Liu Bocheng

Liu Bocheng the Chinese communist marshal and military theorist (1892-1986) known as the one-eyed general, who combined long combat experience with a deep study of strategy and became one of the principal architects of the People's Liberation Army's doctrine. He commanded the great field army that drove through central and southwest China in the civil war.

Soldier of the Old Armies

Liu Bocheng was born on 4 December 1892 in Kai county, Sichuan province, into a family of modest means. He received a good classical education and then entered a military school, and he served in the armies of the early republic during the turbulent years that followed the collapse of the Qing dynasty. He lost the sight of his right eye in battle, an injury that gave him the nickname of the one-eyed general and marked him for the rest of his life.

He took part in the campaigns against the warlords of Sichuan and Yunnan and was associated with the movement to reunify China under Sun Yat-sen. He joined the Nationalist party and, after the Northern Expedition, was drawn toward the communist cause by the radical currents of the later 1920s. He joined the Chinese Communist Party in 1926 and became one of the small number of professionally trained officers in the communist ranks.

In 1927 he helped to plan and lead the Nanchang uprising, the founding action of the Red Army, and afterwards he studied in the Soviet Union at a military academy in Moscow. On his return he brought with him a command of staff methods and of the theory of modern warfare that few of his comrades possessed, and he became the leading teacher of military science in the Red Army.

Chief of Staff and Long March

Liu Bocheng served as chief of the general staff of the Red Army and was one of the principal organisers of the Long March. In 1935, at the great pass of the Dadu river, he negotiated the passage of the Red Army through the territory of the Yi people by concluding with their leaders a compact of friendship, an episode remembered as an example of the political as well as military skills of the communist commanders.

Throughout the Long March he worked at the centre of the command, planning the route of the columns and coordinating their movement across some of the most difficult terrain in China. His technical competence and his calm under pressure made him indispensable to the leadership, and he took part in the disputes over strategy that led to the changes of command at the Zunyi meeting.

When the war with Japan broke out in 1937 the Red Army was reorganised as the Eighth Route Army, and Liu Bocheng was given command of its 129th Division in Shanxi. He developed the tactics of guerrilla warfare in the mountains, combining small-unit raids with the organisation of the peasantry, and his division became one of the most effective of the communist forces in north China.

The 129th Division and the Civil War

During the war with Japan the 129th Division built a base in the Taihang mountains on the border of Shanxi, Hebei, Henan and Shandong, and from there it spread communist control across a great expanse of northern and central China. Liu Bocheng worked closely with his political commissar Deng Xiaoping, and the two formed one of the most effective partnerships in the army.

With the end of the war against Japan the division was transformed into the Second Field Army, and in the civil war of 1945-1949 Liu Bocheng and Deng Xiaoping led it in the campaigns of central China. In 1947 they carried out the famous thrust across the Yellow river into the Dabie mountains, a bold advance deep into Nationalist territory that threatened the enemy's heartland and drew off large forces from other fronts.

In the decisive campaigns of 1948-1949 the Second Field Army took part in the great encirclement at Huaihai, one of the largest battles of the civil war, and it then crossed the Yangtze and drove through central and southwest China. Liu Bocheng commanded the forces that occupied Sichuan, his native province, in 1949-1950, completing the conquest of the mainland.

Marshal, Teacher and Moderniser

Liu Bocheng was created a marshal of the People's Liberation Army in 1955, one of the ten commanders honoured with that rank. He served as a vice chairman of the Central Military Commission and as the head of the higher military academy, where he trained a generation of officers and insisted that the army must master the science of modern war rather than rely on courage and enthusiasm alone.

He devoted himself to the study and teaching of strategy and to the translation of foreign military works, and he argued for the systematic professionalisation of the armed forces. As the founder of the military academy system of the new republic, he helped to establish the curriculum, the doctrine and the standards of officer education that shaped the People's Liberation Army for decades.

His writings on mobile warfare and on the concentration of force in the attack influenced the official doctrine of the army, and he was respected by his colleagues as the most learned of the marshals. He cautioned against the politicisation of military education and against the neglect of technical training, positions that cost him influence during periods of radical enthusiasm.

Later Years and Reputation

During the Cultural Revolution Liu Bocheng was largely spared the harshest persecution that fell on many of the veteran commanders, though he withdrew from active affairs and his health declined. He lived to see the rehabilitation of his colleagues and the beginning of the reform era, and he remained a symbol of professional military learning within the army.

He died in Beijing on 7 October 1986, one of the last of the ten marshals. His long life had spanned the whole of the revolutionary century, from the service of a young officer in the warlord armies to the leadership of a modernising military establishment, and he was honoured as the scholar-soldier of the People's Liberation Army.

Liu Bocheng is remembered for combining the practical experience of a combat commander with the reflective mind of a theorist. His campaigns in the Taihang mountains and his long march into the Dabie mountains are studied as examples of bold manoeuvre, while his work in military education gave the army the intellectual foundations of a modern force. He remains one of the most respected figures of the revolutionary generation.

See also

• Long March
• Nanchang uprising
• Deng Xiaoping
• Huaihai campaign