Zhou Enlai 周恩来
Premier of the People's Republic of China
In office 1 October 1949 – 8 January 1976 (&1000000000000002600000026 years, &1000000000000009900000099 days)
President	Mao Zedong Liu Shaoqi
Deputy	Dong Biwu Chen Yun Lin Biao Deng Xiaoping
Leader	Mao Zedong (CPC Chairman)
Succeeded by	Hua Guofeng
Vice Chairman of the Communist Party of China
In office 28 September 1956 – 1 August 1966
In office 30 August 1973 – 8 January 1976
Chairman	Mao Zedong
2nd Chairman of the National Committee Of the CPPCC
In office December 1954 – 8 January 1976
Honorary Chairman	Mao Zedong
Preceded by	Mao Zedong
Succeeded by	vacant (1976–1978) Deng Xiaoping
Member of the National People's Congress
In office 15 September 1954 – 8 January 1976
Constituency	Beijing At-large
Personal details
Born	(1898-03-05)5 March 1898 Huai'an, Jiangsu, Qing Dynasty
Died	8 January 1976(1976-01-08) (aged 77) Beijing, People's Republic of China
Nationality	Chinese
Political party	Communist Party of China
Spouse(s)	Deng Yingchao
Signature
Military service
Battles/wars	Eastern Expeditions Nanchang Uprising Encirclement Campaigns Second Sino-Japanese War Chinese Civil War

Zhou Enlai (pinyin: Zhōu Ēnlái; Wade-Giles: Chou En-lai; IPA: [tʂóʊ ə́nlǎɪ]; 5 March 1898 – 8 January 1976) was the first Premier of the People's Republic of China, serving from October 1949 until his death in January 1976. Zhou served under Mao Zedong and was instrumental in consolidating the control of the Communist Party's rise to power, forming foreign policy, and developing the Chinese economy.

A skilled and able diplomat, Zhou served as the Chinese foreign minister from 1949 to 1958. Advocating peaceful coexistence with the West after the stalemated Korean War, he participated in the 1954 Geneva Conference and helped orchestrate Richard Nixon's 1972 visit to China. He helped devise policies regarding the bitter disputes with the U.S., Taiwan, the Soviet Union (after 1960), India and Vietnam. Zhou is best known as the long-time top aide to Mao Zedong, specializing in foreign policy. Their contrasting personalities made them an effective team, according to Henry Kissinger, the American diplomat who had extensive dealings with both men:

Mao dominated any gathering; Zhou suffused it. Mao's passion strove to overwhelm opposition; Zhou's intellect would seek to persuade or outmaneuver it. Mao was sardonic; Zhou penetrating. Mao thought of himself as a philosopher; Zhou saw his role as an administrator or a negotiator. Mao was eager to accelerate history; Zhou was content to exploit its currents.^[1]

Largely due to his expertise, Zhou was able to survive the purges of other top officials during the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s. His attempts at mitigating the Red Guards' damage and his efforts to protect others from their wrath made him immensely popular in the Revolution's later stages. As Mao Zedong's health began to decline in 1971 and 1972, Zhou and the Gang of Four struggled internally over leadership of China. Zhou's health was also failing, however, and he died eight months before Mao on 8 January 1976. The massive public outpouring of grief in Beijing turned to anger towards the Gang of Four, leading to the Tiananmen Incident. Although succeeded by Hua Guofeng, it was Deng Xiaoping, Zhou's ally, who was able to outmaneuver the Gang of Four politically and eventually take Mao's place as Paramount leader by 1977.

Early life[link]

Youth[link]

Zhou Enlai was born in Huai'an, Jiangsu province on 5 March 1898, the first son of his branch of the Zhou family. The Zhou family were originally from Shaoxing in Zhejiang province. During the late Qing dynasty, Shaoxing was famous as the home of families such as Zhou's, whose members worked as government "clerks" (shiye) generation after generation.^[2] To move up the ladder in civil service, the men in these families often had to get transferred, and in the late years of the Qing dynasty, Zhou Enlai's branch of the family moved to Huai'an. Even after the move, however, the family continued to view Shaoxing as its ancestral home.^[3]

Zhou's grandfather, Zhou Panlong, and his granduncle, Zhou Jun'ang, were the first members of the family to move to Huai'an. Panlong apparently passed the provincial examinations, and Zhou Enlai later claimed that Panlong served as magistrate governing Huai'an county.^[4] Zhou's father, Zhou Yineng, was the second of Zhou Panlong's four sons. Zhou's birth mother, surnamed Wan, was the daughter of a prominent Jiangsu official.^[5]

Like many others, the economic fortunes of Zhou's large family of scholar-officials were decimated by a great economic recession that China suffered in the late 19th century. Zhou Yineng had a reputation for honesty, gentleness, intelligence, and concern for others, but was also considered "weak" and "lacking in discipline and determination." He was unsuccessful in his personal life, and drifted across China doing various occupations, working in Beijing, Shandong, Anhui, Shenyang, Inner Mongolia, and Sichuan. Zhou Enlai later remembered his father as being always away from home and generally unable to support his family.^[6]

Soon after birth, Zhou Enlai was adopted by his father's youngest brother, Zhou Yigan, who was ill with tuberculosis. Apparently the adoption was arranged because the family feared Yigan would die without an heir.^[7] Zhou Yigan died soon after the adoption, and Zhou Enlai was raised by Yigan's widow, whose surname was Chen. Madame Chen was also from a scholarly family and received a traditional literary education. According to Zhou's own account, he was very close to his adoptive mother and acquired his lasting interest in Chinese literature and opera from her. Madame Chen taught Zhou to read and write at an early age, and Zhou later claimed to have read the famous vernacular novel Xiyouji at the age of six.^[8] By the age of eight, he was reading other traditional Chinese novels, including the Water Margin, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and Dream of the Red Mansion.^[9]

Zhou's birth mother Wan died in 1907 when Zhou was 9, and his adoptive mother Chen in 1908 when Zhou was 10. Zhou's father was working in Hubei, far from Jiangsu, so Zhou and his two younger brothers returned to Huai'an and lived with his father's remaining younger brother Yikui for the next two years.^[10] In 1910, Zhou's uncle Yigeng, his father's older brother, offered to care for Zhou. The family in Huai'an agreed, and Zhou was sent to stay with his uncle in Manchuria at Shenyang, where Zhou Yigeng worked in a government office.^[11]

Education[link]

In Shenyang, Zhou attended the Dongguan Model Academy, a Western style school. His previous education consisted entirely of home schooling. In addition to new subjects such as English and science, Zhou was also exposed to the writings of reformers and radicals such as Liang Qichao, Kang Youwei, Chen Tianhua, Zou Rong and Zhang Binglin.^[12][13] At the age of fourteen, Zhou declared that his motivation for pursuing education was to "become a great man who will take up the heavy responsibilities of the country in the future."^[14] In 1913, Zhou's uncle was transferred to Tianjin, where Zhou entered the famous Nankai Middle School.

Nankai Middle School was founded by Yan Xiu, a prominent scholar and philanthropist, and headed by Zhang Boling, one of the most important Chinese educators of the 20th century.^[15] Nankai's teaching methods were unusual by contemporary Chinese standards. By the time Zhou began attending, it had adopted the educational model used at Phillips academy in the United States.^[16] The school's reputation, with its "highly disciplined" daily routine and "strict moral code"^[17] attracted many students who later became prominent in public life. Zhou's friends and classmates there ranged from Ma Jun (an early communist leader executed in 1927) to K. C. Wu (later mayor of Shanghai and governor of Taiwan under the Nationalist party).^[18] Zhou's talents also attracted the attention of Yan Xiu and Zhang Boling. Yan in particular thought highly of Zhou, helping to pay for his studies in Japan and later France.^[19]

Yan was so impressed with Zhou that he encouraged Zhou to marry his daughter, but Zhou declined. Zhou later expressed the reasons to his decision not to marry Yan's daughter to his classmate, Zhang Honghao. Zhou said that he declined the marriage because he feared that his financial prospects would not be promising, and that Yan would, as his father-in-law, later dominate his life.^[20]

