Comintern too. Under Mif's direction, the 4th Plenary Meeting of 6th National Congress of the CCP was held, Li was replaced by Mif's protégé Wang Ming, and his associates Bolsheviks took other important jobs. Although Xiang sought to tender his resignation, the Comintern and senior leaders of the CCP, such as Qu and Zhou, thought Xiang's symbolic value as a worker among the CCP leadership might still be helpful to the revolution, so they blocked his resignation. But Xiang's role as paramount leader was put to an end with the key work of the CCP changing from cities to Soviet territories in the countryside, with which Xiang was unfamiliar and had no experience at all. Wang Ming, then serving as the leader of the CCP, despised the old CCP members, leading labor activists He Mengxiong (Chinese: 何孟雄) and Luo Zhanglong (Chinese: 罗章龙) to attempt to set up a rival Party center. Although this effort failed, He and the other 24 members of this group were arrested and executed by the KMT later, and the CCP's power in Shanghai was thereby greatly weakened. Aware of being a puppet, Xiang lost confidence in both the revolution and communism. He changed his interest to women and living a luxurious life. Using the party's expense account, Xiang lived in villa with his mistress, which brought about great criticisms from CCP members and made Zhou Enlai nervous, for it was already tough enough for Zhou to ensure the security of senior leaders. Xiang's extravagant life lasted only a short time. With the arrest and defection in 1931 of one of Zhou's senior subordinate, Gu Shunzhang, who was the security guard boss of the CCP at that time, Gu sold Xiang out. Xiang was arrested on June 21, 1931, in the jewelry store he used as a front in the French Concession in the city of Shanghai. Xiang was captured in the company of his mistress, Yang Xiuzhen, a cabaret dancer at local Shanghai nightclubs. In short order, Xiang revealed all he knew about the CCP and its secret services to his KMT captors but was shot before a counterorder signed by Chiang Kai-shek to pardon him ever reached his jailers. Xiang’s role As the only General Secretary to defect from the CCP and be executed by the Kuomintang, Xiang was regarded as a disgrace in CCP history. The CCP sought to erase any memory of