. He received a quick promotion to second mate only 4 months later and became chief mate after 2 years. After living several years in hardship, Xiang transferred to a ship of the major liner company Han Zhiping and was elected to the labor union of that company for his literacy and for being active in worker movements. In 1921 Xiang became the vice chairman of the labor union of Han Zhiping. In the same year Xiang joined the CPC.Rise to Power
With the Northern Expedition, the army of KMT took over some parts of Hubei and marched towards Wuhan. To support this action, Xiang and another famous CPC activist, Xu Baihao, mobilized workers for strikes against local warlords and set up the labor union of the Hubei province, greatly assisting the attack of the KMT army. After the CPC headquarter had moved to Wuhan, Xiang was elected member of Central Committee of CPC for his contribution. Xiang was then among the most prominent worker activists with Su Zhaozheng, Wang Hebo and Deng Pei.The CPC-KMT alliance was facing uncertainty when the conflicts between these two parties rose from time to time. Xiang expressed his discontent directly, which compared to the compromised attitude of Chen Duxiu who didn't attach importance to worker leaders. The irreconcilable standpoint of Xiang had great impression on Comintern, which issued a telegram on July 14th 1927 to denounce the central organs of CPC had indicated signs of opportunism in its compromising policy on relation with KMT and all CPC members should fight against this opportunism, with the basic task of reform "should make leaders of workers and peasants have decisive influence in the CPC.
As a result, in the August 7th Conference of CPC in 1927 the CPC fired Chen Duxiu and selected Su and Xiang as interim members of politburo of the CPC to be consistent with the idea of "[putting] workers into leadership". However, the new leadership of Qu Qiubai and Li Weihan of the CPC after August 7th Conference was still different from Comintern's ideal type of leadership for workers because it was still being dominated by intellectuals.
In October, 1927, Comintern asked the CPC to organize a delegation to Moscow for attending the cerebration ceremony of 10th anniversary of October Revolution. While many of CPC leaders still took refuge in Guangdong and Hongkong after the failure of Nanchang Uprising, and Su, Li Weihan were still in their way from Wuhan to Shanghai, with the CPC central organs being disfunction at that time in practice, Xiang was elected to be the director of this delegation in a plain sail.
In October 15th, 1927, Xiang and eight other delegates went to the Soviet Union. When they reached Moscow in November, they had a warm welcome from their Russian counterparts. Xiang attended the celebration ceremony and several major conferences of Comintern and communist activities. He also gave talks on radio. His experience and understanding of workers' movements in China earned him prestige in Comintern. The Eastern Department of Comintern was happy to have Xiang help them handle with Chinese affairs, such as when Xiang stopped a Chinese student protest in Moscow Eastern University.
At the same time, the interim politburo of the CPC had an extended meeting in Shanghai with the new elected Zhou Enlai 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 CPC, which should be a direct violation of Comintern policy.
In Jan 1928 Xiang wrote two letters to Stalin and Bukharin, to denounce the wrong way of CPC . These letters won attention of Stalin and Bukharin for the problem pointed out by Xiang being their concerns. Then in Mar 1928 Comintern asked CPC to hold its 6th National Congress in Moscow, which should reshuffle the leadership of CPC. With the opening of this congress in June 18th, Xiang was appointed as the chairman of opening session and closing session, which implied his prominence and promotion at hand. In this congress Xiang attacked both the leftism of Qu Qiubai and the rightism of Zhang Guotao, which mean he was the only orthodox representative of Chinese revolution. The day before the closing session of this congress, Pavel Mif, the minister of Eastern Department of Comintern, also known as the president of Moscow Sun Yat-sen University and mentor of 28 Bolsheviks on behalf of Comintern brought forward of a list of candidates for Central Committee of CPC, which consist of 36 members with 22 workers of them, stressing the obedience of Comintern’s policy. Xiang was elected as member of politburo and General Secretary of CPC in no surprise. This happy ending was for sure from the beginning, for the 84 delegates attending this congress, 50 of them being proletariats, compared with the last congress two years ago 71 of the whole 82 delegates being intellectuals. So it was no wonder Zhou Enlai would express his discontent by saying there were lots of mobs in this 6th National Congress.
Decline and Fall in Shanghai
As Xiang was elected as paramount leader of CPC, it was inappropriate for him to stay in Moscow any longer. So Xiang came back to Shanghai to run daily work of CPC headquarter in Shanghai with new member of politburo Cai Hesen and alternate member Li Lisan after he handed over his work to new delegates of CPC in Comintern Qu Qiubai, Zhang Guotao, who both were in custody for confession of their wrong routes in fact.After Xiang officially run the headquarter of CPC from Sept 1928, there were some great events under his direction. Firstly he sacked Cai ‘s membership in politburo for his extremism way in the direction of Sunzi Division of CPC which resulted in extreme democracy and discontent over CPC center. Secondly Xiang issued the Paper of Central Committee of CPC to All CPC Members, in which he emphasized the incorrect ideas in the revolution should be corrected, and CPC should fight against danger of bourgeois. Thirdly Xiang proposed a series reform of CPC organs, such as merger of labor union with worker committee, propaganda department with peasant committee, and establishment of military committee in politburo, and the boldest one was CPC headquarter taking over the work of Jiangsu Division of CPC, which was very near Shanghai. But this last proposal was objected by Zhou Enlai, who won supports from other leaders. Xiang had to give up this proposal at last.