Zhou did well in his studies at Nankai; he excelled in Chinese, won several awards in the school speech club, and became editor of the school newspaper in his final year. Zhou was also very active in acting and producing dramas and plays at Nankai; many students who were not otherwise acquainted with him knew of him through his acting.^[21] Nankai preserves a number of essays and articles written by Zhou at this time, and these reflect the discipline, training, and concern for country that Nankai's founders attempted to instill in their students. At the school's tenth commencement in June 1917, Zhou was one of five graduating students honored at the ceremony, and one of the two valedictorians.^[22]

By the time that he graduated from Nankai, Zhang Boling's teachings of gong (public spirit) and neng (ability) had made a great impression on him. His participation in debates and stage performances contributed to his eloquence and skills of persuasion. Zhou left Nankai with a great desire to pursue public service, and to acquire the skills required to do so.^[23]

Following many of his classmates, Zhou went to Japan in July 1917 for further studies. During his two years in Japan, Zhou spent most of his time in the East Asian Higher Preparatory School, a language school for Chinese students. Zhou's studies were supported by his uncles, and apparently Nankai founder Yan Xiu as well, but their funds were limited and during this period Japan suffered from severe inflation.^[24] Zhou originally planned on winning one of the scholarships offered by the Chinese government; these scholarships, however, required Chinese students to pass entrance examinations in Japanese universities. Zhou took entrance examinations for at least two schools, but failed to gain admission.^[25] Zhou's reported anxieties were compounded by the death of his uncle, Zhou Yikui, an inability to master Japanese, and an acute Japanese cultural chauvinism that discriminated against Chinese. By the time that Zhou returned to China in the spring of 1919, he had become deeply disenchanted with Japanese culture, rejecting the idea that the Japanese political model was relevant to China and disdaining the values of elitism and militarism that he observed.^[26]

Zhou's diaries and letters from his time in Tokyo show a deep interest in politics and current events, in particular, the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the Bolsheviks' new policies. He began to read avidly Chen Duxiu's progressive and left-leaning magazine, New Youth.^[27] He probably read some early Japanese works on Marx, and it has been claimed that he even attended Kawakami Hajime's lectures at Kyoto University. Kawakami was an important figure in the early history of Japanese Marxism, and his translations and articles influenced a generation of Chinese communists.^[28] However, it now seems unlikely that Zhou met him or heard any of his lectures.^[29] Zhou's diaries also show his concern over Chinese student strikes in Japan in May 1918, when the Chinese government failed to send the students' scholarships, but he apparently was not deeply involved in the protest. His active role in political movements began after his return to China.

Early political activities[link]

A young Zhou Enlai (1919)

Zhou returned to Tianjin sometime in the spring of 1919. Historians disagree over Zhou's participation in the May Fourth Movement (May to June 1919). Zhou's "official" Chinese biography states that he was a leader of the Tianjin student protests in the May Fourth movement,^[30] but many modern scholars believe that it is highly unlikely that Zhou participated at all, based on the total lack of direct evidence among the surviving records from the period.^[30][31] On July 1919, however, Zhou became editor of the Tianjin Student Union Bulletin, apparently at the request of his Nankai classmate, Ma Jun, a founder of the Union.^[32] During its brief existence from July 1919 to early 1920, the Bulletin was widely read by student groups around the country and suppressed on at least one occasion by the national government as "harmful to public safety and social order."^[33]

When Nankai became a university in August 1919, Zhou was in the first class, but he was an activist full time. His political activities continued to expand, and in September he and several other students agreed to establish the "Awakening Society", a small group never numbering more than 25.^[34] In explaining the goals and purpose of the Awakening Society, Zhou declared that "anything that is incompatible with progress in current times, such as militarism, the bourgeoisie, partylords, bureaucrats, inequality between men and women, obstinate ideas, obsolete morals, old ethics... should be abolished or reformed", and affirmed that it was the purpose of the Society to spread this awareness among the Chinese people. It was in this society that Zhou first met his future wife, Deng Yingchao.^[35] In some ways, the Awakening Society resembled the clandestine Marxist study group at Peking University headed by Li Dazhao, with the group members using numbers instead of names for "secrecy." (Zhou was "Number Five," a pseudonym which he continued to use in later years.)^[36] Indeed, immediately after the group was established, it invited Li Dazhao to give a lecture on Marxism.

Zhou assumed more prominent active role in political activities over the next few months.^[37] The largest of these activities were rallies in support of a nation-wide boycott of Japanese goods. As the boycott became more effective, the national government, under pressure from Japan, attempted to suppress it. On 23 January 1920, a confrontation over boycott activities in Tianjin led to the arrest of a number of people, including several Awakening Society members, and on 29 January Zhou led a march on the Governor's Office in Tianjin to present a petition calling for the arrestees' release. Zhou and three other leaders were themselves arrested. The arrestees were held for over six months; during their detention, Zhou supposedly organized discussions on Marxism.^[38] At their trial in July, Zhou and six others were sentenced to two months; the rest were found not guilty. All were immediately released since they had already been held over six months.

After Zhou's release, he and the Awakening Society met with several Beijing organizations and agreed to form a "Reform Federation"; during these activities Zhou became more familiar with Li Dazhao and met Zhang Shenfu, who was the contact between Li in Beijing and Chen Duxiu in Shanghai. Both men were organizing underground Communist cells in cooperation with Grigori Voitinsky, a Comintern agent, but Zhou apparently did not meet Voitinsky at this point.

Soon after his release, Zhou decided to go to Europe to study. (He was expelled from Nankai University during his detention.) Although money was a problem, he received a scholarship from Yan Xiu.^[39] In order to gain greater funding, he successfully approached a Tianjin newspaper, Yishi bao, for work as "special correspondent" in Europe. Zhou left Shanghai for Europe on 7 November 1920 with a group of 196 work study students, including friends from Nankai and Tianjin.^[40]

Zhou's experiences after the May Fourth incident seem to have been crucial in his radicalization. Zhou's friends in the Awakening Society were similarly affected. 15 of the group's members became Communists for at least some time, and the group remained close later on. Zhou and six other group members wound up going to Europe in the next two years, and Zhou eventually married the group's youngest member, Deng Yingchao.

European activities[link]

Zhou's group arrived in Marseilles 13 December. Unlike most other Chinese students, who traveled to Europe on work-study programs, Zhou's scholarship and position with Yishi bao meant that he was well provided for and did not have to do any work during his stay. Because of his financial position, he was able to devote himself full-time to revolutionary activities.^[40] In a letter to his cousin in January 30, 1921, Zhou said that his goals in Europe were to discover the social conditions in foreign countries and their methods of resolving social issues, for the purpose of later applying these lessons to China after his return. In the same letter he told his cousin that, regarding his adoption of a specific ideology, "I still have to make up my mind."^[41]

While in Europe, Zhou studied the differing approaches to resolving class conflict adopted by various European nations. In London on January 1929, Zhou witnessed a large miners' strike and wrote a series of articles for the Yishi bao (generally sympathetic to the miners) examining the conflict between workers and employers, and the conflict's resolution. After five weeks in London he moved to Paris, where interest in Russia's 1917 October Revolution was high. In a letter to his cousin, Zhou identified two broad paths of reform for China: "gradual reform" (as in England) or "violent means" (as in Russia). Zhou wrote that "I do not have a preference for either the Russian or the British way... I would prefer something in-between, rather than one of these two extremes."^[41]

Still interested in academic programs, Zhou traveled to Britain in January 1921 to visit Edinburgh University. Concerned by financial problems and language requirements, he did not enroll, returning to France at the end of January. There are no records of Zhou entering any academic program in France. In spring 1921, he joined a Chinese Communist cell.^[42] Zhou was recruited by Zhang Shenfu, whom he had met in August of the previous year in connection with Li Dazhao. He also knew Zhang through Zhang's wife, Liu Qingyang, a member of the Awakening Society. Zhou has sometimes been portrayed at this time as uncertain in his politics,^[43] but his swift move to Communism suggests otherwise.^[44]

The cell Zhou belonged to was based in Paris; in addition to Zhou, Zhang, and Liu it included two other students, Zhao Shiyan and Chen Gongpei. Over the next several months, this group eventually formed a united organization with a group of Chinese radicals from Hunan, who were living in Montargis south of Paris. This group included such later prominent figures as Cai Hesen, Li Lisan, Chen Yi, Nie Rongzhen, Deng Xiaoping, and also Guo Longzhen, another member of the Awakening Society. Unlike Zhou, most of the students in this group were participants in the work-study program. A series of conflicts with the Chinese administrators of the program over low pay and poor working conditions resulted in over a hundred students occupying the program's offices at the Sino-French Institute in Lyon in September 1921. The students, including several people from the Montargis group, were arrested and deported. Zhou was apparently not one of the occupying students and remained in France until February or March 1922, when he moved with Zhang and Liu from Paris to Berlin. Zhou's move to Berlin was perhaps because the relatively "lenient" political atmosphere in Berlin made it more favorable as a base for overall European organizing.^[45] In addition, the Western European Secretariat of the Comintern was located in Berlin and it is clear that Zhou had important Comintern connections, though the nature of these is disputed.^[46] After moving operations to Germany, Zhou regularly shuttled between Paris and Berlin.

