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Summary
- Early Life
- Early Political Involvement
- Political and Military Work
- Later Years
Key Facts And Information
Let’s know more about Zhou Enlai!
Zhou Enlai was a Chinese statesman, diplomat and revolutionary who served as the inaugural Prime Minister of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) from 1949 until his death in 1976. He also served as the inaugural Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1949 to 1958. Zhou, a prominent figure in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and a close ally of Mao Zedong during the Chinese Civil War, subsequently assisted in the consolidation of the party’s control, the formulation of its foreign policy, and the development of the economy.
Zhou Enlai
EARLY LIFE
- Zhou Enlai, the first son of his branch of the Zhou family, was born in Huai’an, Jiangsu, on 5 March 1898. Shaoxing, a city in Zhejiang province, was the ancestral home of the Zhou family. During the late Qing dynasty, Shaoxing was renowned for the residence of families like the Zhous, whose members served as government officials for generations.
- The initial members of the family to relocate to Huai’an were Zhou’s patriarch, Zhou Panlong, and his granduncle, Zhou Jun’ang. Zhou Enlai subsequently asserted that Panlong was the magistrate who governed Huai’an county, and it appears that Panlong passed the provincial examinations. Zhou Yineng, Zhou’s father, was the second of Zhou Panlong’s four sons.
- Zhou’s biological mother, Wan, was the daughter of a prominent official in Jiangsu.
- Zhou Yigan, Zhou’s youngest sibling, adopted him shortly after his birth, as he was suffering from tuberculosis. It appears that the family orchestrated the adoption worried that Yigan would pass away without an heir. Zhou Yigan passed away shortly after the adoption, and his widow, Chen, raised Zhou. Madame Chen was also born into a family of scholars and received a conventional literary education.
- In 1907, at the age of nine, Zhou lost his mother, and in the following year, lost Madame Chen. Zhou and his two younger siblings returned to Huai’an, where they resided with their father’s remaining younger brother, Yikui, for the subsequent two years.
- Zhou’s father was employed in Hubei, which was located far from Jiangsu. Zhou’s uncle Yigeng, who was his father’s older sibling, extended an offer to provide him with care in 1910. The family in Huai’an consented, and Zhou was sent to reside with his uncle in Fengtian, Manchuria, where Yigeng was employed in a government office.
- Zhou attended the Dongguan Model Academy in Fengtian, a modern-style institution. His prior education was exclusively based on homeschooling. Zhou enrolled in the renowned Nankai Middle School in Tianjin after his uncle was transferred there in 1913. Zhou achieved academic success at Nankai. He was the editor of the school newspaper in his final year, won numerous awards in the school speech society and excelled in Chinese.
- Zhou was also actively involved in the production of dramas and plays at Nankai, and his performance was a means by which many students who were not previously acquainted with him became aware of him.
- Zhou relocated to Japan in July 1917 to pursue additional education. The East Asian Higher Preparatory School, a language school for Chinese pupils, was where Zhou spent the majority of his time during his two-year stay in Japan.
- Zhou’s uncles and, it is believed, Nankai founder Yan Xiu also provided financial support for his studies. However, their resources were restricted during this period, which was marked by severe inflation in Japan.
- Zhou had initially intended to secure one of the scholarships provided by the Chinese government. However, these scholarships necessitated that Chinese students successfully complete entrance examinations at Japanese universities.
- Zhou was unsuccessful in obtaining admission to at least two institutions, despite having taken entrance examinations. Zhou had become profoundly disillusioned with Japanese culture by the time he returned to China in the spring of 1919. He rejected the notion that the Japanese political model was applicable to China and despised the values of militarism and elitism that he had observed.
EARLY POLITICAL INVOLVEMENT
- When Nankai was established as a university in August 1919, Zhou was enrolled in the inaugural class. However, he was fully engaged in activism during that period. His political endeavours continued to proliferate, and in September, he, along with several other students, consented to establish the Awakening Society, a modest organisation that never exceeded a membership of 25 individuals.
- Zhou undertook a more significant and proactive role in political activities in the ensuing months. On 23 January 1920, a confrontation regarding boycott activities in Tianjin resulted in the arrest of several individuals, including multiple members of the Awakening Society.
- Subsequently, on 29 January 1920, Zhou organised a march to the Governor’s Office in Tianjin to submit a petition advocating for the release of those who had been detained. Zhou, along with three additional leaders, was apprehended.
- Subsequent to Zhou’s release, he and the Awakening Society engaged with various organisations in Beijing and reached a consensus to establish a Reform Federation. Throughout these interactions, Zhou developed a closer acquaintance with Li Dazhao and encountered Zhang Shenfu, who served as the intermediary between Li in Beijing and Chen Duxiu in Shanghai.
