Zhu De

Zhu De the Chinese military leader and revolutionary (1886-1976) who served as commander-in-chief of the Chinese communist armed forces and is regarded as a principal founder of the People's Liberation Army. A career soldier who joined the communist movement in middle age, he combined professional military experience with long service in the revolutionary cause.

Early Career in the Imperial and Republican Armies

Zhu De was born on 1 December 1886 in Yilong county, Sichuan province, into a poor peasant family. He received a basic education and worked on the land before entering a military school, and in his early twenties he joined the regional army of Yunnan province. He served with distinction in the frontier conflicts of the south-west and rose through the ranks to become a brigade commander and a provincial police chief.

Disillusioned with the warlord politics of the early republic, he travelled abroad in search of new ideas. He studied in Germany during the early 1920s, where he came into contact with Chinese communist exiles and with Marxist thought, and he joined the Chinese Communist Party while in Europe. On his return to China he worked as an underground organiser and instructor, devoting his military knowledge to the revolutionary movement.

His background set him apart from many of his comrades, most of whom were student intellectuals without professional military training. Zhu brought to the movement a thorough knowledge of tactics, logistics and the training of troops, and he quickly became one of its most valuable commanders, respected for his steadiness, his frugality and his plain manner of living.

The Jinggang Mountains and the Red Army

After the collapse of the first united front and the communist risings of 1927, Zhu De led his troops against the Nationalist forces and eventually brought his remnant army to the Jinggang mountains on the Hunan-Jiangxi border. There, in 1928, he joined forces with the unit commanded by Mao Zedong, and the two leaders began the partnership that founded the Chinese workers' and peasants' Red Army.

The union of their forces created the core of the communist military establishment, and the phrase 'Zhu and Mao' came to symbolise the revolutionary army itself. Zhu served as commander-in-chief while Mao directed the political strategy, and together they organised the base areas in Jiangxi where the communists established their first soviet government and resisted successive Nationalist encirclement campaigns.

When the encirclement campaigns finally succeeded in 1934, the Red Army set out on the Long March. Zhu commanded the main forces during the retreat and helped to preserve the army through extraordinary hardship, crossing mountains and rivers under constant attack. His calm leadership and his refusal of special treatment helped to maintain the morale of troops who were often on the verge of collapse.

War of Resistance and Civil War

During the war against the Japanese invasion that began in 1937, Zhu was the commander of the communist Eighth Route Army in the north, and he directed a campaign of guerrilla warfare behind the Japanese lines. He established base areas in the mountains of north China, where communist forces combined military action with village organisation and land reform, steadily expanding their control over the countryside.

After the Japanese surrender in 1945 Zhu became commander-in-chief of the People's Liberation Army, the renamed communist force. He directed the great military campaigns of the civil war, including the decisive battles that destroyed the Nationalist armies in the north, and he oversaw the transformation of the communist forces from a guerrilla army into a formidable conventional one that could defeat a modern opponent.

The victory of 1949 made Zhu a central figure of the new state. He was appointed commander-in-chief and a member of the central government, and he took responsibility for the birth of the new military establishment, working to integrate regular units, militia forces and the party's control over the armed forces into a single coherent structure.

Marshall, Statesman and Later Life

Zhu held the rank of marshal, the highest military title of the People's Republic, and he served as a vice-premier and as chairman of the standing committee of the National People's Congress. In these roles he concerned himself with the modernisation of the armed forces, the training of officers and the improvement of the equipment and welfare of the troops, and he represented China on a number of foreign visits.

His personal life was marked by simplicity. He was known for growing vegetables and working alongside his soldiers, and his modest habits became legendary within the army. He wrote a number of memoirs and military treatises, and he encouraged the study of both Chinese and foreign military history as a foundation for the professional education of commanders.

During the Cultural Revolution Zhu was criticised and sidelined for a time, but he retained his standing as the army's founding commander. He died in Beijing on 6 July 1976, only months before Mao Zedong. He is remembered as the father of the People's Liberation Army and as a soldier whose long career linked the imperial past to the revolutionary state.

Reputation and Legacy

Zhu De is honoured as the principal military founder of the People's Republic, and his name is inseparable from the history of the communist army. Soldiers and historians alike credit his professional competence and personal integrity with sustaining the Red Army through its most dangerous years, and his partnership with Mao became the political-military foundation of the modern Chinese state.

His approach to warfare stressed mobility, popular support and the careful training of troops, and his writings on guerrilla operations influenced revolutionary soldiers far beyond China. He insisted that an army must serve and respect the people among whom it lives, a principle that became a central element of communist military doctrine.

His legacy includes the modern Chinese military establishment and the tradition of civilian control over the armed forces. Statues, memorial halls and place names commemorate him across China, and his biography is studied as a case of a professional soldier who placed his skills at the service of a political movement and helped to create one of the largest armies in the world.

See also

• People's Liberation Army
• Jinggang Mountains
• Long March
• Eighth Route Army