Zhou returned to Paris by June 1922, where he was one of the twenty two participants present at the organization of the Chinese Youth Communist Party, established as the European Branch of the Chinese Communist Party.^[47] Zhou helped draft the party's charter and was elected to the three member executive committee as director of propaganda.^[48] He also wrote for and helped edit the party magazine, Shaonian (Youth), later renamed Chiguang (Red Light). It was in Zhou's capacity as general editor of this magazine that Zhou first met Deng Xiaoping, only seventeen years old, who Zhou hired to operate a mimeograph (copy) machine.^[49] The party went through several reorganizations and name changes, but Zhou remained a key member of the group throughout his stay in Europe. Other important activities Zhou undertook included recruiting and transporting students for the University of the Toilers of the East in Moscow, and the establishment of the Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang or KMT) European branch.

In June 1923, the Third Congress of the Chinese Communist Party accepted the Comintern's instructions to ally with the KMT, led at the time by Sun Yat-sen. These instructions called for CCP members to join the Nationalist Party as "individuals", while still retaining their association with the CCP. After joining the CCP, they would work to lead and direct it, transforming it into a vehicle of revolution. Within several years, this strategy would become the source of serious conflict between the KMT and the CCP.^[50]

Zhou not only joined the KMT, but actually helped organize the founding of the Nationalist Party European branch in November 1923. Under Zhou's influence, most of the European branch's officers were in fact communists. Zhou's wide ranging contacts and personal relationships formed during this period were central to his career. Important party leaders, such as Zhu De and Nie Rongzhen, were first admitted to the party by Zhou.

By 1924, the Soviet-Nationalist alliance was expanding rapidly and Zhou was summoned back to China for further work. He left Europe probably in late July 1924,^[51] returning to China as one of the most senior Chinese Communist Party members in Europe.

Political and military work in Whampoa[link]

In Whampoa Military Academy as Director of the political department.

Establishment in Guangzhou[link]

Zhou returned to China in late August or early September 1924 to join the Political Department of the Whampoa Military Academy, probably through the influence of Zhang Shenfu, who had previously worked there.^[52] The exact positions Zhou held at Whampoa and the dates he held them are not clear. A few months after his arrival, possibly October 1924, he became deputy director of the Academy's Political Department, and later, possibly November 1924, director of the department.^[53] Even though it was technically responsible to the central government, Zhou's political department operated under a direct mandate to indoctrinate Whampoa's cadets in the ideology of the KMT for the purpose of improving loyalty and morale. While he was serving in Whampoa, Zhou was also made the secretary of the Communist Party of Guandong-Guanxi, and served as the CCP representative with the rank of major-general.^[54]

The island of Whampoa, ten miles downriver from Guangzhou, was at the heart of the Soviet-Nationalist Party alliance. Conceived as the training center of the Nationalist Party Army, it was to provide the military base from which the Nationalists would launch their campaign to unify China, which was split into dozens of military satrapies. From its beginning, the school was funded, armed, and partly staffed by the Soviets.^[55]

The Political Department, where Zhou worked, was responsible for political indoctrination and control. As a result, Zhou was a prominent figure at most Academy meetings, often addressing the school immediately after commandant Chiang Kai-shek. He was extremely influential in establishing the political department/party representative (commissar) system which was adopted in Nationalist armed forces in 1925.^[56]

Concurrent with his Whampoa appointment, Zhou became secretary of the Communist Party's Guangdong Provincial Committee, and at some point a member of the Provincial Committee's Military Section.^[57] Zhou vigorously extended Communist influence at the Academy. He soon arranged for a number of other prominent Communists to join the Political Department, including Chen Yi, Nie Rongzhen, Yun Daiying, and Xiong Xiong.^[58] Zhou played an important role in establishing the Young Soldiers Association, a youth group which was dominated by the Communists, and Sparks, a short-lived Communist front group. He thus recruited numerous new Communist party members from cadet ranks, and eventually set up a covert Communist Party branch at the academy to direct the new members.^[59] When Nationalists concerned with the increasing number of Communist members and organizations at Whampoa set up a "Society for Sun Yatsenism," Zhou attempted to squelch it; the conflict between these student groups set the background for Zhou's removal from the academy.^[60]

Military activities[link]

Zhou participated in two military operations conducted by the Nationalist regime in 1925, later known as the first and second Eastern Expeditions. The first was in January 1925 when Chen Jiongming, an important Cantonese military leader previously driven out of Guangzhou by Sun Yat-sen, attempted to retake Guangzhou. The Nationalist regime's campaign against Chen consisted of forces from the Guangdong Army under Xu Chongzhi, and two training regiments of the Nationalist Party Army, led by Chiang Kai-shek and staffed by Academy officers and cadets.^[61] The fighting lasted through May 1925, with the defeat, but not destruction, of Chen's forces.^[62] Zhou accompanied the Whampoa cadets on the expedition as a political officer.

When Chen regrouped and attacked Guangzhou again in September 1925, the Nationalists launched a second expedition. Nationalist forces by this time had been reorganized into five corps (or armies), and adopted the commissar system with Political Departments and Nationalist party representatives in most divisions. The First Corps, made up of the Nationalist Party Army, was led by Whampoa graduates and commanded by Chiang Kai-shek, who personally appointed Zhou director of the First Corps Political Department.^[63] Soon after, the Nationalist Party's Central Executive Committee appointed Zhou Nationalist Party party representative, making Zhou chief commissar of the First Corps.^[64] The first major battle of expedition saw the capture of Chen's base in Huizhou on 15 October. Shantou was taken on 6 November, and by the end of 1925, the Nationalists controlled all of Guangdong province.

Zhou's appointment as chief commissar of the First Corps allowed him to appoint Communists as commissars in four of the Corps' five divisions.^[65] Following the conclusion of the Expedition, Zhou was appointed special commissioner for the East River District, which placed him in temporary administrative control of several counties; he apparently used this opportunity to establish a Communist party branch in Shantou and strengthen the CPC's control of local unions.^[66] This marked the high point of Zhou's time at Whampoa.

Political activities[link]

In personal terms, 1925 was also an important year for Zhou. Zhou had kept in touch with Deng Yingchao, who he had met in the Awakening Society while in Tianjin; and, in January 1925, Zhou asked for and received permission from CCP authorities to marry Deng. The two married in Guangzhou on August 8, 1925.^[67]

Zhou's work at Whampoa came to an end with the Zhongshan Warship Incident of March 20, 1926, in which a gunboat with a mostly Communist crew moved from Whampoa to Guangzhou without Chiang's knowledge or approval. This event led to Chiang's exclusion of Communists from the Academy by May 1926, and the removal of numerous Communists from high positions in the Nationalist Party. In his memoirs, Nie Rongzhen suggested that the gunboat had moved in protest of Zhou Enlai's (brief) arrest.^[59]

Zhou's time in Whampoa was a significant period in his career. His pioneering work as a political officer in the military made him an important Communist Party expert in this key area; much of his later career centered in the military. Zhou's work in the CCP Guangdong Regional Committee Military Section was typical of his covert activities in the period. The Section was a secret group consisting of three members of the Provincial Central Committee, and was first responsible for organizing and directing CCP nuclei in the army itself. These nuclei, organized at the regimental level and above, were "illegal," meaning they were formed without Nationalist knowledge or authorization. The Section was also responsible for organizing similar nuclei in other armed groups, including secret societies and key services such as railroads and waterways. Zhou did extensive work in these areas until the final separation of the Nationalist and Communist parties and the end of the Soviet-Nationalist alliance in 1927.^[68]

The Nationalist-Communist split[link]

Extent of cooperation[link]