- Shortly following his discharge, Zhou resolved to pursue his studies in Europe. To secure increased funding, he adeptly solicited employment as a special correspondent in Europe with a Tianjin publication, Yishi Bao. On 7 November 1920, Zhou departed from Shanghai en route to Europe, accompanied by a cohort of 196 work-study students, which included acquaintances from Nankai and Tianjin.
- In January 1921, while in London, Zhou observed a significant miners’ strike and subsequently authored a series of articles for the Yishi Bao, which generally expressed sympathy towards the miners.
- These articles analysed the discord between labourers and employers, as well as the resolution of the conflict. Following a five-week stay in London, he relocated to Paris, where there was considerable interest in Russia’s October Revolution of 1917.
- In June 1922, he was one of the 22 individuals present at the establishment of the Communist Youth League of China, which was organised as the European Branch of the Chinese Communist Party.
- Zhou played a significant role in the development of the party’s charter and was thereafter elected to the three-member executive committee, where he took on the position of Director of Propaganda.
- The party underwent multiple reorganisations and alterations in its nomenclature. However, Zhou consistently maintained his status as a pivotal member of the group during his tenure in Europe. Other significant endeavours undertaken by Zhou encompassed the recruitment and transportation of students for the University of the Toilers of the East in Moscow, as well as the establishment of the European branch of the Chinese Nationalist Party or Kuomintang.
- In June 1923, the Third Congress of the Chinese Communist Party endorsed the directives of the Comintern to form an alliance with the Kuomintang, which was then under the leadership of Sun Yat-sen.
- In addition to becoming a member of the Kuomintang, Zhou played a pivotal role in the establishment of the European branch of the Nationalist Party in November 1923.
- Under Zhou’s influence, the majority of the officers within the European branch were, in fact, adherents of communism. By the year 1924, the alliance between the Soviet Union and the Nationalists was experiencing significant expansion, prompting Zhou to be recalled to China for additional responsibilities.
Chiang Kai Shek
POLITICAL AND MILITARY WORK
- In early 1927, Zhou was appointed as the director of the military department of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In March, as China’s leader Chiang Kai Shek’s forces approached the periphery of Shanghai, Zhou orchestrated the workers’ takeover of the city on behalf of the Nationalists. However, shortly thereafter, Chiang undertook a purge of his former communist allies, compelling Zhou to narrowly evade death and seek refuge in Wuhan, China.
- In April, during the Fifth National Congress of the party, Zhou was elected to both the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party and its Politburo.
- Subsequent to the schism between the left-Nationalists and the communists, Zhou played a pivotal role in orchestrating the communist insurrection referred to as the Nanchang Uprising in August 1927.
- Following the Nationalists’ reclamation of the city of Nanchang, Zhou withdrew to the eastern province of Guangdong in China and subsequently fled to Shanghai via Hong Kong.
- Zhou was reaffirmed in his leadership positions within the party during a visit to Moscow in 1928 for the Sixth National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, subsequent to which he returned to China to assist in the reconstruction of the severely weakened CCP organisation. In the late 1920s, the central leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, operating covertly in Shanghai, consistently underscored the significance of urban insurrections.
- However, the party’s endeavours to capture significant urban centres were met with repeated failures, resulting in substantial losses. In 1931, Zhou departed from Shanghai and journeyed to the Chinese province of Jiangxi, where Zhu De and Mao Zedong had been establishing communist rural bases, known as soviets, since 1928.
- In late 1931, the central leadership of the party, facing escalating police pressure in Shanghai, relocated to Jiangxi. During this period, Zhou succeeded Mao as the political commissar of the Red Army, which was under the command of Zhu De.
- Although Zhou initially formed an alliance with the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party who usurped policymaking authority in the Jiangxi Soviet from Mao, the two individuals ultimately developed a close association that endured until Zhou’s demise.
- Chiang’s military campaigns ultimately compelled the communists to withdraw from Jiangxi and other Soviet territories in south-central China in October 1934, thereby initiating the Long March towards a new stronghold in northern China.
Mao Zedong
- Mao consolidated his authority over the party apparatus during the Long March, subsequently assuming Zhou’s position as the director of the Central Committee’s military department. Subsequently, Zhou unwaveringly endorsed Mao’s leadership within the party.
- The Long March concluded in October 1935 at Yan’an, located in northern Shaanxi province, China. With the establishment of the communists’ stronghold in that region, Zhou was appointed as the party’s principal negotiator and entrusted with the challenging responsibility of forging a tactical alliance with the Nationalists.
- Capitalising on the escalating national sentiment opposing Japanese aggression and implementing Moscow’s newly articulated popular-front strategy against fascism, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) proposed in late 1935 a coalition with the Nationalists and all patriotic Chinese individuals to collectively resist Japan.
