Xi Zhongxun

Xi Zhongxun (Chinese: 习仲勋; pinyin: Xí Zhòngxūn; 15 October 1913 – 24 May 2002) was a Chinese communist revolutionary and a subsequent political official in the People's Republic of China.

He is considered to be among the first and second generation of Chinese leadership.

Xi was born on 15 October 1913, to a land-owning family, in rural Fuping County, Shaanxi.

He joined the Chinese Communist Youth League in May 1926 and took part in student demonstrations in the spring of 1928, for which he was imprisoned by the ruling nationalist authorities.

In prison, he joined the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1928.

The contributions he made to the Chinese communist revolution and the development of the People's Republic, from the founding of Communist guerrilla bases in northwestern China in the 1930s to initiation of economic liberalization in southern China in the 1980s, are numerous and broad.

He was known for political moderation and for the setbacks he endured in his career.

He was imprisoned and purged several times.

His second son is the current General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, Xi Jinping.

In 1930, Xi was appointed by the party to work in the Guominjun under Yang Hucheng.

In March 1932, he led an unsuccessful uprising within that army in Liangdang, Gansu.

Subsequently, he joined Communist guerrillas north of the Wei River.

In March 1933, he joined Liu Zhidan and others in founding the Shaanxi–Gansu (Shaangan) 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 Shaanxi–Gansu 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 CCP Chairman Mao Zedong arrived on the scene and ordered Xi and his comrades released.

Xi's guerrilla 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."

At the 7th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in August 1945, he was named an alternate member of the Central Committee and became the deputy director of the party's organization department, in charge of making personnel decision.

As World War II in China was winding down, he defeated a Nationalist attack on the Yan'an Soviet at Futaishan and assisted the breakout of Wang Zhen's 359 Brigade from the North China Plains.

The base area eventually became the Yan'an Soviet, the headquarters of the Chinese Communist movement until 1947.

During the Second Sino-Japanese War, Xi stayed in the Yan'an Soviet to manage civilian and military affairs, boost economic production within the Soviet, and implement party policies.

He was known for evaluating policies based on empirical assessment and resisting "leftist" extremism in implementing party directives.

With the outbreak of full-scale civil war between Communists and Nationalists in early 1947, Xi remained in northwestern China to coordinate the protection and then recapture of the Yan'an Soviet Area.

As political commissar, Xi and commander Zhang Zongxun defeated Nationalists west of Yan'an at the Battle of Xihuachi in March 1947.

After Yan'an fell to Hu Zongnan on 19 March 1947, Xi worked on the staff of Peng Dehuai in the battles to retake Yan'an and capture northwest China.

Xi directed the political work of the Northwest Political and Military Affairs Bureau, which was tasked with bringing Communist governance to the newly captured areas of the Northwest.

In this capacity, Xi was known for his moderate policies and the use of non-military means to pacify rebellious areas.

Xi was sometimes critical of the land reform movement, and was an advocate for the position of the middle peasantry.

As violence increased in 1948, Xi reported that activists in the northwest had sometimes falsely designated landlords and manufactured struggle.

In July 1951, following the Communists' defeat of the Ma Clique armies in Qinghai, remnants of the Muslim warlords incited rebellion among Tibetan tribesmen.

Among those who took up arms was chieftain Xiang Qian of the Nganglha Tribe in eastern Qinghai.

As the PLA sent troops to quell the uprising, Xi Zhongxun urged for a political solution.

Numerous envoys including Geshe Sherab Gyatso and the Panchen Lama went to negotiate.

Though Xiang Qian rebuffed dozens of offers and the PLA managed to capture the chieftain's villages, Xi continued to pursue a political solution.

He released captured tribesmen, offered generous terms to Xiang Qian and forgave those who took part in the uprising.

In 1952, Xi Zhongxun halted the campaign of Wang Zhen and Deng Liqun to implement land reform and class struggle to pastoralist regions of Xinjiang.

Xi, based on experience in Inner Mongolia, advised against assigning class labels and waging class struggle among pastoralists, but was ignored by Wang and Deng who directed the seizure of livestock from landowners and land from religious authorities.

The policies inflamed social unrest in pastoralist northern Xinjiang where Ospan Batyr uprising had just been quelled.

With the support of Mao, Xi reversed the policies, had Wang Zhen relieved from Xinjiang and released over a thousand herders from prison.