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Stanford–Hoover Series on Authoritarianism
The Party's Interests Come First: The Life of Xi Zhongxun, Father of Xi Jinping
China's leader, Xi Jinping, is one of the most powerful individuals in the world—and one of the least understood. Much can be learned, however, about both Xi Jinping and the nature of the party he leads from the memory and legacy of his father, the revolutionary Xi Zhongxun (1913–2002). The elder Xi served the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for more than seven decades. He worked at the right hand of prominent leaders Zhou Enlai and Hu Yaobang. He helped build the Communist base area that saved Mao Zedong in 1935, and he initiated the Special Economic Zones that launched China into the reform era after Mao's death. He led the Party's United Front efforts toward Tibetans, Uyghurs, and Taiwanese. And though in 1989 he initially sought to avoid violence, he ultimately supported the Party's crackdown on the Tiananmen protesters.
The Party's Interests Come First is the first biography of Xi Zhongxun written in English. This biography is at once a sweeping story of the Chinese revolution and the first several decades of the People's Republic of China and a deeply personal story about making sense of one's own identity within a larger political context. Drawing on an array of new documents, interviews, diaries, and periodicals, Joseph Torigian vividly tells the life story of Xi Zhongxun, a man who spent his entire life struggling to balance his own feelings with the Party's demands. Through the eyes of Xi Jinping's father, Torigian reveals the extraordinary organizational, ideological, and coercive power of the CCP—and the terrible cost in human suffering that comes with it.
The Party's Interests Come First is the first biography of Xi Zhongxun written in English. This biography is at once a sweeping story of the Chinese revolution and the first several decades of the People's Republic of China and a deeply personal story about making sense of one's own identity within a larger political context. Drawing on an array of new documents, interviews, diaries, and periodicals, Joseph Torigian vividly tells the life story of Xi Zhongxun, a man who spent his entire life struggling to balance his own feelings with the Party's demands. Through the eyes of Xi Jinping's father, Torigian reveals the extraordinary organizational, ideological, and coercive power of the CCP—and the terrible cost in human suffering that comes with it.
696 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 3, 2025
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May 31, 2025“These contradictions... - resignation coexisting with intense motivation, a desire for change that persists despite constant failure, and a sense of justice that regularly conflicts with matters beyond one’s own control - would be reflected in Xi’s life for decades to come.”
“If you want to describe my life, just a few words can summarize it: I did justice for the party, did justice for the people, and did justice for myself; I did not make ‘leftist’ mistakes, I did not persecute people. My accomplishments have been ordinary. I feel no guilt.”
“With regard to ethnic customs, you absolutely must not see them as backward, feudal things. The dozens of ethnic groups in this country each have their own customs; how could the Han not have its own customs as well?”
Xi Zhongxun never wrote an autobiographical account of his life, so we are fortunate to have Joseph Torigian’s The Party’s Interests Come First, an incredibly precise biography of the man who fathered China’s current leader, Xi Jinping. Clearly intended for scholars of China, Torigian’s work offers a valuable new perspective on the country’s turbulent 20th century, focusing on a figure who practically invented United Front policies and who fervently believed in the dream of Red China, even as he faced intense persecution. Torigian’s style is crisp and straightforward; he rarely intercedes between the reader and the facts he presents. Among the many sources Torigian cites, I found the most compelling to be the diaries and letters of influential Party members, particularly Li Rui, a one-time secretary to Mao Zedong. Through these recollections, the reader cannot help but be persuaded by Xi’s steadfastness, dynamism, and geniality, qualities that stand in sharp contrast to the images we so often conjure of China’s communist leadership as paranoid, mirthless, and dogmatic to the point of psychopathy. At the same time, Xi was both a survivor and a true believer in Leninism: a friendly face who nonetheless could never fully reckon with the structural contradictions inherent in Party rule.
