LI LISAN

Wade-Giles romanization Li Li-san born 1896, Li-ling, Hunan province, China died 1967, China Chinese revolutionary who was Mao Zedong's chief rival for power within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 1928 to 1930. Li joined the CCP in Paris in 1921 and then returned to China to become one of the party's principal labour organizers. After 1928 he became the effective head of the CCP. On orders from the Communist International (Comintern), he implemented what became known as the Li Lisan line; this strategy followed established Marxist-Leninist doctrine in its encouragement of large-scale worker uprisings in urban centres and was different in emphasis from the peasant-oriented rural strategy of the revolutionist Mao Zedong. In July 1930 Li's small Communist army attacked and took over Ch'ang-sha, the capital of the central Chinese province of Hunan. The Communists suffered heavy losses, however, when the government's forces recaptured the city three days later. The major centre of CCP activity then shifted to Mao Zedong's guerrilla forces. Denounced by the Comintern as responsible for the debacle at Ch'ang-sha, Li was recalled to Moscow for corrective study. He returned to China in 1945, and, after the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, he was minister of labour. Owing to conflict with the party leadership, however, Li resigned this post by 1954. He subsequently held a series of modest posts in the party. Li reportedly committed suicide when he came under attack in the Cultural Revolution in 1967.