Zhu De (Chu Teh; pronounced [ʈʂú tɤ̌]; 1 December 1886 â€" 6 July 1976) was a Chinese general, warlord, politician, revolutionary, and one of the pioneers of the Chinese Communist Party. Born poor in 1886 in Sichuan, Zhu was adopted by a wealthy uncle at age nine; it was this prosperity earned him admission into a military academy. After his time at the academy, he joined a rebel army, and soon became a warlord. It was after this period that he adopted communism. He ascended through the ranks of the Red Army as it closed in on securing the nation. By the time China was under Mao's control, Zhu was a high-ranking official within the Communist Party of China. He served as Commander-in-Chief during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Zhu remained a prominent political figure until his death in 1976. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, in 1955 Zhu became one of the Ten Marshals of the People's Liberation Army, of which he is regarded as a principal founder.
Life
Early life
Zhu was born on December 18, 1886 to a poor tenant farmer's family in Hung, a town in Yilong County, a hilly and isolated part of northern Sichuan province. Of the fifteen children born to the family only eight survived. His Hakka family relocated to Sichuan during the migration from Hunan province and Guangdong province. In spite of the family's poverty, by pooling resources, Zhu was chosen to be sent to a regional private school in 1892. At age nine, Zhu was adopted by his prosperous uncle, whose political influence allowed him to gain access to Yunnan Military Academy. Before the suspension of imperial examinations in 1906, he attained the rank of Xiucai, which allowed him to qualify as a civil servant. He enrolled in a Sichuan high school around 1907,and graduated in 1908. Subsequently, he returned to Yilong's primary school as a gym instructor. An advocate of modern science and political teaching, rather than the strict classical education afforded by schools, he was dismissed from his post and entered the Yunnan Military Academy in Kunming. There, he joined the Beiyang Army and the Tongmenghui secret political society (the forerunner of the Kuomintang).
Nationalism and Warlordism
It was at the Yunnan Military Academy in Kunming, that Zhu first met Cai E (Tsai Ao). He taught at the Academy after his graduation in July 1911. Siding with the revolutionary forces after the Chinese Revolution, he joined Brigadier Cai E in the October 1911 expeditionary force that marched on Qing forces in Sichuan. He served as a regimental commander in the campaign to unseat Yuan Shikai in 1915-16. When Cai became governor of Sichuan after Yuan's death in June 1916, Zhu was made a brigade commander.
Following the death of his mentor Cai E and of his first wife, Zhu developed a severe opium habit that afflicted him until 1922, when he underwent treatment in Shanghai. His troops continued to support him, and so he consolidated his forces to become a warlord. In 1920, after his troops were driven from Sichuan toward the Tibetan border, he returned to Yunnan as a public security commissioner of the provincial government. Around this time, his second wife and child were murdered by rival warlords, which is believed to have contributed to his decision to leave China for study in Europe. He first traveled to Shanghai where he broke his opium habit and, according to historians of the Kuomintang, met Dr Sun Yat-sen. He attempted to join the Chinese Communist Party in early 1922, but was rejected due to his being a warlord.
Converting to Communism
In late 1922, Zhu went to Europe, studying at Göttingen University in Germany until 1925. Here he met Zhou Enlai and was expelled from Germany for his role in a number of student protests. Around this time he joined the Communist Party of China; Zhou Enlai was one of his sponsors (having sponsors being a condition of probationary membership, the stage before actual membership). In July 1925, he traveled to the Soviet Union to study military affairs, returning to China in July 1926 to unsuccessfully persuade Sichuan warlord Yang Sen to support the Northern Expedition.
In 1927, following the collapse of the First United Front, Kuomintang authorities ordered Zhu to lead a force against Zhou Enlai and Liu Bocheng's Nanchang Uprising. Having helped orchestrate the uprising, Zhu and his army defected from the Kuomintang. The uprising failed to gather support, however, and Zhu was forced to flee Nanchang with his army. Under the false name of Wang Kai, Zhu managed to find shelter for his remaining forces by joining the warlord Fan Shisheng. He was soon named head of a new First United Front military institute in Nanchang.