Even Xi’s early attraction to communism is broadly relatable: he was inspired by a piece of romantic fiction—specifically, Jiang Guangci’s The Young Wanderer. Jiang himself wrote, “All revolutionaries are romantics. Without being romantic, who would want to start a revolution?” By the time he was nineteen, Xi had already “experienced one failed assassination, one failed mutiny, and two incarcerations,” and was a critical figure in the establishment of the Northwest Bureau and the Yan’an Base Area, a Communist stronghold during the Chinese Civil War known for receiving Mao at the end of the Long March. Xi’s association with the Northwest would dog him for the rest of his life amid the Communist Party’s parochial infighting. He himself nearly fell during the Gao Gang Affair for just such an association, and, indeed, was targeted by Kang Sheng later as part of a broader assault against Northwest cadres.
It was during the early land reform efforts conducted by the Northwest Bureau, that Xi developed an approach he would maintain for the rest of his life. In Maoist parlance, it was generally “rightist.” For example, he proposed that if landlords offered to give up their land, the Party should accept it. Xi nearly always opposed the leftist aggressive approach, criticizing the “extreme leftist deviation” that, in practice, meant “giving the power of leadership to evil people,” namely, the Poor Peasants Associations. However, Xi failed to criticize the Great Leap Forward at Lushan, surviving the conference even as millions died in the ensuing famine. Repeatedly throughout his career, Xi avoided direct criticism, taking the unity of the Party and the solidity of the leadership core as his guiding principles. It was not enough: Xi was purged in 1960, ostensibly due to his association with a novel about the Northwestern revolutionary hero Liu Zhidan. Xi blamed Kang Sheng, but logically, Deng Xiaoping and Mao would have been involved. Torigian writes that “ultimately, twenty thousand people were persecuted as a result of the ‘Xi Zhongxun anti-Party clique.’” It would be sixteen years before Xi would meaningfully participate in Party affairs again—a period during which the Cultural Revolution raged and Xi’s entire family faced intense persecution.
I found the sections on Xi’s role in the United Front to be the most fascinating. His approach was highly personalized, relying on the persuasion of high-ranking civil society and religious figures among minority populations, such as the Panchen Lama and Ulanhu. It could only ever have been a short-term solution, however: “one significant problem was mortality,” and the other was the impatience of the Communist leadership. Even as Xi railed against Han chauvinism, it is unclear whether there was ever going to be another viable path forward.
It remains an open question how much Xi Jinping has taken after his father. Certainly, part of his initial appeal was the notion that he might be both a reformer and a princeling—a perfect compromise candidate. If you read this book hoping to predict what the next five to ten years of China’s politics will look like, you will be sorely disappointed. Instead, one comes away awed by the power of the CCP over individual personalities, its endless capacity to secure loyalty even among those it has most grievously harmed, and its remarkable ability to break down and rebuild itself time and again. It is easy to argue that behind the endless speeches, meetings, marches, and resolutions, the CCP is still just a group of people. As Torigian writes, however, “even if Hu Yaobang, Zhao Ziyang, or Xi Zhongxun had become the top leader, they too, if they survived, might have changed.”
“If you want to describe my life, just a few words can summarize it: I did justice for the party, did justice for the people, and did justice for myself; I did not make ‘leftist’ mistakes, I did not persecute people. My accomplishments have been ordinary. I feel no guilt.”
“With regard to ethnic customs, you absolutely must not see them as backward, feudal things. The dozens of ethnic groups in this country each have their own customs; how could the Han not have its own customs as well?”
