Li Xiannian

Early Years and the Fourth Front Army (1909–1937)

Li Xiannian was born on 23 June 1909 into a poor peasant family in Huang'an (now Hong'an), Hubei. Orphaned young, he had only three years of old-style schooling and worked as a carpenter before joining the revolution. He took part in the peasant movement during the Great Revolution, joined the Chinese Communist Party in 1927 and in the same year joined the Huang-Ma Uprising. He then fought with the Red Fourth Front Army, helping to build the Hubei–Henan–Anhui and Sichuan–Shaanxi base areas, and from 1931 served successively as political commissar of a Red Army regiment, division and army; Hu Jintao's 2009 speech called him the Fourth Front Army's "youngest army political commissar".

During the Long March he led the Fourth Front Army's vanguard in taking Maogong, where it linked up with the First Front Army. After the main Red Army forces converged at Huining in 1936, he was ordered to cross the Yellow River westward, becoming a member of the Western Route Army's military-political committee and commanding the Red 30th Army. After the Western Route Army was defeated, he was made a member of its working committee in charge of unified military command and led its remnants across the Qilian Mountains and the Gobi, reaching Xinjiang in 1937.

The Central Plains: War against Japan and the Breakout (1938–1949)

After the Sixth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee in 1938, Li was sent to the Central Plains, where he built the New Fourth Army's Henan–Hubei Advance Column and then its Fifth Division, opening up the Hubei–Henan border base area. According to Hu Jintao's speech, the base had more than ten million inhabitants, a regular force of over 50,000 and more than 300,000 militia.

After Japan's surrender, the Central Plains Military Region he led was encircled by Nationalist forces. In the summer of 1946 he directed some 60,000 troops of the region in breaking through an encirclement by about 300,000 Nationalist troops, personally leading the northern breakout column and establishing the Henan–Hubei–Shaanxi border base area on the move. Hu Jintao's speech said the breakout "raised the curtain on the War of Liberation". He went on to serve as second deputy secretary of the Central Plains Bureau, deputy commander of the Shanxi–Hebei–Shandong–Henan Field Army and second deputy commander of the Central Plains Military Region, taking part in Liu Bocheng and Deng Xiaoping's rebuilding of the Dabie Mountains base and in logistics for the Huaihai Campaign.

Hubei and the State Council's Economic Work (1949–1966)

After 1949 Li led Hubei as provincial Party secretary and chairman of the provincial people's government, overseeing the establishment of local government, bandit suppression and land reform there. Transferred to Beijing in 1954, he soon became Vice-Premier of the State Council and Minister of Finance, assisting Zhou Enlai and Chen Yun in directing the economy; he would remain a vice-premier for 26 years, long responsible for finance, banking and trade.

According to Hu Jintao's speech, around the time of the Eighth Party Congress he supported efforts to check rash advance, arguing that "finance, credit and materials must be balanced in a unified way", and during the economic crisis of 1959–1961 he helped lead the readjustment of the national economy.

The Cultural Revolution (1966–1976)

In February 1967 Li joined Ye Jianying, Chen Yi, Xu Xiangqian, Nie Rongzhen, Tan Zhenlin, Li Fuchun and others in criticising the Central Cultural Revolution Group at Politburo briefing meetings in Huairen Hall, Zhongnanhai, and was subsequently denounced as part of the "February Countercurrent". He nevertheless remained at the State Council, helping Zhou Enlai keep the economy running and taking part in the diplomacy of the early 1970s; during Deng Xiaoping's rectification drive of 1975 he assisted with economic work.

In October 1976 the leadership arrested Wang Hongwen, Zhang Chunqiao, Jiang Qing and Yao Wenyuan. According to the People's Daily Party-history profile, Li "carefully planned" the move "with Ye Jianying and other comrades"; Hu Jintao's speech called him "one of the principal decision-makers".

The Reform Era (1976–1992)

After the fall of the Gang of Four Li ran the day-to-day work of the State Council, and from 1977 he was a vice-chairman of the CCP Central Committee and a member of the Politburo Standing Committee. In September 1980 the Third Session of the Fifth National People's Congress accepted Hua Guofeng's resignation as Premier together with the resignations of Deng Xiaoping, Li Xiannian, Chen Yun, Xu Xiangqian, Wang Zhen and Wang Renzhong as vice-premiers. In September 1982 the First Plenum of the 12th Central Committee re-elected him to the Politburo Standing Committee. In the 1980s he directed the work of the Central Foreign Affairs Leading Group.

On 18 June 1983 the First Session of the Sixth National People's Congress elected Li President of the People's Republic of China. As President he visited more than 20 countries; in July 1985 he made a state visit to the United States, and on 23 July President Ronald Reagan gave a state dinner for him at the White House. At the 13th Party Congress in November 1987 he left the Politburo Standing Committee together with Deng Xiaoping, Chen Yun and others. In April 1988 he stepped down as President, succeeded by Yang Shangkun, and the same month became Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, a post he held until his death.

Death

Li Xiannian died of illness in Beijing on 21 June 1992. According to the People's Daily Party-history profile, part of his ashes were scattered, at his wish, over the Qilian Mountains where the Western Route Army had fought. At a meeting marking the centenary of his birth on 23 June 2009, Hu Jintao described him as "a great proletarian revolutionary, statesman and military strategist, a staunch Marxist, and an eminent leader of the Party and the state".