He Long

He Long the Chinese communist military commander and marshal of the People's Liberation Army (1896-1969) who rose from a peasant family in Hunan to lead one of the great field armies of the Chinese revolution. A celebrated guerrilla leader of the early Red Army, he later commanded major campaigns in the northwest and helped to shape the military institutions of the People's Republic of China.

Early Life and Revolutionary Beginnings

He Long was born on 22 March 1896 into a poor peasant family in Sangzhi county, Hunan province, in the mountainous region of western Hunan. His family was of the Miao ethnic minority, and the hardship of rural life under an oppressive landlord order shaped his early resentment of the old social system. He received little formal schooling and worked from childhood as a farmer and a labourer.

As a young man he joined the local militia and then served as a soldier of fortune, building a reputation for courage and generosity toward the poor. He was drawn into the revolutionary currents that swept China after the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1912, and he gathered a band of followers who raided the estates of the wealthy and distributed grain to the hungry. By the mid 1920s he commanded a substantial armed force in his native region.

He joined the Nationalist movement and supported the Northern Expedition of 1926-1927, in which he served as a corps commander and won distinction on the central China front. Under the influence of communist organisers, and convinced that only radical land reform could relieve the peasants, he moved toward the revolutionary camp and joined the Chinese Communist Party in 1927, in the midst of the split between the Nationalists and the communists.

The Nanchang Uprising and the Red Army

On 1 August 1927 He Long was one of the principal commanders of the Nanchang uprising, the armed revolt in Jiangxi province that is regarded as the founding action of the Red Army. He led his troops in the fighting that briefly seized the city, and after the uprising was forced to withdraw he became the commander of the forces that would evolve into the main communist army. The date of the rising is still commemorated as the birthday of the People's Liberation Army.

After the failure of the Nanchang and Guangzhou risings He Long returned to western Hunan and Hubei, where he built up a new guerrilla base and the force that became the Second Front Army. Working with Zhou Yiqun and other leaders, he established soviet districts in the remote borderlands and fought a long series of campaigns against Nationalist encirclement. His reputation for mobility, surprise and living off the country made him one of the most feared partisan commanders of the period.

He took part in the Long March, the great strategic retreat of the Red Army from its southern bases between 1934 and 1935. He commanded the Second Front Army on its own long route through the southwest, and in 1936 his force joined the main body of the Red Army in Gansu after a march of extraordinary difficulty. The reunion of the field armies in the northwest was a decisive moment in the survival of the communist movement.

War with Japan and the Civil War

With the outbreak of full-scale war with Japan in 1937 the Red Army was reorganised as the Eighth Route Army, and He Long was given command of its 120th Division in Shanxi. He directed guerrilla operations behind the Japanese lines, raided supply columns, and helped to spread communist control through the villages of north China. His forces combined mobile warfare with the organisation of the peasantry into local militia and self-government.

During the war years he also served on the military committee of the Communist Party and helped to coordinate the scattered base areas of the north. In 1940 he commanded the 120th Division in the offensive against the Japanese in Shanxi and Suiyuan, and he worked to consolidate the northwest border region, where the communists guarded the approaches to their main base at Yan'an.

In the civil war of 1945-1949 He Long was a senior commander in the northwest theatre, though much of the operational direction in that region passed to Peng Dehuai. He took part in the campaigns that secured Shanxi and the northwest and then moved into the southwest, where he led the forces that occupied Sichuan and Yunnan in 1949-1950. After the founding of the People's Republic he served as commander of the Southwest Military Region and worked to pacify and administer the newly conquered provinces.

Marshal and Sports Administrator

In 1955 He Long was one of the ten senior commanders invested with the rank of marshal of the People's Liberation Army, the highest military honour of the new state, in recognition of his long service and his role in the founding campaigns. He served as a vice premier and as a member of the Central Military Commission, and he was a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party.

He also held the post of minister in charge of physical culture and sports, an appointment that reflected his personal enthusiasm for athletics and his belief that the health of the people was a revolutionary duty. He built the national sports administration, promoted mass physical training, and encouraged the training of athletes who would carry Chinese sport onto the international stage.

He supported the modernisation of the armed forces and the development of military education, and he took an interest in the writing of the revolutionary military history of the civil war. His standing as one of the founding marshals gave him considerable influence in the early years of the republic, though his independence of mind and his long association with Peng Dehuai would later place him in danger.

Later Years, Death and Legacy

During the Cultural Revolution He Long came under attack as a target of the political campaign against veteran military leaders. He was accused of opposing the new radical line and was removed from his posts, subjected to struggle sessions and placed under house arrest. His health deteriorated under the pressure of the persecution, and he died in custody on 9 June 1969, without the medical care his condition required.

He was rehabilitated after the death of Mao Zedong and the fall of the radical faction in the late 1970s, when the party acknowledged that the charges against him had been fabricated and restored his reputation. His name was returned to the roll of the ten marshals and his contribution to the revolution was publicly honoured.

He Long is remembered as one of the great popular military leaders of the Chinese revolution, a commander whose authority rested on his closeness to the peasantry and on a genius for guerrilla war in difficult country. His home region of western Hunan honours his memory, and the anniversary of the Nanchang uprising, in which he played so prominent a part, remains the founding date of the People's Liberation Army.

See also

• Nanchang uprising
• Long March
• Eighth Route Army
• Peng Dehuai