Xi Zhongxun never wrote an autobiographical account of his life, so we are fortunate to have Joseph Torigian’s The Party’s Interests Come First, an incredibly precise biography of the man who fathered China’s current leader, Xi Jinping. Clearly intended for scholars of China, Torigian’s work offers a valuable new perspective on the country’s turbulent 20th century, focusing on a figure who practically invented United Front policies and who fervently believed in the dream of Red China, even as he faced intense persecution. Torigian’s style is crisp and straightforward; he rarely intercedes between the reader and the facts he presents. Among the many sources Torigian cites, I found the most compelling to be the diaries and letters of influential Party members, particularly Li Rui, a one-time secretary to Mao Zedong. Through these recollections, the reader cannot help but be persuaded by Xi’s steadfastness, dynamism, and geniality, qualities that stand in sharp contrast to the images we so often conjure of China’s communist leadership as paranoid, mirthless, and dogmatic to the point of psychopathy. At the same time, Xi was both a survivor and a true believer in Leninism: a friendly face who nonetheless could never fully reckon with the structural contradictions inherent in Party rule.
Even Xi’s early attraction to communism is broadly relatable: he was inspired by a piece of romantic fiction—specifically, Jiang Guangci’s The Young Wanderer. Jiang himself wrote, “All revolutionaries are romantics. Without being romantic, who would want to start a revolution?” By the time he was nineteen, Xi had already “experienced one failed assassination, one failed mutiny, and two incarcerations,” and was a critical figure in the establishment of the Northwest Bureau and the Yan’an Base Area, a Communist stronghold during the Chinese Civil War known for receiving Mao at the end of the Long March. Xi’s association with the Northwest would dog him for the rest of his life amid the Communist Party’s parochial infighting. He himself nearly fell during the Gao Gang Affair for just such an association, and, indeed, was targeted by Kang Sheng later as part of a broader assault against Northwest cadres.
It was during the early land reform efforts conducted by the Northwest Bureau, that Xi developed an approach he would maintain for the rest of his life. In Maoist parlance, it was generally “rightist.” For example, he proposed that if landlords offered to give up their land, the Party should accept it. Xi nearly always opposed the leftist aggressive approach, criticizing the “extreme leftist deviation” that, in practice, meant “giving the power of leadership to evil people,” namely, the Poor Peasants Associations. However, Xi failed to criticize the Great Leap Forward at Lushan, surviving the conference even as millions died in the ensuing famine. Repeatedly throughout his career, Xi avoided direct criticism, taking the unity of the Party and the solidity of the leadership core as his guiding principles. It was not enough: Xi was purged in 1960, ostensibly due to his association with a novel about the Northwestern revolutionary hero Liu Zhidan. Xi blamed Kang Sheng, but logically, Deng Xiaoping and Mao would have been involved. Torigian writes that “ultimately, twenty thousand people were persecuted as a result of the ‘Xi Zhongxun anti-Party clique.’” It would be sixteen years before Xi would meaningfully participate in Party affairs again—a period during which the Cultural Revolution raged and Xi’s entire family faced intense persecution.
I found the sections on Xi’s role in the United Front to be the most fascinating. His approach was highly personalized, relying on the persuasion of high-ranking civil society and religious figures among minority populations, such as the Panchen Lama and Ulanhu. It could only ever have been a short-term solution, however: “one significant problem was mortality,” and the other was the impatience of the Communist leadership. Even as Xi railed against Han chauvinism, it is unclear whether there was ever going to be another viable path forward.
It remains an open question how much Xi Jinping has taken after his father. Certainly, part of his initial appeal was the notion that he might be both a reformer and a princeling—a perfect compromise candidate. If you read this book hoping to predict what the next five to ten years of China’s politics will look like, you will be sorely disappointed. Instead, one comes away awed by the power of the CCP over individual personalities, its endless capacity to secure loyalty even among those it has most grievously harmed, and its remarkable ability to break down and rebuild itself time and again. It is easy to argue that behind the endless speeches, meetings, marches, and resolutions, the CCP is still just a group of people. As Torigian writes, however, “even if Hu Yaobang, Zhao Ziyang, or Xi Zhongxun had become the top leader, they too, if they survived, might have changed.”