Zhou's activities immediately after his removal from his positions at Whampoa are uncertain. An earlier biographer claims that Chiang Kai-shek put Zhou in charge of "an advanced training center for the CCP members and commissars withdrawn from the army."^[69] More recent Chinese Communist sources claim that Zhou had an important role at this time in securing Communist control of Ye Ting's Independent Regiment. The regiment and Ye Ting later played a leading role in the Communist's first major military action, the Nanchang Revolt.^[59]

In July 1926, the Nationalists began the Northern Expedition, a massive military attempt to unify China. The Expedition was led by Chiang Kai-shek and the National Revolutionary Army (NRA), an amalgam of earlier military forces with significant guidance from Russian military advisors and numerous Communists as both commanding and political officers. With the early successes of the Expedition, there was soon a race between Chiang Kai-shek leading the "right-wing" of the Nationalist Party and the Communists, running inside the "left-wing" of the Nationalists, for control of major southern cities such as Nanjing and Shanghai. At this point the Chinese portion of Shanghai was controlled by Sun Chuanfang, one of the militarists targeted by the North Expedition. Distracted by fighting with the NRA and defections from his army, Sun reduced his forces in Shanghai, and the Communists, whose party headquarters was located in Shanghai, made three attempts to seize control of the city, later called "the three Shanghai Uprisings", in October 1926, February 1927, and March 1927.

Activities in Shanghai[link]

Zhou was transferred to Shanghai to assist in these activities, probably in late 1926. It seems he was not present for the first uprising on 23–24 Oct,^[70] but he was certainly in Shanghai by December 1926. Early accounts credit Zhou with labor organizing activities in Shanghai after his arrival, or, more credibly, working to "strengthen the indoctrination of political workers in labor unions and smuggle arms for the strikers."^[71] Reports that Zhou "organized" or "ordered" the second and third uprisings on 20 February and 21 March exaggerate his role. Major decisions during this period were made by the Communist head in Shanghai, Chen Duxiu, the Party's general secretary, with a special committee of eight party officials coordinating Communist actions. The committee also consulted closely on decisions with the Comintern representatives in Shanghai, headed by Grigori Voitinsky.^[72] The partial documentation available for this period shows that Zhou headed the Communist Party Central Committee's Military Commission in Shanghai.^[73] He participated in both the February and March actions, but was not the guiding hand in either event, instead working with A. P. Appen, the Soviet military advisor to the Central Committee, training the pickets of the General Labor Union, the Communist controlled labor organization in Shanghai. He also worked to make union strong arm squads more effective when the Communists declared a "Red Terror" after the failed February uprising; this action resulted in the murder of twenty "anti-union" figures, and the kidnapping, beating, and intimidation of others associated with anti-union activities.^[74]

The third Communist uprising in Shanghai took place from March 20–21. 600,000 rioting workers cut power and telephone lines and seized the city's post office, police headquarters, and railway stations, often after heavy fighting. During this uprising, the insurrectionists were under strict orders not to harm foreigners, which they obeyed. The forces of Sun Chuanfang withdrew and uprising was successful, despite the small number of armed forces available. The first Nationalist troops entered the city the next day.^[75]

As the Communists attempted to install a soviet municipal government, conflict began between the Nationalists and Communists, and on 12 April Nationalist forces, including both members of the Green Gang and soldiers under the command of Nationalist general Bai Chongxi attacked the Communists and quickly overcame them. On the eve of the Nationalist attack, Wang Shouhua, who was both the head of the CCP Labour Committee and the Chairman of the General Labour Committee, accepted a dinner invitation from "Big-eared Du" (a Shanghai gangster) and was strangled after he arrived. Zhou himself was nearly killed in a similar trap, when he was arrested after arriving at a dinner held at the headquarters of Si Lie, a Nationalist commander of Chiang's Twenty-sixth Army. Despite rumors that Chiang had put a high price on Zhou's head, he was quickly released by Bai Chongxi's forces. The reasons for Zhou's sudden release may have been that Zhou was then the most senior Communist in Shanghai, that Chiang's efforts to exterminate the Shanghai Communists were highly secretive at the time, and that his execution would have been noticed as a violation of the cooperation agreement between the CCP and the KMT (which was technically still in effect). Zhou was finally only released after the intervention of a representative of the Twenty-sixth Army, Zhao Shu, who was able to convince his commanders that the arrest of Zhou had been a mistake.^[76]

Flight from Shanghai[link]

Fleeing Shanghai, Zhou made his way to Hankou (now part of Wuhan), and was a participant at the CCP's 5th National Congress there from 27 April to 9 May. At the end of the Congress, Zhou was elected to the Party's Central Committee, again heading the military department.^[77] After Chiang Kai-shek's suppression of the Communists, the Nationalist Party split in two, with the Nationalist Party's "left-wing" (led by Wang Jingwei) controlling the government in Hankou, and Chiang and the party "right-wing" (led by Chiang Kai-shek) establishing a rival government in Nanjing. Still following Comintern instructions, the Communists remained as a "bloc inside" the Nationalist Party, hoping to continue expanding their influence through the Nationalists.^[78] After being attacked by a warlord friendly to Chiang, Wang's leftist government disintegrated later in May 1927, and Chiang's troops began an organized purge of Communists in territories formerly controlled by Wang.^[79] In mid-July Zhou was forced to go underground.^[78]

Pressured by their Comintern advisors, and themselves convinced that the "revolutionary high tide" had arrived, the Communists decided to launch a series of military revolts.^[80] The first of these was the Nanchang Revolt. Zhou was sent to oversee the event, but the moving figures seem to have been Tan Pingshan and Li Lisan, while the main military figures were Ye Ting and He Long. In military terms, the revolt was a disaster, with the Communists' forces decimated and scattered.^[81]

Zhou himself contracted malaria during the campaign, and was secretly sent to Hong Kong for medical treatment by Nie Rongzhen and Ye Ting. After reaching Hong Kong, Zhou was disguised as a businessman named "Li", and entrusted to the care of local Communists. In a subsequent meeting of the CCP Central Committee, Zhou was blamed for the failure of the Nanchang campaign and temporarily demoted to being an alternate member of the Politburo.^[82]

Activities during the Chinese Civil War[link]

The Sixth Party Congress[link]

After the failure of the Nanchang Uprising, Zhou left China for the Soviet Union to attend the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) Sixth National Party Congress in Moscow, in June–July 1928.^[83] The Sixth Congress had to be held in Moscow because conditions in China were considered dangerous. KMT control was so tight that many Chinese delegates attending the Sixth Congress were forced to travel in disguise: Zhou himself was disguised as an antiquarian.^[84]

At the Sixth Congress, Zhou delivered a long speech insisting that conditions in China were not favorable for immediate revolution, and that the main task of the CCP should be to develop revolutionary momentum by winning over the support of the masses in the countryside and establishing a Soviet regime in southern China, similar to the one that Mao Zedong and Zhu De were already establishing around Jiangxi. The Congress generally accepted Zhou's assessment as accurate. Although Xiang Zhongfa was made secretary general of the Party, but was soon found incapable of fulfilling his role, so Zhou emerged as the de facto leader of the CCP. Zhou was only thirty years old.^[84]

During the Sixth Congress, Zhou was elected Director of the Central Committee Organization Department. His ally, Li Lisan, took over propaganda work. Zhou finally returned to China, after more than a year abroad, in 1929. At the Sixth Congress in Moscow, Zhou had given figures indicating that, by 1928, fewer than 32,000 union members remained who were loyal to the Communists, and that only ten percent of Party members were proletarians. By 1929, only three percent of the Party were proletarians.^[85]

In early 1930, Zhou began to disagree with the timing of Li Lisan's strategy of favoring rich peasants and concentrating military forces for attacks on urban centers. Zhou did not openly break with these more orthodox notions, and even tried to implement them later, in 1931, in Jiangxi.^[86] When the Soviet agent Pavel Mif arrived in Shanghai to lead the Comintern in China in December 1930, Mif criticized Li's strategy as "left adventurism", and criticized Zhou for compromising with Li. Zhou "acknowledged" his mistakes in compromising with Li in January 1931 and offered to resign from the Politburo, but was retained while other senior CCP leaders, including Li Lisan and Qu Qiubai, were removed. Like Mao later recognized, Mif understood that Zhou's services as Party leader were indispensable, and that Zhou would willingly cooperate with whoever was holding power.^[87]

Underground work: establishment[link]

Gu Shunzhang, the number two man of the Chinese communist espionage network, whose defection dealt a serious blow to the communist movement.

