Hsi Chung-hsun

1903

Fuping, Shaanxi, China

In the early thirties Hsi was a guerrilla leader in Hsun-i hsien, Shensi, some 50 miles northwest of his native Fu-p’ing near the Kansu border. The guerrillas were quite effective until mid-1933 when KMT forces decimated a crack regiment of the 26th Red Army, which was operating to the southeast. Subsequently, the center of guerrilla activity shifted north to a new area on the Shensi-Kansu border, which included Ch’ing- yang, Pao-an, and Ho-shui hsien. In early 1934 the Shensi-Kansu Border Region Revolutionary Committee was established to govern the new area. Hsi became chairman of the Committee and Liu Chih-tan was made chairman of the Military Committee. Starting in 1934, the guerrilla movement in the border region began to have considerable success (see under Liu Chih-tan). In mid-1935 Liu Chih-tan’s 26th and 27th Armies were merged with the 25th Red Army of Hsu Hai-tung, one of the earliest elements of the Long Marchers to arrive in Shensi. Official Communist histories credit Hsi with a role in making contact with Hsu’s forces. At the time he was apparently still head of the Revolutionary Committee. Soon after the arrival in north Shensi of Mao Tse-tung’s Long Marchers in the fall of 1935, Hsi studied at the Central Party School in Wa- yao-pao, and then for a period he was a dean at this important institution. After the Long Marchers and the local Communists had consolidated their position in the northwest, the Shensi-Kansu-Ninghsia (Shen-Kan-Ning) Border Region Government was established (1937). In the ensuing years Hsi became one of its more important officials, working mainly in Kuan- chung, one of the five sub-divisions of Shen- Kan-Ning and the one in the southernmost sector of the Border Region. During the Sino-Japanese War he was secretary of the Kuan-chung CCP District Committee and principal of the Second Normal School. He represented two of the hsien within Kuan-chung (T’ung-i-yao and Hsin-cheng) in the Shen-Kan-Ning Second and Third Assemblies, which first met in Yenan in November 1941 and April 1946, respectively. Moreover, at the April 1946 session of the Assembly he was elected to the Assembly Standing Committee, the organ in charge of legislative matters when the full Assembly was not in session. The Assembly, as well as its Standing Committee, was under the direction of Kao Kang. Within the executive branch of the Shen-Kan-Ning government, Hsi was a member of the Finance and Economics Committee by 1949. In 1947 Hsi also assumed the secretaryship of the Northwest Party Bureau, his most important and active role in the northwest from that date until 1952. His place in the Northwest Party structure was approximately paralleled in the regional government when (in January 1950) he became the senior vice-chairman of the Northwest Military and Administrative Committee (NWMAC) under NWMAC Chairman P’eng Te-huai. P’eng was often in Peking in 1950, and not long after the Chinese entered the Korean War (October 1950) he was in North Korea commanding the Chinese forces fighting there. Thus P’eng’s prolonged absence from the northwest in the early fifties had the effect of making Hsi the most important official in the CCP, the government, and military hierarchies there. Subordinate to the NWMAC Hsi was also chairman of the Land Reform Committee; nominally, he retained this post after the NWMAC was reorganized into the Northwest Administrative Committee in January 1953, but by about that time he had been transferred to Peking (see below). In the period from 1949 to 1952 he presided over a large number of meetings in the northwest, made inspection trips, and was a frequent contributor to the national and local press. For example, on an inspection trip to the Kuan-chung district of Shensi (where he had worked in the thirties and forties), Hsi delivered a speech on Party work in rural areas, which was published in the Sian Ch’iin-chung jih-pao (The masses daily) of December 30, 1949, and his speech at the Northwest Party School in Sian on the training of cadres was carried in the JMJP January 4, 1950). Similarly, an article by Hsi for the JMJP of July 4, 1951 (“To follow Mao Tse-tung means victory”) reviewed the situation in the northwest and gave a brief account of the history of the CCP movement there from the early 1920’s. Already the top official