Cai Hesen

Communist Party of China Marxism–Leninism 1895–1931 ✕ Executed

Theorist of the New People’s Study Society who drew Mao towards Bolshevism, editor of The Guide Weekly

Born in Shanghai and raised in Hunan, he joined student movements with Mao Zedong at the Hunan First Normal School. In April 1918 he and Mao founded the New People’s Study Society in Changsha, where it was said that “Hesen is the theorist and Mao the realist”. In 1919 he went to France on the work-study programme, argued for Marxism and in 1920 married Xiang Jingyu; his letters to Mao did much to win Mao to the Bolshevik road. Deported in 1921 after leading protests over admission to the Sino-French Institute at Lyon, he returned to China, joined the Central Committee at the Second Congress in 1922 and edited The Guide Weekly, the party’s first openly published organ. A member of the 2nd to 6th Central Committees and the 5th and 6th Politburos, he was betrayed and arrested in Hong Kong in 1931 and executed in Guangzhou.

Also known as: Ts'ai Ho-sen