After arriving back in Shanghai in 1929, Zhou began to work underground, establishing and overseeing a network of independent Communist cells. Zhou's greatest danger in his underground work was the threat of being discovered by the KMT secret police, which had been established in 1928 with the specific mission of identifying and eliminating Communists. In order to avoid detection, Zhou and his wife changed residences at least once a month, and used a variety of aliases. Zhou often disguised himself as a businessman, sometimes wearing a beard. Zhou was careful that only two or three people ever knew his whereabouts. Zhou disguised all urban Party offices, made sure that CCP offices never shared the same buildings when in the same city, and required all Party members to use passwords to identify one another. Zhou restricted all of his meetings to either before 7AM or after 7PM. Zhou never used public transportation, and avoided being seen in public places.^[88]

In November 1928, the CCP also established its own intelligence agency (the "Special Service section of the Central Committee", or "Zhongyang Teke" (Chinese:中央特科), often abbreviated as "Teke"), which Zhou subsequently came to control. Zhou's chief lieutenants were Gu Shunzhang, who had strong ties to Chinese secret societies and became an alternate member of the Politburo, and Xiang Zhongfa. Teke had four operational sections: one for the protection and safety of Party members; one for intelligence gathering; one for facilitating internal communications; and, one to conduct assassinations, a team that became known as the "Red Squad" （红队）.^[89]

Zhou's main concern in running Teke was to establish an effective anti-espionage network within the KMT secret police. Within a short amount of time the head of Teke's intelligence section, Chen Geng, succeeded in planting a large network of moles inside the Investigation Section of the Central Operations Department in Nanjing, which was the center of KMT intelligence. The three most successful agents used by Zhou to infiltrate the KMT secret police were Qian Zhuangfei, Li Kenong, and Hu Di, who Zhou referred to as "the three most distinguished intelligence workers of the Party" in the 1930s. Agents planted within various KMT offices were later critical in the survival of the CCP, helping the Party escape Chiang's Encirclement Campaigns^[90]

KMT response to Zhou's intelligence work[link]

In late April 1931 Zhou's chief aide in security affairs, Gu Shunzhang, was arrested by the KMT in Wuhan. Gu was a former labour organizer with strong mafia connections and weak commitments to the CCP. Under threat of heavy torture, Gu gave the KMT secret police detailed accounts of underground CCP organizations in Wuhan, leading to the arrest and executions of over ten senior CCP leaders in the city. Gu offered to provide the KMT with details of CCP activities in Shanghai, but only if he could give the information directly to Chiang Kai-shek.^[91]

One of Zhou's agents working in Nanjing, Qian Zhuangfei, intercepted a telegram requesting further instructions from Nanjing on how to proceed, and abandoned his cover to personally warn Zhou of the impending crackdown. The two days before Gu arrived in Nanjing to meet with Chiang gave Zhou time to evacuate Party members and to change the communication codes used by Teke, all of which were known to Gu. After meeting briefly with Chiang in Nanjing, Gu arrived in Shanghai and assisted the KMT secret police in raiding CCP offices and residences, capturing members who could not be evacuated in time. The summary executions of those suspected of Communist sympathies resulted in the largest death-toll since the Shanghai massacre of 1927.^[92]

Zhou's reaction to Gu's betrayal was extreme. More than fifteen members of Gu's family, some of which worked for Teke, were murdered by the Red Squad and buried in quiet residential areas of Shanghai. The Red Squad then assassinated Wang Bing, a leading member of the KMT secret police who was known for moving around Shanghai in rickshaws, without the protection of bodyguards. Most surviving CCP members were relocated to the Communist base in Jiangxi. Because most senior staff had become exposed by Gu, most of its best agents were also relocated. Zhou's most senior aide not yet under suspicion, Pan Hannian, became Teke's director.^[93]

The night before he was scheduled to leave Shanghai in June 1931, Xiang Zhongfa, who was one of Zhou's most senior agents, decided to spend the night in a hotel with his mistress, ignoring Zhou's warnings about the danger. In the morning, a KMT informant who had been trailing Xiang spotted him as he was leaving the hotel. Xiang was immediately arrested and imprisoned within the French Concession. Zhou attempted to prevent Xiang's expected extradition to KMT-controlled China by having his agents bribe the chief of police in the French Concession, but the KMT authorities appealed directly to the authorities of the French Concession, ensuring that the chief of police could not intervene. Zhou's hopes that Xiang would be transferred to Nanjing, giving him an opportunity to kidnap Xiang, also came to naught. The French agreed to transfer Xiang to the Shanghai Garrison Headquarters, under the command of General Xiong Shihui, who subjected Xiang to relentless torture and interrogation. Once he became convinced that Xiang had given his torturers all the information that they requested, Chiang Kai-shek ordered Xiang to be executed.^[94]

Zhou Enlai later succeeded in secretly purchasing a copy of Xiang's interrogation records. The records showed that Xiang had disclosed everything to the KMT authorities before his execution, including the location of Zhou's residence. Another round of arrests and executions followed Xiang's capture, but Zhou and his wife were able to escape capture because they had abandoned their apartment on the morning of Xiang's arrest. After establishing a new Politburo Standing Committee in Shanghai, Zhou and his wife relocated to the Communist base in Jiangxi near the end of 1931.^[94] By the time Zhou left Shanghai, he was one of the most wanted men in China.^[95]

The Jiangxi Soviet[link]

Following the failed Nanchang and Autumn Harvest Uprisings of 1927, the Communists began to focus on establishing a series of rural bases of operation in southern China. Even before moving to Jiangxi, Zhou had become involved in the politics of these bases. Mao, claiming the need to eliminate counterrevolutionaries and Anti-Bolsheviks operating within the CCP, began an ideological purge of the populace inside the Jiangxi Soviet. Zhou, perhaps due to his own success planting moles within various levels of the KMT, agreed that an organized campaign to uncover subversion was justified, and supported the campaign as de facto leader of the CCP.^[96]

Mao's efforts soon developed into a ruthless campaign driven by paranoia and aimed not only at KMT spies, but at anyone with an ideological outlook different from Mao's. Suspects were commonly tortured until they confessed to their crimes and accused others of crimes, and wives and relatives who inquired of those being tortured were themselves arrested and tortured even more severely. Mao's attempts to purge the Red Army of those who might potentially oppose him led Mao to accuse [[Chen Yi (communist) Chen Yi]], the commander and political commissar of the Jiangxi Military Region, as a counterrevolutionary, provoking a violent reaction against Mao's persecutions that became known as the "Futian Incident" in January 1931. Mao was eventually successful in subduing the Red Army, reducing its numbers from forty thousand to less than ten thousand. The campaign continued throughout 1930 and 1931. Historians estimate the total number who died due to Mao's persecution in all base areas to be approximately one hundred thousand.^[97]

The entire campaign occurred while Zhou was still in Shanghai. Although he had supported the elimination of counterrevolutionaries, Zhou actively suppressed the campaign when he arrived in Jiangxi in December 1931, criticizing the "excess, the panic, and the oversimplification" practiced by local officials. After investigating those accused of Anti-Bolshevism, and those persecuting them, Zhou submitted a report criticizing the campaign for focusing on the narrow persecution of anti-Maoists as anti-Bolshevists, exaggerating the threat to the Party, and condemning the use of torture as an investigative technique. Zhou's resolution was passed and adopted on January 7, 1932, and the campaign gradually subsided.^[98]

Zhou moved to the Jiangxi base area and shook up the propaganda-oriented approach to revolution by demanding that the armed forces under Communist control actually be used to expand the base, rather than just to control and defend it. In December 1931, Zhou replaced Mao Zedong as Secretary of the First Front Army with Xiang Ying, and made himself political commissar of the Red Army, in place of Mao. Liu Bocheng, Lin Biao and Peng Dehuai all criticized Mao's tactics at the October 1932 Ningdu Conference.^[99][100]

After moving to Jiangxi, Zhou met Mao for the first time since 1927, and began his long relationship with Mao as Mao's superior. In the Ningdu conference, Mao was demoted to being a figurehead in the Soviet government. Zhou, who had come to appreciate Mao's strategies after the series of military failures waged by other Party leaders since 1927, defended Mao, but was unsuccessful. After achieving power Mao later purged or demoted those who had opposed him in 1932, but remembered Zhou's defense of his policies.^[101]