in one of the six major regions of China, Hsi began to receive a series of new and important national appointments in 1952-53 appointments that in retrospect, may have been related to the transfer of Hsi’s long-time colleague Kao Kang to Peking from Manchuria at this same time. Hsi’s first new national post was as a vice-chairman of the Culture and Education Committee, one of the four major committees subordinate to the Government Administration Council (the cabinet). Three months later (November 1952), in preparation for the inauguration of the First Five- Year Plan in 1953, the PRC created the State Planning Commission. As initially organized, the Commission had Kao Kang as the chairman, one vice-chairman, and 18 members, including Hsi and Jao Shu-shih. Jao and Kao were both purged in 1955 in one of the landmark events in the history of the CCP. Two of the first important steps leading toward the establishment of the constitutional government in 1954 were the creation in January and February 1953 of the Committee for Drafting the Constitution and the Central Election Committee, respectively. Hsi was named to both committees, and had Kao and Jao as fellow members on the one concerned with the drafting of the constitution. Even more important was Hsi’s assumption by June 1953 of the directorship of the Party’s Propaganda Department, one of the most important of the Central Committee organs. Here he replaced Party veteran Lu Ting-i, an intimate of Mao Tse-tung, who had headed the Department from 1945, Lu was lowered to the position of Department deputy director. By this time, of course, Hsi had already transferred to Peking probably over the winter of 1952-53 or soon thereafter. He received still another important post in September 1953 when he replaced Li Wei-han as secretary-general of the Government Administration Council (GAC). One year later (September 1954), at the close of the initial session of the First NPC, Hsi was reappointed secretary-general of the State Council, the successor to the GAC (although he was dropped at this time from the State Planning Commission). Because the Premier of the State Council (Chou En-lai) and the vice-premiers (e.g., Teng Hsiao-p’ing) arc so fully occupied with other tasks, it is probable that the secretary-general has a greater working knowledge of cabinet affairs than any other individual in this highly important organization. Some idea of the secretary-general’s role can be gained from Hsi’s candid and fact-laden speech before the second session of the First NPC in July 1955, an address dealing with measures taken by the government to retrench superfluous personnel from government organs and industrial units.5 Until Hsi apparently ran into political difficulties in 1962 (see below), he remained as State Council secretary-general and made scores of public appearances in this capacity. Throughout 1961 and most of 1962 Hsi was constantly in the news, often appearing with China’s most important leaders, as in September 1961 when he took part in talks held between Liu Shao-ch’i and the president of Cuba. He appeared regularly in public until the fall of 1962 when Chou Jung-hsin, one of the deputy secretaries-general of the State Council, became the acting secretary-general in his place. Chou continued in this capacity until January 1965 when he formally replaced Hsi as secretary-general. Though there is no published evidence to explain Hsi’s sudden disappearance from public affairs, it is possible that his past close ties with Kao Kang may have played a part in his downfall. Moreover, Hsi had worked closely with P’eng Te-huai, who was ousted as Defense Minister in September 1959. In any case, events of 1964 and 1965 attest to the fact that he has fallen from power. He was not re-elected to the Third NPC in 1964 (after having served in both the First and Second NPC’s), and at the close of the first session of the Third NPC in January 1965, he was not reappointed a vice-premier. (P’eng Te-huai was also formally removed as a vice-premier at this time.) In addition, as described above, Chou Jung-hsin replaced Hsi as the State Council’s secretary-general at this same time. Although men of equal significance have been purged and made a subsequent comeback (e.g., Huang K’o-ch'eng) it appears that Hsi’s significance as a key Party-government leader ended in 1962.