- When in December 1936 Chiang Kai Shek was arrested in Xi’an by his generals who wished to stop the CCP–Nationalist civil war, Zhou immediately flew to that city. He successfully convinced the dissenting commanders to refrain from executing Chiang and facilitated the Nationalist leader’s release under the stipulation that he would terminate military offensives against the communists and collaborate with them in the United Front against Japan.
- Zhou played a pivotal role in negotiating the establishment of the United Front following the onset of the Sino-Japanese War in July 1937. Subsequently, until 1943, he served as the principal representative of the Chinese Communist Party to the Nationalist administration. Two weeks subsequent to Japan’s capitulation in August 1945, Zhou accompanied Mao to Chongqing, China, to engage in peace negotiations with Chiang.
- Upon Mao’s return to Yan’an six weeks later, Zhou remained in Chongqing to persist in the negotiations. Zhou was a prominent participant in the abortive peace negotiations with the Nationalists in 1946, which were facilitated by the United States and conducted under the backing of United States General George C. Marshall. Zhou’s adept management of the communists’ image among liberal legislators and intellectuals, who had grown disillusioned with the Nationalists during that period, emerged as a significant factor contributing to Chiang’s eventual decline following the reinitiation of full-scale civil war in 1947.
- As the inaugural prime of the People’s Republic of China, commencing in October 1949, Zhou assumed the role of principal administrator of the vast civil bureaucracy of China.
- In addition to his role as foreign minister, he assumed significant responsibilities in foreign affairs and continued to be instrumental in diplomatic efforts even after resigning from the position of foreign minister.
- On 14 February 1950, Zhou Enlai executed a 30-year treaty of alliance between China and the Soviet Union in Moscow.
- Furthermore, during the Afro-Asian Conference held in Bandung, Indonesia, in 1955, he extended China’s support to Asian nations that adhered to a nonaligned stance. Between 1956 and 1964, Zhou undertook extensive travels across Europe, Asia and Africa, declaring the latter continent to be ready for revolution.
- In 1956 Zhou was elected one of the party’s four vice chairs.
LATER YEARS
- In the declining phase of Mao’s Cultural Revolution in the early 1970s, Zhou endeavoured to reinstate Deng Xiaoping and other erstwhile moderate leaders to positions of authority. In 1973, Deng, who had previously been denounced as a capitalist roader during the Cultural Revolution, was reinstated with the support of Zhou and appointed as deputy premier, seemingly with the consent of Chairman Mao, if not by his explicit design.
- In January 1975, the long-awaited fourth National People’s Congress convened, with Zhou presiding from his sickbed, during which a new governmental leadership was established, prominently featuring Deng as the principal figure. He was elected as the vice-chairman of the party and concurrently served as a standing member of the Politburo. Additionally, he was appointed as the most senior vice-premier and the chief of staff of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Deng assumed the role of de facto leader of the government during Zhou’s period of incapacity.
- Deng and his close associates asserted that the rapid modernisation of China would be unattainable if the educational system predominantly focused on ideological indoctrination. Consequently, they endeavoured to reinstate traditional educational practices. This, in conjunction with Deng’s fervour for advancing economic development and his endeavours to reinstate and elevate competent officials who had been marginalised during the Cultural Revolution, caused considerable concern among the Maoist radicals.
- Nevertheless, the significant discourse surrounding these issues did not commence until Zhou experienced a severe illness, indicating that the Marxist factions were incapable of mobilisation while he retained authority.
- On 8 January 1976, Zhou, the inaugural and sole Premier of the People’s Republic, the principal architect of its foreign policy, and the foremost stabilising influence during periods of political turmoil, passed away at the age of 77. In contrast to the widespread anticipation that Deng would ascend to the premiership following Zhou’s death, this occurrence instigated a renewed power struggle initiated by the communists, who were clearly backed by Chairman Mao.
Frequently Asked Questions About Zhou Enlai
- Who was Zhou Enlai?
Zhou Enlai was a prominent Chinese revolutionary and statesman. He served as the first Premier of the People's Republic of China (1949–1976) and was one of the most influential leaders of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
- What was Zhou Enlai's role in the CCP?
Zhou Enlai was a founding member of the CCP and one of its senior leaders. He was instrumental in organising the Long March, shaping CCP policies, and maintaining internal unity within the party.
- What was Zhou Enlai's relationship with Mao Zedong?
Zhou and Mao Zedong worked closely but had different leadership styles. Zhou often acted as a mediator and implementer of Mao’s policies, even when he privately disagreed. He maintained his position as a loyal deputy while subtly softening the impact of some of Mao’s more radical policies.