28 Bolsheviks - Later History

Later History

• Wang Jiaxiang was eventually made Director of the CCP Central International Liaison Department after having also served for some time as the PRC's Ambassador to the Soviet Union. He died in the Cultural Revolution.

• Chen Changhao worked with Zhang Guotao when he returned from Moscow and became Zhang's Commissar, but lost power and influence in the struggle between Zhang and Mao. Chen Changhao went on to become a Communist Party historian, and also died in the Cultural Revolution.

• He Kequan was General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Youth League, and later Deputy Director of the CCP Central Propaganda Department, and died in 1954.

• Xia Xi was sent to Hunan and carried out the purges which took the lives of more than forty thousand Red Army soldiers. He was later regarded as a public enemy. Perhaps because of this, no one came to his aid when he fell into a river and drowned during the Long March.

• Yang Shangkun survived the purges, including the Cultural Revolution. He later became the President of the PRC in the 1980s.

• Shen Zemin, the younger brother of writer Shen Yanbin, worked for Zhang Guotao and the 4th Red Army. When Zhang's army was defeated, Shen took up guerilla warfare and died in battle.

• Zhang Qinqiu，Shen Zemin's wife, later married Chen Changhao and became the Red Army's only female divisional Commander. After 1949, she was appointed Deputy Minister of the textile industry, but died in the Cultural Revolution.

• Ying Jian was arrested by Kuomintang when he mobilized workers in Northern China, and was subsequently executed.

• Li Zhusheng was promoted to the Politburo after Wang Ming's return to Moscow in 1931, and put in charge of the daily affairs of the Communist Party in Shanghai. He was later arrested, but defected to the Kuomintang, and informed on many of his former compatriots.

• Chen Yuandao was appointed as senior leader for the Jiangsu and Henan Division of the Communist Party, but was later arrested and executed by the Kuomintang in Nanjing.

• Xu Yixin worked for Zhang Guotao's 4th Red Army and became his vice general commissar, surviving war and party purges. After the establishment of the People's Republic of China, Xu held the position of ambassador in the Foreign Ministry. He died in the 1990s.

• Yuan Jiayong was appointed General Secretary of the Jiangsu Division in the Communist Party. Following his arrest in 1934, he defected to the Kuomintang and worked for the secret police.

• He Zishu worked for the Northern China Bureau of the Communist Party, and was executed by the Kuomintang in 1929.

• Wang Shengrong, a member of the first Central Military Commission of the Chinese Soviet Republic, survived both war and purges. He died on September 1, 2006 at the age of 99.

• Wang Yuncheng succeeded Wang Ming as General Secretary of the Jiangsu Division in the Communist Party. He was kidnapped by the Kuomintang and forced to work with Li Zhusheng in the secret police.

• Sheng Zhongliang was senior leader of the Shanghai Division in the Communist Party, and was sold out by Li Zhusheng. He was coerced into informing for the Kuomintang's secret police. Sheng, after moving to the US, later wrote memoirs of his time at the Sun Yat-sen University and with the 28 Bolsheviks.

• Song Panmin also worked for Zhang Guotao, but was executed when he objected to the purges being carried out by Xia Xi.

• Sun Jiming, a senior Communist Party leader, was arrested and defected to the Kuomintang together with Wang Yuncheng.

• Wang Shengdi and Zhu Ageng left the Communist Party, though both had held senior positions.

• Wang Baoli, Zhu Zisun, Li Yuanjue, and Du Zuoxian left public life and their fates are currently unknown.