Hsi Chung-hsun

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politician

Background

Hsi was born in Fu-p’ing, 30 miles north of Sian, the Shensi provincial capital.

Education

A graduate of a middle school in Fu-p’ing, Hsi attended the new Chung Shan Military and Political Academy in Sian in 1926 and it was there that he probably first became associated with Liu Chih-tan and Kao Kang,two of the most important leaders in Shensi prior to the arrival in the province of the forces from south China led by Mao Tse-tung. Hsi, like Kao, was a student and Liu was an instructor.1 It was presumably about this time that Hsi joined the Communist Youth League and the following year (1927) he became a member of the CCP.

Career

In the early thirties Hsi was a guerrilla leader in Hsun-i hsien, Shensi, some 50 miles northwest of his native Fu-p’ing near the Kansu border. The guerrillas were quite effective until mid-1933 when KMT forces decimated a crack regiment of the 26th Red Army, which was operating to the southeast. Subsequently, the center of guerrilla activity shifted north to a new area on the Shensi-Kansu border, which included Ch’ing- yang, Pao-an, and Ho-shui hsien. In early 1934 the Shensi-Kansu Border Region Revolutionary Committee was established to govern the new area. Hsi became chairman of the Committee and Liu Chih-tan was made chairman of the Military Committee. Starting in 1934, the guerrilla movement in the border region began to have considerable success (see under Liu Chih-tan). In mid-1935 Liu Chih-tan’s 26th and 27th Armies were merged with the 25th Red Army of Hsu Hai-tung, one of the earliest elements of the Long Marchers to arrive in Shensi. Official Communist histories credit Hsi with a role in making contact with Hsu’s forces. At the time he was apparently still head of the Revolutionary Committee.

Soon after the arrival in north Shensi of Mao Tse-tung’s Long Marchers in the fall of 1935, Hsi studied at the Central Party School in Wa- yao-pao, and then for a period he was a dean at this important institution. After the Long Marchers and the local Communists had consolidated their position in the northwest, the Shensi-Kansu-Ninghsia (Shen-Kan-Ning) Border Region Government was established (1937). In the ensuing years Hsi became one of its more important officials, working mainly in Kuan- chung, one of the five sub-divisions of Shen- Kan-Ning and the one in the southernmost sector of the Border Region. During the Sino-Japanese War he was secretary of the Kuan-chung CCP District Committee and principal of the Second Normal School. He represented two of the hsien within Kuan-chung (T’ung-i-yao and Hsin-cheng) in the Shen-Kan-Ning Second and Third Assemblies, which first met in Yenan in November 1941 and April 1946, respectively. Moreover, at the April 1946 session of the Assembly he was elected to the Assembly Standing Committee, the organ in charge of legislative matters when the full Assembly was not in session. The Assembly, as well as its Standing Committee, was under the direction of Kao Kang. Within the executive branch of the Shen-Kan-Ning government, Hsi was a member of the Finance and Economics Committee by 1949.

In 1947 Hsi also assumed the secretaryship of the Northwest Party Bureau, his most important and active role in the northwest from that date until 1952. His place in the Northwest Party structure was approximately paralleled in the regional government when (in January 1950) he became the senior vice-chairman of the Northwest Military and Administrative Committee (NWMAC) under NWMAC Chairman P’eng Te-huai. P’eng was often in Peking in 1950, and not long after the Chinese entered the Korean War (October 1950) he was in North Korea commanding the Chinese forces fighting there. Thus P’eng’s prolonged absence from the northwest in the early fifties had the effect of making Hsi the most important official in the CCP, the government, and military hierarchies there.

Subordinate to the NWMAC Hsi was also chairman of the Land Reform Committee; nominally, he retained this post after the NWMAC was reorganized into the Northwest Administrative Committee in January 1953, but by about that time he had been transferred to Peking (see below). In the period from 1949 to 1952 he presided over a large number of meetings in the northwest, made inspection trips, and was a frequent contributor to the national and local press. For example, on an inspection trip to the Kuan-chung district of Shensi (where he had worked in the thirties and forties), Hsi delivered a speech on Party work in rural areas, which was published in the Sian Ch’iin-chung jih-pao (The masses daily) of December 30, 1949, and his speech at the Northwest Party School in Sian on the training of cadres was carried in the JMJP January 4, 1950). Similarly, an article by Hsi for the JMJP of July 4, 1951 (“To follow Mao Tse-tung means victory”) reviewed the situation in the northwest and gave a brief account of the history of the CCP movement there from the early 1920’s.

