Qu Qiubai
The Communist Party of China (CPC)'s Guangdong Provincial Committee had been preparing for an uprising in Guangzhou since September 1927. It originally planned to use a large group of communist-leaning soldiers who were heading into Guangdong after taking part in the failed Nanchang uprising. According to these plans, local workers and peasants were supposed to act as auxiliaries, while the soldiers would bear the brunt of the fighting. The troops from Nanchang were defeated at Shantou in early October, however, precluding any attempt to utilise them in the Guangzhou Uprising. CPC party head Qu Qiubai consequently decided that the communists had to persuade soldiers who were stationed in Guangdong to join their cause. Upon receiving orders from Joseph Stalin to launch the planned uprising in mid-December, over the course of November, a final plan for rebellion was worked out by the central party leadership and Guangdong secretary Zhang Tailei in Shanghai. Originally, the Chinese communist leadership opposed the plans, and made representations to the Soviet government to the effect that they had no chance at winning control of Guangzhou, but ultimately gave in to Soviet pressure. The CPC thought that fighting between the Kuomintang-aligned warlords Zhang Fakui and Li Jishen was imminent in Guangdong, potentially providing them with an opportunity to exploit the ensuing chaos by launching multiple simultaneous rebellions to seize power in the province.