Chiang's Encirclement Campaigns[link]

In early 1933, Bo Gu arrived with the German Comintern adviser Otto Braun (Li De) and took control of party affairs. Zhou at this time, apparently with strong support from Party and military colleagues, reorganized and standardized the Red Army. Under Zhou, Bo, and Braun, the Red Army defeated four attacks by Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist troops.^[102] The military structure that led the Communists to victory was:

Leaders	Unit Designation
Lin Biao, Nie Rongzhen	1st Corps
Peng Dehuai, Yang Shangkun	3rd Corps
Xiao Jinguang	7th Corps
Xiao Ke	8th Corps
Luo Binghui	9th Corps
Fang Zhimin	10th Corps

Chiang's fifth campaign, launched in September 1933, was much more difficult to contain. Chiang's new use of "blockhouse tactics" and larger numbers of troops allowed his army to advance steadily into Communist territory, and they succeeded in seizing several major Communist strongholds. Bo Gu and Otto Braun (Li De) adopted orthodox tactics to respond to Chiang, and Zhou, although personally opposed to them, directed these. Following their subsequent defeat, he and other military leaders were blamed.^[103]

Although Zhou's subsequently cautious military approach was distrusted by hardliners, he was again appointed to the position of vice chairman of the Military Commission. Zhou was accepted as leader largely because of his organizational talent and devotion to work, and because he had never shown any overt ambition to pursue supreme power within the Party. Within months, the continuing orthodox tactics of Bo and Braun led to a serious defeat for the Red Army, and forced the leaders of the CCP to seriously consider abandoning their bases in Jiangxi.^[104]

The Long March[link]

After the decision to abandon Jiangxi was announced, Zhou was placed in charge of organizing and supervising the logistics of the Communist withdrawal. Making his plans in absolute secrecy and informing even senior leaders when and were they were to leave only at the last moment, Zhou's objective was to break through the enemy encirclement with as few casualties as possible, and before Chiang's forces were able to completely occupy all Communist bases. It is not known what criteria were used to determine who would stay and who would go, but 16,000 troops and some of the Communists' most notable commanders at the time (including Xiang Ying, Chen Yi, Tan Zhenlin, and Qu Qiubai) were left to form a rear guard to divert the main force of Nationalist troops from noticing the Communists' general withdrawal.^[105]

The withdrawal of 84,000 soldiers and civilians began in early October, 1934. Zhou's intelligence agents were successful in identifying a large section of Chiang's blockhouse lines that were manned by troops under General Chen Jitang, a Guangdong warlord who Zhou identified as being likely to prefer preserving the strength of his troops over fighting. Zhou sent Pan Hannian to negotiate for safe passage with General Chen, who subsequently allowed the Red Army to pass through the territory that he controlled without fighting.^[106]

After passing through three of the four blockhouse fortifications needed to escape Chiang's encirclement, the Red Army was finally intercepted by regular Nationalist troops, and suffered heavy casualties. Of the 86,000 Communists who attempted to break out of Jiangxi, only 36,000 successfully escaped. This loss demoralized some Communist leaders (particularly Bo Gu and Otto Braun), but Zhou remained calm and retained his command.^[106]

During the Communists' subsequent Long March, there were numerous high-level disputes over the direction that the Communists should take, and on the causes of the Red Army's defeats. During the power struggles that ensued, Zhou consistently backed Mao Zedong against the interests of Bo Gu and Otto Braun. Bo and Braun were later blamed for the Red Army's defeats, and were eventually removed from their positions of leadership.^[107] The Communists eventually succeeded in re-establishing a base in northern Shaanxi on October 20, 1935, arriving with only 8,000-9,000 remaining members.^[108]

Zhou's position within the CCP changed numerous times throughout the Long March. By the early 1930s, Zhou was recognized as the de facto leader of the CCP, and exercised superior influence over other members of the CCP even when sharing power with Bo and Braun.^[109] In the months following the January 1935 Zunyi Conference, in which Bo and Braun were removed from senior positions, Zhou mostly retained his position because he displayed a willingness to display responsibility, because his tactics in defeating Chiang's Fourth Encirclement Campaign were recognized as being successful, and because he supported Mao Zedong, who was gaining influence inside the Party: after the Zunyi Conference, Mao became Zhou's assistant.^[110] After the Communists reached Shaanxi and completed the Long March, Mao officially took over Zhou Enlai's leading position in the CCP, while Zhou took a secondary position as vice-Chairman. Mao and Zhou would retain their positions within the CCP until their deaths in 1976.^[111]

The Xi'an Incident[link]

Zhou Enlai (middle) and his wife Deng Yingchao with American journalist Edgar Snow, approx. 1938.

During the seventh congress of the Comintern, held in August 1936, Wang Ming issued an anti-Fascist manifesto, indicating that the CCP's previous policy of "opposing Chiang Kai-shek and resisting Japan" was to be replaced by a policy of "uniting with Chiang Kai-shek to resist Japan". Zhou was instrumental in carrying out this policy. Zhou made contact with one of the most senior KMT commanders in the northwest, Zhang Xueliang. By 1935 Zhang was well known for his anti-Japanese sentiments and his doubts about Chiang's willingness to oppose the Japanese. Zhang's disposition made him easily influenced by Zhou's indications that the CCP would cooperate to fight against the Japanese.^[112]

Zhou established a "northeast working committee" for the purpose of promoting cooperation with Zhang. The committee worked to persuade Zhang's Northeast Army to unite with the Red Army to fight Japan and retake Manchuria. The committee also created new patriotic slogans, including "Chinese must not fight Chinese", to promote Zhou's goals. Using his network of secret contacts, Zhou arranged a meeting with Zhang in Yan'an, then controlled by Zhang's "Northeast Army".^[113]

The first meeting between Zhou and Zhang occurred inside a church on April 7, 1936. Zhang showed a great interest in ending the civil war, uniting the country, and fighting the Japanese, but warned that Chiang was firmly in control of the national government, and that these goals would be difficult to pursue without Chiang's cooperation. Both parties ended their meeting with an agreement to find a way to secretly work together. At the same time that Zhou was establishing secret contacts with Zhang, Chiang was growing suspicious of Zhang, and became increasingly dissatisfied with Zhang's inaction against the Communists. In order to deceive Chiang, Zhou and Zhang deployed mock military units in order to give the impression that the Northeast Army and the Red Army were engaged in battle.^[113]

In December 1936, Chang Kai-shek flew to the Nationalist headquarters in Xi'an in order to test the loyalty of local KMT military forces under Marshal Zhang Xueliang, and to personally lead these forces in a final attack on Communist bases in Shaanxi, which Zhang had been ordered to destroy. Determined to force Chiang to direct China's forces against the Japanese (who had taken Zhang's territory of Manchuria and were preparing a broader invasion), on December 12 Zhang and his followers stormed Chiang's headquarters, killed most of his bodyguards, and seized the Generalissimo in what became known as the Xi'an Incident.^[114]

Reactions to Chiang's kidnapping in Yan'an were mixed. Some, including Mao Zedong and Zhu De, viewed it as an opportunity to have Chiang killed. Others, including Zhou Enlai and Zhang Wentian, saw it as an opportunity to achieve a united-front policy against the Japanese, which would strengthen the overall position of the CCP.^[115] Debate within Yan'an ended when a long telegram from Joseph Stalin arrived, urging the CCP to work towards Chiang's release, explaining that a united-front was the best position from which to resist the Japanese, and that only Chiang had the prestige and authority to carry out such a plan.^[116]

After initial communications with Zhang on the fate of Chiang, Zhou Enlai reached Xi'an on December 16, on a plane specifically sent for him by Zhang Xueliang, as the chief Communist negotiator. From then until Christmas Day, 1936, Zhou attempted to negotiate with Chiang and Zhang, proposing a national united-front government with Chiang as leader, a demarcation line between KMT and CPP territories, a national conference including a CCP delegation, and a series of future negotiations in Nanjing.^[117] Through days of intense negotiation, exercising extreme caution and courtesy, Zhou was largely successful in reconciling their positions.^[115]

