Xi Zhongxun

Early Years and the Shaanxi–Gansu Border Base (1913–1936)

Xi Zhongxun was born into a peasant family in Fuping, Shaanxi, on 15 October 1913 and joined the Communist Youth League in May 1926. Detained by the Nationalist authorities after taking part in a student movement in the spring of 1928, he became a member of the Chinese Communist Party while in prison. In early 1930 he was sent to agitate among the troops of Yang Hucheng, and in March 1932 he organised the Liangdang mutiny. From 1933 he and Liu Zhidan built the Zhaojin revolutionary base on the Shaanxi–Gansu border, and in November 1934 he was elected chairman of the border region's Soviet government.

In September 1935 he, Liu Zhidan and other leaders were imprisoned in a purge within the northwestern base. The official obituary published by Xinhua in 2002 says they were released and rehabilitated only after the Central Committee and Mao Zedong reached northern Shaanxi. The American scholar Joseph Torigian published a biography, The Party's Interests Come First, in 2025; as quoted in a review by Emily Matson of Georgetown University, he argues that the reality was "a little more complicated: Xi's death was not imminent, Mao's own role is overstated, and it took years for Xi to achieve complete rehabilitation".

Guanzhong, Suide and the Northwest Bureau (1936–1952)

From 1936 Xi spent six years in the Guanzhong sub-region as secretary of the sub-regional Party committee and commissioner. In January 1943 Mao Zedong wrote him the inscription "The Party's interests come first"; the following month he became Party secretary of the Suide prefecture. In June 1945 the Seventh Party Congress elected him an alternate member of the Central Committee, and in August he became deputy head of the Central Organisation Department.

After Japan's surrender he served as secretary of the CCP Northwest Bureau, political commissar of the Shaanxi–Gansu–Ningxia–Shanxi–Suiyuan Joint Defence Army and deputy political commissar of the Northwest Field Army, and from March 1947 helped Peng Dehuai direct the battles of Qinghuabian, Yangmahe and Panlongzhen. After the founding of the People's Republic he was second secretary of the Northwest Bureau, vice-chairman and acting chairman of the Northwest Military and Administrative Committee and political commissar of the First Field Army and Northwest Military Region, overseeing land reform and the suppression of counter-revolutionaries in the five northwestern provinces; the official obituary credits him with having "boldly and properly resolved complex ethnic and religious questions".

The Propaganda Department and the State Council (1952–1962)

In September 1952 Xi became head of the CCP Central Propaganda Department and deputy director and Party secretary of the Culture and Education Committee of the Government Administration Council. On 22 July 1954 the writer Hu Feng submitted, through Xi, his "Report on the Situation in Literary Practice in Recent Years" — the "300,000-character memorial" — to the Central Committee. From September 1953 he was secretary-general of the Government Administration Council and then of the State Council; he was elected to the Central Committee at the Eighth Party Congress in September 1956, and in April 1959 became Vice-Premier and secretary-general of the State Council, in charge of its day-to-day work. He assisted Zhou Enlai for about ten years, and speakers at his 2013 centenary meeting called him the State Council's "chief steward".

The Liu Zhidan Novel Case (1962–1978)

During the Tenth Plenum of the Eighth Central Committee in September 1962, Xi was accused by Kang Sheng over the so-called "problem of the novel Liu Zhidan". The official obituary says he was "falsely accused by Kang Sheng", was cruelly persecuted during the Cultural Revolution and was "investigated, detained and kept under guard for a total of 16 years", before being fully rehabilitated after the Third Plenum of the 11th Central Committee.

According to Matson's review, Torigian sees the case as an early foreshadowing of the horrors of the Cultural Revolution and agrees with the Chinese historian Han Gang that the criticism of Hai Rui Dismissed from Office was an "extension" of the Liu Zhidan case; the book also recounts that in January 1967 Xi was seized by Red Guards in Xi'an and lost the hearing in his right ear during struggle sessions.

Guangdong (1978–1980)

From April 1978 Xi served successively as second and first secretary of the Guangdong provincial Party committee, governor of Guangdong and first political commissar of the Guangzhou Military Region, and was added to the Central Committee at the Third Plenum. According to the official obituary, he was the first to ask the Centre to let Guangdong "take the first step" in reform and opening, a request Deng Xiaoping endorsed; in July 1979 the Central Committee and State Council formally approved special policies and flexible measures for Guangdong and the creation of special economic zones. Torigian stresses that the proposal also had the support of the then Party chairman, Hua Guofeng, and that "Deng's role should not be overstated".

The Central Secretariat and the National People's Congress (1980–1993)

In September 1980 Xi was elected vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of the Fifth National People's Congress and later also chaired its Legislative Affairs Commission. In June 1981 the Sixth Plenum of the 11th Central Committee added him to the Central Secretariat, and in September 1982 the First Plenum of the 12th Central Committee elected him to the Politburo and the Secretariat, where he ran its day-to-day work. When the Fifth Session of the Fifth NPC voted on the new Constitution on 4 December 1982, he announced the result as executive chairman of the session.

In April 1988 he was elected vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of the Seventh NPC and chairman of its Internal and Judicial Affairs Committee; he retired from leadership posts in March 1993.

Death

Xi Zhongxun died in Beijing on 24 May 2002, aged 89. His son Xi Jinping became General Secretary of the CCP in 2012. At the meeting the Central Committee held on 15 October 2013 to mark the centenary of his birth, Xi Jinping attended as a family member.