LEADERS & COMMANDERS

ZHOU ENLAI

AN INDISPENSABLE COUNSELLOR AND MINISTER, ZHOU WAS THE RIGHT-HAND MAN OF MAO

1898–1976 PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA

Perhaps no member of the Communist Party was as astute and versatile as Zhou Enlai, an intellectual and professional soldier who handled the thorniest problems besetting the Red Army. Like Zhu De, he served for a brief period in the Whampoa Military Academy that was established with the help of foreign advisers. This same institution became Chiang Kai-shek’s springboard to power in the mid-1920s. After the Kuomintang’s (KMT) violent purge of communist sympathizers Zhou defected and joined Mao in the thriving Jiangxi Soviet that resisted the KMT’s annihilation campaigns in the 1930s. Having survived the Long March, Zhou’s role only grew under Mao’s direction. He was both adviser and diplomat and enjoyed the respect of the KMT’s own generals. When the communists finally won the civil war in 1949 Zhou was elevated to the premiership of China. This made his role comparable to a Prime Minister serving