Hsü Hai-tung ( 1900-), Chinese Communist guerrilla leader in Hupeh whose peasant selfdefense corps grew to become the Fourth Front Army.

The Huangp'i district of Hupeh was the birthplace of Hsü Hai-tung. His father and his five elder brothers were potters. Hsü attended a local primary school for about three years. At the age of 1 1 he became an apprentice in the local pottery works. He worked there for ten years and became one of the most skillful potters in the factory. In 1920, after a family dispute, he left home and traveled through central China, working occasionally in such cities as Hankow, Kiukiang, and Xanchang. After two years of this itinerant existence, Hsü decided to return to Hupeh, but he became ill with cholera and had to spend all of his money for treatment. Because he was unwilling to return home in destitution, he enlisted in the Kiangsi provincial army.

After serving as a soldier in the Kiangsi army for about three years, Hsü deserted and went to Kwangtung. He joined the 12th Division, commanded by Chang Fa-k'uei (q.v.), of the Fourth Army and participated in the early campaigns of the Northern Expedition. By the spring of 1927 he had become a platoon leader. Communist cadres in Chang Fa-k'uei's division persuaded Hsü to join the Chinese Communist party. In the summer of 1927 he returned to his native district in Hupeh, set up a party branch, and began to organize workers and peasants in the area. Later that year, he formed a peasant self-defense corps which boasted a force of thirteen peasants, two potters, and one student and an arsenal of one rifle. Hsü worked to expand the corps, and it soon became large enough to be designated the 32nd Division of the Workers and Peasants Red Army. He continued to recruit men in the Hupeh-Honan border area, and in the summer of 1929, after Hsü Hsiang-ch'ien (q.v.) had arrived in the border area, the 31st Division was created. In 1931 Chang Kuo-t'ao [q.v.) was assigned to establish a Communist border region administration for the Hupeh-Honan- Anhwei soviet lalso known as the O-vu-wan soviet), and Hsü Hai-tung came under his jurisdiction. By this time, Hsü's peasant selfdefense corps had grown to become the Fourth Front Army.

In the early 1930's the National Government worked to combat Communist activities in central China, and several members of Hsü Haitung's family were imprisoned or executed during anti-Communist campaigns. By November 1932 the Communists in the Hupeh- Honan-Anhwei border area had been forced to evacuate their base. Chang Kuo-t'ao and Hsü Hsiang-ch'ien led the Fourth Front Army into Shensi and Szechwan. Hsü Hai-tung, who had been wounded when the march began, remained behind to cover the retreat as commander of the Twenty-fifth Army.

Hsü directed guerrilla activities in the Hupeh- Anhwei border region for almost two years before being forced to withdraw at the time of the Long March. Late in 1934 his troops marched into Shensi with the apparent intention of rejoining the Fourth Front Army, then based on the Shensi-Szechwan border. Hsü failed to locate his former associates and decided to march northward. Because of this decision, his was the first Communist force from outside Shensi to reach the Communist base area in the north. The Twenty-fifth Army reached Paoan in February 1935 and joined forces with two local Communist units: the Twenty-sixth Army of Kao Kang (q.v.) and the Twenty-seventh Army of Liu Chih-tan (q.v.;. In September, the three armies were reorganized as the Fifteenth Army Group, with Hsü Hai-tung as commander. Hsü established headquarters in the Yuwang district of Ninghsia.

After the Sino-Japanese war began in 1937, Hsü was assigned to the Shantung-Hopei aare, where he served under Hsü Hsiang-ch'ien. In 1939 he became a member of the Chinese Communist party's Shantung bureau, and he directed Communist forces in the Shantung- Kiangsu border area in support of the New Fourth Army's operations in northern Kiangsu. By 1 944 he had become the commander of the Communists' Shantung-Kiangsu-Honan military district. After 1945 Hsu's importance in Chinese Communist aflfairs declined, and he received no new posts for almost ten years. Reports indicated that Hsü was in very poor health during this period. His long and dedicated service to the Chinese Communist movement was not forgotten by its leaders. In 1954 he was appointed to the National Defense Council at Peking, and in 1955 he was made a general in the People's Liberation Army and was awarded all of the top military honors of the People's Republic of China. He was elected to the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist party at the Eighth National Congress, held in September 1 956. Although he had been confined to a wheel chair, Hsti managed to attend the August 1957 ceremonies which marked the thirtieth anniversary of the establishment of the Chinese Red Army, and in 1959 he served as a member of the presidium for the tenthanniv'ersary celebrations of the establishment of the People's Republic of China. In October 1964 he attended a national meeting called by the general political department of the People's Liberation Armv in Peking.