During the reign of Xiang, Li Lisan played an important role gradually. When Xiang sacked Cai, he chose Li to replace Cai, who became one of the only 4 standing members of politburo and minister of Propaganda Department of CPC in Oct 1928. When the Far East Bureau of Comintern issued order for anti-rightism and blaming CPC for not being active in this way in 1929, Xiang protested against this decision and he knew Li was an appropriate candidate for doing the communication work for his being eloquent and energetic. Thus Li took the job of handling with conflicts with Comintern. When Xiang sent Zhou Enlai to Moscow for further explanation, Li took Zhou’s charge in organization too, which gave Li a large enough stage to prove his talent.
When Xiang knew the Comintern’s decision on anti-rightism, he claimed that Chinese revolution was in the peak period. Li turned this blindness into extremism, which was late known as Lisan Route, calling for armed uprising in the cities and extension of revolution to whole country. From June 1930, Lisan Route was mature under the support from Xiang. CPC gave up the daily operation from its headquarter to divisions in all provinces, setting up action committee in all provinces , and preparing for the full-scale uprising in Oct. But Comintern expressed its discontent by stating that it was working out systemic policies for Chinese revolution, CPC should concentrate on the uprising in one or several provinces instead. Xiang stood by Li to refute that it was zero hour of Chinese revolution. In several rounds of discussion, the tension between Xiang, Li and Conintern rose greatly. The suspicion and criticism of CPC towards Comintern was the same as betrayal in the eyes of Comintern.
With the extremism and blindness of Lisan Route, CPC did suffered great loss. Comintern sent Qu Qiubai and Zhou Enlai back to China to enforce its policy. And the 28 Bolsheviks sent back by their mentors to take charge of Chinese revolution took the 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 Comintern sent a telegram to call Li to Moscow for repentance. Pavel Mif went to Shanghai as an envoy of Comintern too. Under Mif’s direction, the 4th Plenary Meeting of 6th National Congress of CPC was held, Li was replaced by Mif’s protégé Wang Ming, and his associates in28 Bolsheviks took other important jobs. Although Xiang proposed his will of resignation, Comintern and other senior leaders of CPC such as Qu and Zhou thought Xiang’s signboard of worker leader might still be helpful to the revolution, so all of them blocked the resignation.
But Xiang’s role as paramount leader was put to an end with the key work of CPC changing from cities to Soviet Territories in countryside, which Xiang was unfamiliar with and had no experience at all. Then with Wang Ming being the actual boss of CPC now, he despised those old CPC members used to work in China. The leaders of these old CPC members, labor activists He Mengxiong (何孟雄 in Chinese) and Luo Zhanglong (罗章龙 in Chinese) planned to set up another center. Although this effort fail with He and other 24 members of this group arrested and executed by KMT later, CPC’s power in Shanghai was greatly weakened. For being a puppet, Xiang lost confidence in revolution and communism. He changed his interest to women and luxurious life. Using the party expense, Xiang lived in villa with his mistress, which brought about great criticisms among CPC members and made Zhou Enlai nervous for it was tough for Zhou to fulfill his task of ensure the security of senior leaders.
Xiang’s extravagant life lasted only a short time. With the arrest and defection of one of Zhou’s senior subordinates, Gu Shunzhang（顾顺章in Chinese）, who was security guard boss of CPC at that time, in 1931, Gu sold Xiang out. Xiang was under arrest on June 22th. With his courage and guts being lost in enjoyment of luxury life, Xiang defected very soon. However, KMT knew Xiang was useless to them for his being a puppet, Chiang Kai-shek ordered the execution the next day.
Xiang’s Role
With Xiang being the only one General Secretary defected to and executed by KMT, he was regarded as disgrace of CPC history. Thus his fate of being forgotten and erased in the memory of CPC was unavoidable. Some members of CPC leaders said Xiang was in decadence when he turned to extravagant life. Maybe he had been dead at that time only with his body still alive. He used to be an ambitious and active revolutionist, but the power struggle made him desperate.During the early stage of CPC, the case of Xiang was not alone. For the Central Committee elected in the 6th National Congress, 22 members of which came from workers, 14 of them defected to KMT later. It was no surprise that after Xiang’s arrest and execution, another member of politburo Lu Futan （卢福坦 in Chinese）, who came from worker too, expressed his will of succeeding Xiang as General Secretary. Comintern rejected the proposal and would rather choose those students such as Wang Ming and Bo Gu who used to study in Soviet Union and could be more trustworthy although they had no experience compared to those worker activists, to take the leadership of CPC.
References
- The Documents of Central Committee of CPC
- Xiang’s letter to Bukharin
- Gao Jun.Some issues on the defection of Xiang
- The Selected Works of Zhou Enlai
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