On December 20, T.V. Soong arrived in Xi'an, and Soong Meiling arrived two days later, in order to negotiate Chiang's release. At first, Chiang was opposed to negotiating with a CCP delegate, but withdrew his opposition when it became clear that his life and freedom were largely dependent on Communist goodwill towards him. On December 24, Chiang received Zhou for a meeting, the first time that the two had seen each other since Zhou had left Whampoa over ten years earlier. Zhou began the conversation by saying: "In the ten years since we have met, you seem to have aged very little." Chiang nodded and said: "Enlai, you were my subordinate. You should do what I say." Zhou replied that, if Chiang would halt the civil war and resist the Japanese instead, the Red Army would willingly accept Chiang's command. By the end of this meeting, Chiang promised to end the civil war, to resist the Japanese together, and to invite Zhou to Nanjing for further talks.^[115]

On December 25, 1936, Zhang released Chiang and accompanied him to Nanjing. Subsequently, Zhang was court-martialed and sentenced to house arrest, and most of the officers who participated in the Xi'an Incident were executed. Although the KMT formally rejected collaboration with the CCP, Chiang ended active military activity against Communist bases in Yan'nan, implying that he had implicitly given his word to change the direction of his policies. Following the end of KMT attacks, the CCP was able to consolidate its territories and to prepare to resist the Japanese.^[117]

After news arrived that Zhang had been betrayed and arrested by Chiang, Zhang's old officer corps became very agitated, and some of them murdered a Nationalist general, Wang Yizhe, who was seen as largely responsible for the military's lack of response. While Zhou was still in Xi'an, he himself was surrounded in his office by a number of Zhang's officers, who accused the Communists of instigating the Xi'an Incident and of betraying Zhang by convincing the general to travel to Nanjing. At gunpoint, they threatened to kill Zhou. Zhou maintained his composure and eloquently defended his position. In the end, Zhou succeeded in calming the officers, and they departed, leaving him unharmed. In a series of negotiations with the KMT that lasted until June 1937 (when the Marco Polo Bridge Incident occurred), Zhou attempted to gain Zhang's release, but failed.^[118]

Activities during World War II[link]

Propaganda and intelligence in Wuhan[link]

When the capital of Nanjing fell to the Japanese on December 13, 1937, Zhou accompanied the Nationalist government to its temporary capital of Wuhan. As the chief representative of the CCP in the nominal KMT-CCP cooperation agreement, Zhou established and headed the official KMT-CCP liaison office. While running the liaison office, Zhou established the Yangtze Bureau of the Central Committee. Under cover of its association with the Eighth Route Army, Zhou used the Yangtze Bureau to conduct clandestine operations within southern China, secretly recruiting Communist operatives and establishing Party structures throughout KMT-controlled areas.^[119]

In August 1937, the CCP secretly issued orders to Zhou that his united front work was to focus on Communist infiltration and organization at all levels of the government and society. Zhou agreed to these orders, and applied his considerable organizational talents to completing them. Shortly after Zhou's arrival in Wuhan, he convinced the Nationalist government to approve and fund a Communist newspaper, Xinhua ribao ("New China Daily"), justifying it as a tool to spread anti-Japanese propaganda. This newspaper became a major tool for spreading Communist propaganda, and the Nationalists later viewed its approval and funding as one of their "biggest mistakes".^[120]

Zhou was successful in organizing large numbers of Chinese intellectuals and artists to promote resistance against the Japanese. The largest propaganda event that Zhou staged was a week-long celebration in 1938, following the successful defense of Tai'erzhuang. In this event, between 400,000-500,000 people took part in parades, and a chorus of over 10,000 people sung songs of resistance. Fundraising efforts during the week raised over a million yuan. Zhou himself donated 240 yuan, his monthly salary as deputy director of the Political Department.^[120]

While he was working in Wuhan, Zhou was the CCP's main contact person with the outside world, and worked hard to reverse the public perception of the Communists as a "bandit organization". Zhou established and maintained contacts with over forty foreign journalists and writers, including Edgar Snow, Agnes Smedley, Anna Louise Strong, and Rewi Alley, many of whom became sympathetic to the Communist cause and wrote about their sympathies in foreign publications. In sympathy with his efforts to promote the CCP to the outside world, Zhou arranged for a Canadian medical team, headed by Norman Bethune, to travel to Yan'an, and assisted the Dutch film director Rodney Evans in producing a documentary, 400 Million People.^[121]

Zhou was unsuccessful in averting the public defection of Zhang Guotao, one of the founders of the CCP, to the KMT. Zhang was prepared to defect due to a disagreement with Mao Zedong over the implementation of the united front policy, and because he resented Mao's authoritarian leadership style. Zhou, with the aid of Wang Ming, Bo Gu, and Li Kenong, intercepted Zhang after he arrived in Wuhan, and engaged in extensive negotiations through April 1938, in order to convince Zhang not to defect, but these negotiations were unsuccessful. In the end, Zhang refused to compromise and placed himself under the protection of KMT secret police. On April 18, the CCP Central Committee expelled Zhang from the Party, and Zhang himself issued a statement accusing the CCP of sabotaging efforts to resist the Japanese. The entire episode was a serious setback for Zhou's attempts to improve the prestige of the Party.^[122]

Military strategy in Wuhan[link]

In January 1938, the Nationalist government appointed Zhou as the deputy director to the Political Department of the Military Committee, working directly under General Cheng Cheng. As a senior Communist statesman holding the rank of lieutenant-general, Zhou was the only Communist to hold a high-level position within the Nationalist government. Zhou used his influence within the Military Committee to promote Nationalist generals that he believed were capable, and to promote cooperation with the Red Army.^[119]

In the Tai'erzhuang campaign, Zhou used his influence to ensure that the most capable Nationalist general available, Li Zongren be appointed overall commander, despite Chiang's reservations about Li's loyalty. When Chiang was hesitant to commit troops to the defense of Tai'erzhuang, Zhou convinced Chiang to do so by promising that the Communist Eighth Route Army would simultaneously attack the Japanese from the north, and that the New Fourth Army would sabotage the Tianjin-Pukou railroad, cutting off Japanese supplies. In the end, the defense of Tai'erzhuang was a major victory for the Nationalists, killing 20,000 Japanese soldiers and capturing a large amount of supplies and equipment.^[119]

Adoption of orphans[link]

While serving as the CCP ambassador to the KMT, the childless Zhou met and befriended numerous orphans. While in Wuhan Zhou adopted a young girl, Sun Weishi, in 1937. Sun's mother had taken her to Wuhan after Sun's father was executed by the KMT in 1927, during the White Terror. Zhou came upon the sixteen-year-old Sun crying outside of the Eighth Route Army Liaison Office because she had been refused permission to travel to Yan'an, due to her youth and lack of political connections. After Zhou befriended and adopted her as his daughter, Sun was able to travel to Yan'an. She pursued a career in acting and direction, and later became the first female director of spoken drama (huaju) in the PRC.^[123]

Zhou also adopted Sun's brother, Sun Yang.^[124] After accompanying Zhou to Yan'an, Sun Yang became Zhu De's personal assistant. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Sun Yang became the president of Renmin University.^[123]

In 1938 Zhou met and befriended another orphan, Li Peng. Li was only three when, in 1931, his father was also killed by the Kuomintang. Zhou subsequently looked after him in Yan'an. After the war, Zhou systematically groomed Li for leadership and sent him to be educated in energy-related engineering in Moscow. Zhou's placement of Li within the powerful energy bureaucracy shielded Li from Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution, and Li's eventual rise to the level of Premier surprised no one.^[125]

Flight to Chongqing[link]

When the Japanese army approached Wuhan in the fall of 1938, the Nationalists abandoned the city without a fight and withdrew farther inland, to Chongqing. While he was en route to Chongqing, Zhou was nearly killed in the "fire of Changsha", which lasted for three days, destroyed two thirds of the city, killed twenty thousand civilians, and left hundreds of thousands of people homeless. This fire was deliberately caused by the retreating Nationalist army in order to prevent the city from falling to the Japanese. Due to an organizational error (it was claimed), the fire was begun without any warning to the residents of the city.^[126]

After escaping from Changsha, Zhou took refuge in a Buddhist temple in a nearby village and organized the evacuation of the city. Zhou demanded that the causes of the fire be thoroughly investigated by authorities, that those responsible by punished, that reparations be given to the victims, that the city be thoroughly cleaned up, and that accommodations be provided for the homeless. In the end, the Nationalists blamed three local commanders for the fire and executed them. Newspapers across China blamed the fire on (non-KMT) arsonists, but the blaze contributed to a nation-wide loss of support for the KMT.^[127]

Early activities in Chongqing[link]

Zhou Enlai reached Chongqing in December 1938, and resumed the official and unofficial operations that he had been conducting in Wuhan in January 1939. Zhou's activities included those required by his formal positions within the Nationalist government, his running of two pro-Communist newspapers, and his covert efforts to form reliable intelligence networks and increase the popularity and organization of CCP organizations in southern China. At its peak, the staff working under him in both official and covert roles totaled several hundred people.^[128] After finding that his father, Zhou Shaogang, was unable to support himself, Zhou looked after his father in Chongqing until his father's death in 1942.^[129]

Soon after arriving in Chongqing, Zhou successfully lobbied the Nationalist government to release Communist political prisoners. After their release, Zhou often assigned these former prisoners as agents to organize and lead Party organizations throughout southern China. The efforts of Zhou's covert activities were extremely successful, increasing CCP membership across southern China tenfold within months. Chiang was somewhat aware of these activities and introduced efforts to suppress them, but was generally unsuccessful.^[130]

Zhou Enlai and Sun Weishi in Moscow, 1939.

