Xia Xi (; 17 August 1901 – 28 February 1936), also known as Man Bo () and Lao Xia (), was an early leader of the

Chinese Communist Party The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victorious in the Chinese Ci ...

and a member of the

28 Bolsheviks The 28 (and a half) Bolsheviks (二十八个半布尔什维克) were a group of Chinese students who studied at the Moscow Sun Yat-sen University from the late 1920s until early 1935, also known as the "Returned Students". The university was foun ...

Biography

Xia was born in

Yiyang Yiyang () is a prefecture-level city on the Zi River in Hunan province, China, straddling Lake Dongting and bordering Hubei to the north. According to the 2010 Census, Yiyang has a population of 4,313,084 inhabitants residing in an area of . T ...

Hunan Hunan (, ; ) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, part of the South Central China region. Located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze watershed, it borders the province-level divisions of Hubei to the north, Jiangxi ...

Province. He studied at Yiyang Primary School, and met Mao Zedong in August 1917 when he enrolled into the

Hunan First Normal University Hunan First Normal University (), founded in 1903, is a university located in Yuelu District, Changsha, Hunan Province, China. Hunan First Normal University covers a total area of 1346 mu, with more than 420,000 square meters of floor space. Th ...

. During the

May Fourth Movement The May Fourth Movement was a Chinese anti-imperialist, cultural, and political movement which grew out of student protests in Beijing on May 4, 1919. Students gathered in front of Tiananmen (The Gate of Heavenly Peace) to protest the Chin ...

in 1919, he participated in anti-Japanese boycotts and demonstrations. Xia was one of the first members of the CCP, joining the party in 1921. During the First United Front, Xia concurrently joined the

Kuomintang The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD), the Nationalist Party of China (NPC) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP), is a major political party in the Republic of China, initially on the Chinese mainland and in Tai ...

and was involved in the organization of the Kuomintang Hunan provincial headquarters. In the 1926 he was appointed as an alternate member of the Central Executive Committee following the

2nd National Congress of Kuomintang The 2nd National Congress of the Kuomintang () was the second national congress of the Kuomintang, held in 1–19 January 1926 at Kwangchow, Kwangtung, Republic of China. Results Chiang Kai-shek was elected to the Central Executive Committee of the ...

. In the same year, Xia and others such as Guo Liang participated in the Northern Expedition as the Hunan provincial secretaries. In May 1927, he was appointed as the Hunan Provincial Party Secretary and on 1 August participated in the

Nanchang Uprising The Nanchang Uprising () was the first major Nationalist Party of China–Chinese Communist Party engagement of the Chinese Civil War, begun by the Chinese Communists to counter the Shanghai massacre of 1927 by the Kuomintang. The Kuomi ...

. Following which, Xia met

Wang Ming Wang may refer to: Names * Wang (surname) (王), a common Chinese surname * Wāng (汪), a less common Chinese surname * Titles in Chinese nobility * A title in Korean nobility * A title in Mongolian nobility Places * Wang River in Thail ...

and joined the

during his further studies in the

Moscow Sun Yat-sen University Moscow Sun Yat-sen University, officially the Sun Yat-sen Communist University of the Toilers of China, was a Comintern school, which operated from 1925–1930 in the city of Moscow, Russia, then the Soviet Union. It was a training camp for ...

. In January 1931, he was elected as an alternate member of the

Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party The Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, officially the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, is a political body that comprises the top leaders of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). It is currently composed of 205 fu ...

. Xia was sent the Hunan-Hubei Soviet in March 1931 to take over from

Deng Zhongxia Deng Zhongxia (or Teng Chung-hsia; October 5, 1894 – September 21, 1933) was an early member of the Chinese Communist Party and an important Marxist intellectual and labor movement leader. Having led many strikes and uprisings against Chian ...

and was also appointed political commissar of the Second Red Army. Xia initiated purges in 1932, which led to thousands (approximately forty thousand Red Army soldiers were killed under Xia's orders throughout his entire lifespan) being purged and including 27 cadres whom were close associates of

He Long He Long (; March 22, 1896 – June 9, 1969) was a Chinese Communist revolutionary and one of the ten marshals of the People's Liberation Army. He was from a poor rural family in Hunan, and his family was not able to provide him with any formal ...

. In August 1932, Xia embarked on another purge, and though the number of people purged was unrecorded, the number of cadres purged stands at a high number of 241. Xia carried out another purge in 1933, including the purge of the Hunan Red Army founders and leaders

Duan Dechang Duan Dechang (; August 19, 1904 – May 1, 1933) was a member of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army. He was born in Nan County, Yiyang, Hunan Province. He joined the Communist Youth League of China in June 1925 and the Communist Party o ...

Wang Bingnan Wang Bingnan (1908–1988) was a diplomat and foreign affairs official of the Communist Party of China and the People's Republic of China. Before 1949, Wang was one of Zhou Enlai's trusted aides and after the founding of the People's Republic ...

, and

Liu Zhixun Liu Zhixun (; November 1898 – September 14, 1932), also known as Liu Keming (), was a member of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army. He was purged by Communist leader Xia Xi and executed. Biography He was born in Changsha, Hunan Provinc ...

. Before the completion of the third purge, Xia Xi started the fourth round of purges in June 1933, resulting to the deaths of more than 3000 cadres. Although Xia held the role of Political Commissar for only 2 years, he had purged tens and thousands of Red Army soldiers and party cadres. In June 1935, Xia admitted his error of intensifying purges during the Hunan-Hubei Branch Meeting and rendezvoused with Red Sixth Army's

Ren Bishi Ren Bishi (; 30 April 1904 – 27 October 1950) was a military and political leader in the early Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In the early 1930s, Ren commanded the Fifth Red Army and was a central figure in the Hunan-Jiangxi Soviet, but ...

in October. As he was repentant about his misconduct during the purges, he was appointed a member of the Hunan-Hubei Provincial Committee and Vice-Chairman and member of the military branch of the Revolutionary Committee. In November 1935, Xia participated in the

Long March The Long March (, lit. ''Long Expedition'') was a military retreat undertaken by the Red Army of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the forerunner of the People's Liberation Army, to evade the pursuit of the National Army of the Chinese Nati ...

. On 28 February 1936, Xia Xi fell into the water due to fatigue on the way of crossing the

Bijie Bijie () is a prefecture-level city in northwestern Guizhou Province, China, bordering Sichuan to the north and Yunnan to the west. The Daotianhe Reservoir, located to the north of the town was commissioned in 1965 with a rated annual capacity ...

river. Due to the deaths Xia had caused during the purges years ago, the Red Army soldiers did not rescue him and he consequently drowned.

References

夏曦主持“肃反”杀人无数行军途中落水无人救

{{DEFAULTSORT:Xia, Xi 1901 births 1936 deaths Deaths by drowning Moscow Sun Yat-sen University alumni Whampoa Military Academy alumni People from Yiyang