Xiang Zhongfa (; 1879 – June 24, 1931) was one of the early senior leaders of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Early life Xiang was born in 1879 to a poor family living in Hanchuan, Hubei. He dropped out of elementary school to move with his parents to their ancestral home in Hubei. When he was 14 years old, he became an apprentice in a weapons factory in Hanyang, a county of Wuhan. When the factory closed, Xiang found work as a servant in Jiangxi. Three years later, he was recommended by his employer to work for a liner company in Wuhan. He received a promotion to Second Mate four months later and became Chief Mate after two years. After several years, Xiang transferred to a ship of the major liner company Han Zhiping. There, he was elected as a labor union leader because of his literacy and activity in worker movements. In 1921, Xiang became the Vice Chairman of Han Zhiping's labor union and joined the CCP. Rise to power During the Northern Expedition, the army of Kuomintang (KMT) took over some parts of Hubei and marched towards Wuhan. Xiang and Xu Baihao mobilized workers for strikes against local warlords and set up the labor union of the Hubei province, greatly assisting the KMT army. After the CCP headquarters moved to Wuhan, Xiang was elected a member of the CCP Central Committee for his contributions. Xiang was then among the most prominent worker activists, along with Su Zhaozheng, Wang Hebo and Deng Pei. The CCP-KMT alliance (First United Front) was facing uncertainty with occasional conflicts arising between these two parties. Xiang expressed his discontent directly, as compared to the more compromising attitude of then party secretary Chen Duxiu, who didn't attach much importance to worker leaders. The resolute standpoint of Xiang made a great impression on the Comintern, which issued a telegram on July 14, 1927, to denounce the central organs of the CCP, saying there were signs of opportunism in its compromise policy in relation to the KMT, and decreeing that all CCP members should fight against this opportunism. The basic task of reform "should make leaders of workers and peasants have decisive influence in the CCP", according to the Comintern. This view was more in line with Xiang's hard stance. As a result, at the conference of the CCP on August 7, 1927, the CCP fired Chen