In July 1939, while in Yan'an to attend a series of Politburo meetings, Zhou had an accident horseback riding in which he fell and fractured his right elbow. Because there was little medical care available in Yan'an, Zhou traveled to Moscow for medical treatment, using the occasion to brief the Comintern on the status of the united front. Zhou arrived in Moscow too late to mend the fracture, and his right arm remained bent for the rest of his life. Joseph Stalin was so displeased with the CCP's refusal to work more closely with the Nationalists that he refused to see Zhou during his stay.^[131] Zhou's adopted daughter, Sun Weishi, accompanied Zhou to Moscow. She remained in Moscow after Zhou left in order to study for a career in theatre.^[123]

Intelligence work in Chongqing[link]

On May 4, 1939, the Politburo accepted Zhou's assessment that Zhou should focus his efforts on creating a network of secret CCP agents working covertly and for long periods. Communists were directed to join the KMT, if doing so would increase the ability of agents to infiltrate the KMT administrative, educational, economic, and military establishments. Under the cover of the Office of the Eighth Route Army (moved to a stately building on the outskirts of Chongqing), Zhou adopted a series of measures to expand the CCP intelligence network.^[132]

By the time that Zhou returned to Chongqing in May 1940, a serious rift had formed between the KMT and the CCP. Over the course of the next year, the relationship between the two parties degenerated into arrests and executions of Party members, covert attempts by agents of both sides to eliminate each other, propaganda efforts attacking each other, and major military clashes. The united front was officially abolished after the Anhui Incident in January 1941, when 9,000 Communist soldiers of the New Fourth Army were ambushed, and their commanders either killed or imprisoned by government troops.^[133]

Zhou responded to the rift between the KMT and CCP by directing Party leaders to conduct their operations more secretly. He maintained propaganda efforts via the newspapers that he directed and kept in close contact with foreign journalists and ambassadors. Zhou increased and improved CCP intelligence efforts within the KMT, Wang Jingwei's Nanjing government, and the Empire of Japan, recruiting, training, and organizing a large network of Communist spies. Yuan Baohang, a secret Party member active in Chongqing diplomatic circles, informed Zhou that Hitler was planning to attack the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. Under Zhou's signature, this information reached Stalin on June 20, two days before Hitler attacked.^[134]

Economic and diplomatic activities[link]

Despite worsening relations with Chiang Kai-shek, Zhou operated openly in Chongqing, befriending Chinese and foreign visitors and staging public cultural activities, especially Chinese theater. Zhou cultivated a close personal friendship with General Feng Yuxiang, making it possible for Zhou to circulate freely among the officers of the Nationalist Army. Zhou befriended the General He Jifeng, and convinced He to secretly become a member of the CCP during an official visit to Yan'an. Zhou's intelligence agents penetrated the Sichuanese army of General Deng Xihou, resulting in Deng's secret agreement to supply ammunition to the Communist New Fourth Army. Zhou convinced another Sichuanese general, Li Wenhui, to covertly install a radio transmitter that facilitated secret communication between Yan'an and Chongqing. Zhou befriended Zhang Chong and Nong Yun, commanders in the Yunnan armed forces, who became secret CCP members, agreed to cooperate with the CCP against Chiang Kai-shek, and established a clandestine radio station that broadcast Communist propaganda from the provincial government building in Kunming.^[135]

Zhou remained the primary CCP representative to the outside world during his time in Chongqing. Zhou enjoyed receiving foreign visitors and reportedly made a favorable impression among American, British, Canadian, Russian, and other foreign diplomats, despite Chiang's attempts to isolate him from the international community. Zhou was variously described by visitors as being charming, urbane, hard-working, and living a very simple lifestyle. In 1941, Zhou received a visit from Ernest Hemingway and his wife, Martha. Martha later wrote that she and Ernest were extremely impressed with Zhou (and extremely unimpressed with Chiang), and they became convinced that the Communists would take over China after meeting him.^[136]

Because Yan'an was incapable of funding Zhou's activities, Zhou attempted to fund himself through various means. Zhou partially funded his efforts though donations from sympathetic foreigners, overseas Chinese, and the China Defense League (supported by Sun Yat-sen's widow, Song Qingling). Because Zhou was not able to fund his operations solely through donations, Zhou also undertook efforts to start and run a number of businesses throughout KMT- and Japanese- controlled China. Zhou's businesses grew to include several trading companies operating in a variety of Chinese cities (primarily Chongqing and Hong Kong), a silk and satin store in Chongqing, an oil refinery, and numerous factories for producing industrial materials, various cloths, Western medicines, and other commodities.^[137]

Under Zhou, Communist businessmen made great profits engaging in currency trading and commodity speculation, especially in the international markets for American dollars and gold. Zhou's most lucrative business was generated by several opium plantations that Zhou established in remote areas. Although the CCP had been engaged in the eradication of opium smoking since its establishment, Zhou justified opium production and distribution in KMT-controlled areas by the huge profits generated for the CCP, and by the debilitating effects that opium addiction might have on KMT soldiers and government officials.^[137]

Relationship with Mao Zedong[link]

In 1943, Zhou's relationship with Chiang Kai-shek deteriorated, and he returned permanently to Yan'an. By then, Mao Zedong had emerged as the most powerful leader of the CCP, and was attempting to have his political theories (literally "Mao Zedong Thought") accepted as the Party's dogma. Following his ascent to power, Mao organized a campaign to indoctrinate the members of the CCP. This campaign became the foundation of the Maoist personality cult that later dominated Chinese politics until the end of the Cultural Revolution.^[138]

After returning to Yan'an, Zhou Enlai was strongly and excessively criticized in this campaign. Zhou was labelled, along with the generals Peng Dehuai, Liu Bocheng, Ye Jianying, and Nie Rongzhen, as an "empiricist" because he had a history of cooperating with the Comintern and with Mao's enemy, Wang Ming. Mao publicly attacked Zhou as "a collaborator and assistant of dogmatism... who belittled the study of Marxism-Lenninism". Mao and his allies then claimed that the CCP organizations that Zhou had established in southern China were in fact led by KMT secret agents, a charge which Zhou firmly denied, and which was only withdrawn after Mao became convinced of Zhou's subservience in the latest period of the campaign.^[138]

Zhou defended himself by engaging in a long series of public reflections and self-criticisms, and he gave a number of speeches praising Mao and Mao Zedong Thought and giving his unconditional acceptance of Mao's leadership. He also joined Mao's allies in attacking Peng Shuzhi, Chen Duxiu, and Wang Ming, who Mao viewed as enemies. The persecution of Zhou Enlai distressed Moscow, and Georgi Dimitrov wrote a personal letter to Mao indicating that "Zhou Enlai... must not be severed from the Party." In the end, Zhou's enthusiastic acknowledgement of his own faults, his praise for Mao's leadership, and his attacks on Mao's enemies eventually convinced Mao that Zhou's conversion to Maoism was genuine, a precondition for Zhou's political survival. By the seventh congress of the CCP in 1945, Mao was acknowledged as the overall leader of the CCP, and the dogma of Mao Zedong Thought was firmly entrenched among the Party's leadership.^[138]