Xiang Zhongfa

Communist Party of China Marxism–Leninism 1879–1931 ✕ Executed

CCP general secretary installed by the Comintern for his working-class origin, arrested and executed in Shanghai

Born to a poor family in Hanchuan, Hubei, he became an apprentice at the Hanyang arsenal at fourteen and later, as a ship's mate, a union leader. He joined the CCP in 1921 and during the Northern Expedition set up the Hubei labour federation to aid the National Revolutionary Army. His hard line against Chen Duxiu's compromises impressed the Comintern, and the August 7 Conference made him a provisional Politburo member. At the Sixth Congress in Moscow in 1928, under the Comintern's policy of putting workers in the leadership, he became a Politburo member and general secretary, though real power lay with Li Lisan. Arrested in Shanghai in June 1931, he was executed within twenty-six hours. The long-standing claim that he betrayed the party immediately after his arrest has been disputed since the Cultural Revolution.

Also known as: Hsiang Chung-fa