Red Army
In early 1930, he joined the Nationalists' Northwest Army under the command of Yang Hucheng and in March 1932, launched a coup within that army. Subsequently, he joined Communist guerillas north of the Wei River. In March 1933, he joined Liu Zhidan and others in founding the Shaanxi-Gansu Border (Shaan-Gan Border) Region Soviet Area, and became the chairman of the Soviet area government while leading guerillas in resisting Nationalist incursions and expanding the Soviet area. In early 1935, the Shaan-Gan Border and Northern Shaanxi Soviet Areas merged to form the Revolutionary Base Area of the Northwest and Xi became one of the leaders of the base area. But in September 1935, he along with Liu Zhidan and Gao Gang were jailed during a Leftist rectification campaign within the party. By his own account, he was within four days of being executed when Mao Zedong arrived on the scene and ordered Xi and his comrades released. Xi's guerilla base in the Northwest gave refuge to Mao Zedong and the party center, and allowed them to end the Long March. It is said that Xi's "Revolutionary Base Area of the Northwest saved the Party Center and the Party Center saved the revolutionaries of the Northwest." The base area eventually became the Yanan Soviet, the headquarters of the Chinese Communist movement until 1947.
Read more about this topic: Xi Zhongxun
Famous quotes containing the words red and/or army:
“For which he wex a litel red for shame,
Whan he the peple upon him herde cryen,
That to beholde it was a noble game,
How sobreliche he caste doun his yen.
Criseyda gan al his chere aspyen,
And let so softe it in her herte sinke
That to herself she seyde, “Who yaf me drinke?””
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1340–1400)
“Man is the end of nature; nothing so easily organizes itself in every part of the universe as he; no moss, no lichen is so easily born; and he takes along with him and puts out from himself the whole apparatus of society and condition extempore, as an army encamps in a desert, and where all was just now blowing sand, creates a white city in an hour, a government, a market, a place for feasting, for conversation, and for love.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)