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 23, 2025
Understanding the world of the CCP
what is it like to be leader of the CCP? What happens to you? What choices do you make? Why do you make them? This book helps us answer those questions.
what is it like to be leader of the CCP? What happens to you? What choices do you make? Why do you make them? This book helps us answer those questions.
July 15, 2025
If you want to know everything there is to know about Xi Jinping’s father, early 20th century China, and a bit about Xi Jinping himself this is the book for you.
June 4, 2025
"Xi committed his first revolutionary act at the age of only 14—he and a friend tried to poison one of their school’s administrators—and he remained a faithful Party member until his death at the age of 88 in 2002. Xi fought the Japanese and the Nationalists, served in numerous high-ranking government positions, was the right-hand man to both Zhou Enlai and Hu Yaobang, and managed relations with ethnic and religious minority groups in China. His purge came before the Cultural Revolution started and hinted at what was to come. Even if Xi Jinping were a nobody, Xi Zhongxun and his career would still more than warrant a close look as we continue to write the history of China and CCP politics in the 20th century."
Full write-up at my website.
Full write-up at my website.
July 15, 2025
Such a thoughtful and thorough look at CCP history and politics, all centered around Xi Zhongxun, the father of Xi Jinping. For anyone interested in modern Chinese history, this is must-read.
July 13, 2025
So the question is - how far does the apple fall from the tree ? This extensive biography of Xi Zhongxun gives a taste of China's twentieth century history - enough to convey this is vast topic . Some sense of the operation of the Leninist party apparatus and its vagaries is provided . And some background to Xi Jingping's fervor for the party and the nation also becomes clear . Also it's clear that Xi senior's role in the party was ultimately highly beneficial for Xi. But overall I found the material too dense to be able to rank any more than 3*.
February 13, 2025
Fantastic biography about the father of Xi Jinping.
Highly recommend this all encompassing story of the extraordinary life of Xi Zhongxun.
Highly recommend this all encompassing story of the extraordinary life of Xi Zhongxun.
October 31, 2025
This is a book that everyone should read, but very few people will read. It is a daunting, rewarding, worthwhile look at China since 1923.
It is supposedly a biography of Xi Zhongxun, but winds up being a major history of his era. The ramifications of his life still loom large as his son, Xi Jinping, is in his third term as China's leader. In a way, it reminds one of a tale of the Mafioso, exchanging the Party for 'da organization.' Loyalty to the Capo di capo is switched to the leader of the party. No one crosses the party or questions its decisions. One is supposed to blindly trust that 'Fearless Leader' is always right, even if he shifts positions ideologically, which, in China's case, results in chaos, disruption, and millions of deaths to get people to go along with the party. There are no good guys here. Once persecuted people are rehabilitated, they proceed with their own horrors.
It is a reminder of China's history with warlords, as state and provincial officials plot, scheme and appease, to move up the party ladders. Speeches, words, actions, and behaviors are all scrutinized by others for ideas and methods they can support or attack as the party decides.
One notices how some big mistakes are not worthy of correction ideologically, but others can be overcome by a 'heartfelt' (sarcasm intended) period of self-criticism and, perhaps, banishment, can make it all better. The chapter on the Tiananmen Square debacle is a prime example. The party (Deng Xiaoping) is going through a fumble-stumble routine to balance an economy that is providing opportunities for many people, strengthening the country, and causing problems with party ideology. People are asking for clarification and change. Young people, the leaders of the next generation, in particular. Dr. Torigian gives examples of some local leaders having meetings and discussions on the issues with the protesters. Deng's answer in Beijing (and for the edification of the rest of the party and country) is simple. Bring in the army and kill them if you have to. A sordid story of missed opportunity. Yet thirty-six years later, the party is still scared stiff of the issue and treats it as a black hole instead of a starting point for understanding.
This simplistic review does not do justice to the book. I am not a writer. Dr. Torigian is. Read the book.
