Xiang Zhongfa - Decline and Fall in Shanghai

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 and alternate member Li Lisan.

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 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, 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 symbolic 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 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 ordered his execution.