Already the top official in one of the six major regions of China, Hsi began to receive a series of new and important national appointments in 1952-53 appointments that in retrospect, may have been related to the transfer of Hsi’s long-time colleague Kao Kang to Peking from Manchuria at this same time. Hsi’s first new national post was as a vice-chairman of the Culture and Education Committee, one of the four major committees subordinate to the Government Administration Council (the cabinet). Three months later (November 1952), in preparation for the inauguration of the First Five- Year Plan in 1953, the PRC created the State Planning Commission. As initially organized, the Commission had Kao Kang as the chairman, one vice-chairman, and 18 members, including Hsi and Jao Shu-shih. Jao and Kao were both purged in 1955 in one of the landmark events in the history of the CCP. Two of the first important steps leading toward the establishment of the constitutional government in 1954 were the creation in January and February 1953 of the Committee for Drafting the Constitution and the Central Election Committee, respectively. Hsi was named to both committees, and had Kao and Jao as fellow members on the one concerned with the drafting of the constitution. Even more important was Hsi’s assumption by June 1953 of the directorship of the Party’s Propaganda Department, one of the most important of the Central Committee organs. Here he replaced Party veteran Lu Ting-i, an intimate of Mao Tse-tung, who had headed the Department from 1945, Lu was lowered to the position of Department deputy director. By this time, of course, Hsi had already transferred to Peking probably over the winter of 1952-53 or soon thereafter. He received still another important post in September 1953 when he replaced Li Wei-han as secretary-general of the Government Administration Council (GAC). One year later (September 1954), at the close of the initial session of the First NPC, Hsi was reappointed secretary-general of the State Council, the successor to the GAC (although he was dropped at this time from the State Planning Commission). Because the Premier of the State Council (Chou En-lai) and the vice-premiers (e.g., Teng Hsiao-p’ing) arc so fully occupied with other tasks, it is probable that the secretary-general has a greater working knowledge of cabinet affairs than any other individual in this highly important organization. Some idea of the secretary-general’s role can be gained from Hsi’s candid and fact-laden speech before the second session of the First NPC in July 1955, an address dealing with measures taken by the government to retrench superfluous personnel from government organs and industrial units.5 Until Hsi apparently ran into political difficulties in 1962 (see below), he remained as State Council secretary-general and made scores of public appearances in this capacity.

Throughout 1961 and most of 1962 Hsi was constantly in the news, often appearing with China’s most important leaders, as in September 1961 when he took part in talks held between Liu Shao-ch’i and the president of Cuba. He appeared regularly in public until the fall of 1962 when Chou Jung-hsin, one of the deputy secretaries-general of the State Council, became the acting secretary-general in his place. Chou continued in this capacity until January 1965 when he formally replaced Hsi as secretary-general.

Though there is no published evidence to explain Hsi’s sudden disappearance from public affairs, it is possible that his past close ties with Kao Kang may have played a part in his downfall. Moreover, Hsi had worked closely with P’eng Te-huai, who was ousted as Defense Minister in September 1959. In any case, events of 1964 and 1965 attest to the fact that he has fallen from power. He was not re-elected to the Third NPC in 1964 (after having served in both the First and Second NPC’s), and at the close of the first session of the Third NPC in January 1965, he was not reappointed a vice-premier. (P’eng Te-huai was also formally removed as a vice-premier at this time.) In addition, as described above, Chou Jung-hsin replaced Hsi as the State Council’s secretary-general at this same time. Although men of equal significance have been purged and made a subsequent comeback (e.g., Huang K’o-ch'eng) it appears that Hsi’s significance as a key Party-government leader ended in 1962.

Politics

Although Hsi’s principal duties were in connection with the Party and the Shen-Kan-Ning Government, he served at least briefly during the war as political commissar of the Second Independent Brigade, one of the units in Ho Lung’s 120th Division. At the Seventh National Party Congress held in Yenan in April-June 1945, 44 full and 33 alternate members were elected to the Central Committee. Most of the new Central Committee members had served with Mao in Kiangsi and most had made the Long March. Hsi’s place in the Party hierarchy at this juncture can be judged in part from the fact that only three men were elected from the Shensi group: Kao Kang, a full member, and Ma Ming- fang and Hsi, both alternates. In the years immediately after the Congress Hsi continued to rise within the CCP elite. During the civil war with the Nationalists in the late forties he was political commissar of the Northwest PLA (1947-1949). In Mao’s Selected Works, P’eng Te-huai, Ho Lung, and Hsi are singled out as the most significant leaders in major battles in the northwest against the Nationalists in 1947 and 1948. By the time of the collapse of the Nationalists in 1949, the Northwest PLA had been redesignated the First Field Army. Hsi continued as the political commissar of the field army, as well as the area it controlled, known as the Northwest Military Region (encompassing Shensi, Kansu, Ninghsia, Tsinghai, and Sinkiang provinces). He held these posts until his transfer to Peking in 1952.

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Hsi Chung-hsun

Background

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Born

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Education

1926

Career

1946

1952 - 1953

1954