'Zhu Mao'
Zhu's close affiliation with Mao Zedong began in 1928 when under the assistance of Chen Yi and Lin Biao, Zhu defected from Fan Shisheng's protection and marched his army of 10,000 men to the Jinggang Mountains. Here Mao had formed a soviet in 1927, and Zhu began building up his army into the Red Army, consolidating and expanding the Soviet areas of control.
Zhu's leadership made him a figure of immense prestige; locals even credited him with supernatural abilities. During this time Mao and Zhu became so closely connected that to the local peasant farmers they were known collectively as "Zhu Mao" (homophonic to 猪毛, or pig's pelage).
In 1929, Zhu and Mao were forced to flee Jinggangshan to Ruijin following Kuomintang military pressure. Here they formed the Jiangxi Soviet, which would eventually grow to cover some 30,000 square kilometers (11,584 square miles) and include some three million people. In 1931, Zhu was appointed leader of the Red Army in Ruijin by the CPC leadership. Zhu successfully led a conventional military force against the Kuomintang in the lead up to the Fourth Counter Encirclement Campaign; However, he was not able to do the same during the Fifth Counter Encirclement Campaign and the CPC fled. Zhu helped form the 1934 break-out that began the Long March.
Red Army leader
During the Long March, Zhu and Zhou Enlai organized certain battles in tandem. There were few positive effects since the real power was in the hands of Bo Gu and Otto Braun. In the Zunyi Conference, Zhu supported Mao Zedong’s criticisms of Bo and Braun. After the conference, Zhu cooperated with Mao and Zhou on military affairs. In July 1935, Zhu and Liu Bocheng were with the Fourth Red Army while Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai with the First Red Army. When separation between the two divisions occurred, Zhu was forced by Zhang Guotao, the leader of Fourth Red Army, to go south. The Fourth Red Army barely survived the retreat through Sichuan Province. Arriving in Yan'an, Zhu directed the reconstruction of the Red Army under the political guidance of Mao.
During the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War, he held the position of Commander-in-Chief of the Red Army and, in 1940, Zhu, alongside Peng Dehuai, devised and organized the Hundred Regiments Offensive. Initially, Mao supported this offensive. While a successful campaign, Mao later attributed it as the main provocation for the devastating Japanese Three Alls Policy later and used it to criticize Peng at the Lushan Conference.
Later life
In 1949 Zhu was named Commander-in-Chief of the People's Liberation Army (PLA);it is in this way posterity regards him as a principal founder of the PLA. He also served as the Vice-Chairman of the Communist Party (1956â€"1966) and Vice-Chairman of the People's Republic of China (1954â€"1959). Zhu oversaw the PLA during the Korean War within his authority as Commander-in-Chief. In 1955, he was conferred to the rank of marshal. At the Lushan Conference, he tried to protect Peng Dehuai, by giving some mild criticisms of Peng; rather than denouncing him, he merely gently reproofed his targeted comrade, who was a target of Mao Zedong. Mao wasn't satisfied with Zhu De's behavior. After the conference, Zhu was dismissed from vice chairmen of Central Military Commission, not in least part due to his loyalty for the fallen Peng.
In April 1969, during the summit of the Cultural Revolution, Zhu was dismissed from his position on the Politburo Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China, and the activity of the National People's Congress was halted. However, due to the support of Zhou Enlai, he was not harmed or imprisoned. In August 1969, Lin Biao issued a command that dispatched important martial figures to distant areas due to the tension between China and Soviet Union, and Zhu De was driven to Guangzhou. In 1973 Zhu was reinstated in the Standing Committee.
He continued to be a prominent elder statesman until his death on 6 July 1976. His passing came six months after the death of Zhou Enlai, and just two months before the death of Mao Zedong. Zhu was cremated three days later, and received a funeral days afterwards. During a "Strike Hard" anti-crime campaign in 1983, one of Zhu's grandsons, Guohua, was sentenced to death due to a rape conviction in Tianjin.
See also
- Eighth Route Army
- History of the People's Republic of China (1949â€"1976)
- List of officers of the People's Liberation Army
Notes
References
- The Great Road: The Life and Times of Chu Teh by Agnes Smedley, Monthly Review Press, New York and London 1956
External links
- Zhu De Biography From Spartacus Educational
- People's Daily Biography