It is supposedly a biography of Xi Zhongxun, but winds up being a major history of his era. The ramifications of his life still loom large as his son, Xi Jinping, is in his third term as China's leader. In a way, it reminds one of a tale of the Mafioso, exchanging the Party for 'da organization.' Loyalty to the Capo di capo is switched to the leader of the party. No one crosses the party or questions its decisions. One is supposed to blindly trust that 'Fearless Leader' is always right, even if he shifts positions ideologically, which, in China's case, results in chaos, disruption, and millions of deaths to get people to go along with the party. There are no good guys here. Once persecuted people are rehabilitated, they proceed with their own horrors.
It is a reminder of China's history with warlords, as state and provincial officials plot, scheme and appease, to move up the party ladders. Speeches, words, actions, and behaviors are all scrutinized by others for ideas and methods they can support or attack as the party decides.
One notices how some big mistakes are not worthy of correction ideologically, but others can be overcome by a 'heartfelt' (sarcasm intended) period of self-criticism and, perhaps, banishment, can make it all better. The chapter on the Tiananmen Square debacle is a prime example. The party (Deng Xiaoping) is going through a fumble-stumble routine to balance an economy that is providing opportunities for many people, strengthening the country, and causing problems with party ideology. People are asking for clarification and change. Young people, the leaders of the next generation, in particular. Dr. Torigian gives examples of some local leaders having meetings and discussions on the issues with the protesters. Deng's answer in Beijing (and for the edification of the rest of the party and country) is simple. Bring in the army and kill them if you have to. A sordid story of missed opportunity. Yet thirty-six years later, the party is still scared stiff of the issue and treats it as a black hole instead of a starting point for understanding.
This simplistic review does not do justice to the book. I am not a writer. Dr. Torigian is. Read the book.
August 28, 2025
This review my link text caught my eyes and made my buy a book for almost 35 € (I rarely buy books over 10 €, but the review looked so exciting)
https://www.chinatalk.media/p/life-an...
The first third is VERY interesting, the last 2/3rds bored me - very dense, with a lot of Chinese Names and inner party politics. Still, a very informative book if you want to learn more about the CCP, arguably one of the most important institutions in the world today. One can learn a lot from this, but you must be sure that the high price is worth it - for me it was not.
My takeaways from the book:
1. How very different 20th Century Chinese leftism is from 21st Century US/Western Europe Leftism.
2. Xi Zhongxun suffered greatly - and archived a lot - those two probably go hand in hand.
A life of fighting
A life of happiness
Every day, struggle
Every day, happy
-Xi Zhongxun
https://www.chinatalk.media/p/life-an...
The first third is VERY interesting, the last 2/3rds bored me - very dense, with a lot of Chinese Names and inner party politics. Still, a very informative book if you want to learn more about the CCP, arguably one of the most important institutions in the world today. One can learn a lot from this, but you must be sure that the high price is worth it - for me it was not.
My takeaways from the book:
1. How very different 20th Century Chinese leftism is from 21st Century US/Western Europe Leftism.
2. Xi Zhongxun suffered greatly - and archived a lot - those two probably go hand in hand.
A life of fighting
A life of happiness
Every day, struggle
Every day, happy
-Xi Zhongxun
Read
November 12, 2025read an excerpt so decided to check out the actual book. the free sample was great, but i wasn’t about to drop $80 on the full book.
may download a free PDF, although it wasn’t on any of the usual sites, probably cause it’s so new.
may download a free PDF, although it wasn’t on any of the usual sites, probably cause it’s so new.
November 23, 2025
A marvelous biography of a Chinese Communist Party titan, Xi Zhongxun. The revolutionary legacy of the Xi family continues. Torigian’s monumental work on the father helps the world better understand the son, President Xi Jinping of China.
June 18, 2025
absolutely goated book
September 7, 2025
A rich account of a CCP legend, who happens to be the father of Xi Jinping. Also an amazing window into the history of the CCP and a corrective to the (all too common) tendency to assimilate Chinese government to other forms of authoritarianism.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews