Li Lisan (18 November 1899 – 22 June 1967) was a Chinese politician, member of the Politburo, and later a member of the Central Committee. In 1926, Li came to Wuhan, the labour work center of China to lead the labour work. Although Xiang Zhongfa, who later became general secretary of the CCP, was the top leader at that time, Li was the man who actually made the decisions. In 1927, after the split of the alliance between the Kuomintang (KMT) with the CCP, Li was the first one to propose the Nanchang Uprising against the KMT and took the job as director of the security guards. Although the uprising proved to be imprudent and poorly planned, and its failure unavoidable, Li was thrust into the central stage of the CCP for his prominence in labour work and his courage under fire.

In July 1930, the communist army under the leadership of Li Lisan captured Changsha in Hunan province, but KMT troops defeated his forces just a few days later. Uprisings in other cities were quickly put down by KMT forces. Furthermore, Li had turned many CCP members into enemies with his authoritarian style. Some of these were old CCP members, such as labour activists He Mengxiong and Luo Zhanglong, who were blamed for their rightism only because they were against Li's extremism. Chen Shaoyu and his group of 28 Bolsheviks came back from Moscow, designated to take the leadership of the CCP by their mentors in Moscow, but they only received a cold shoulder from Li.