Lin Biao
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Lin Biao (Template:Zh-cpw) (December 5, 1907 - September 13 1971) was a Chinese Communist military and political leader, once known as Mao Zedong's comrade-in-arms, but later condemned as a traitor.
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Revolutionary
The son of a small landlord and a native of Wuhan, Hubei province, Lin joined the Socialist Youth League (1925) and matriculated at Whampoa Military Academy when he was 18. While at Whampoa he became the protégé of both Zhou Enlai and the Soviet General Vasily Blyukher. Less than a year later, he was ordered to participate in the Northern Expedition, rising from deputy platoon leader to battalion commander in the National Revolutionary Army within a few months. Lin graduated from Whampoa in 1925 and by 1927 was a colonel.
After the KMT-CPC split, Lin escaped to the remote Communist base areas and joined Mao Zedong and Zhu De in Jiangxi in 1928. Lin proved to be a brilliant guerrilla commander and during the 1934 breakout he commanded the First Corps of the Red Army, which fought a two-year running battle with the Kuomintang, which culminated in the occupation of Yan'an in December 1936 (see Long March).
Lin and Peng Dehuai were generally reckoned to be the Red Army's best battlefield commanders. They do not seem to have been rivals during the Long March. Both of them had supported Mao's rise to de facto leadership at Zunyi in January 1934. According to Harrison E. Salisbury's The Long March, by May 1935 Lin Biao was dissatisfied with Mao's strategy. He says of Mao's circlings to evade the armies of Chiang Kai-shek: "the campaign had begun to look like one of Walt Disney's early cartoons in which Mickey Mouse again and again escaped the clutches of the huge, stupid cat." (Page 188, chapter 18.) But according to Salisbury, Lin Biao in May 1934 tried to persuade Mao to turn over active command to Peng Dehuai.
"Lin Biao did not present the bluff, lusty face of Peng Dehuai. He was ten years younger, rather slight, oval-faced, dark, handsome. Peng talked with his men. Lin kept his distance. To many he seemed shy and reserved. There are no stories reflecting warmth and affection for his men. His fellow Red Army commanders respected Lin, but when he spoke it was all business...
"The contrast between Mao's top field commanders could hardly have been more sharp, but on the Long March they worked well together, Lin specializing in feints, masked strategy, surprises, ambushes, flank attacks, pounces from the rear, and stratagems. Peng met the enemy head-on in frontal assaults and fought with such fury that again and again he wiped them out. Peng did not believe a battle well fought unless he managed to replenish--and more than replenish--any losses by seizure of enemy guns and converting prisoners of war to new and loyal recruits to the Red Army." (Ibid., pages 191-192)
Edgar Snow in Red Star Over China has much more to say about Peng than Lin, evidently having long conversations and giving Peng two whole chapters, more than any individual apart from Mao. But he says of Lin:
"With Mao Tse-tung, Lin Biao shared the distinction of being one of the few Red commanders never wounded. Engaged on the front in more than a hundred battles, in field command for more than 10 years, exposed to every hardship that his men have known, with a reward of $100,000 on his head, he miraculously remained unhurt and in good health.
"In 1932, Lin Biao was given command of the 1st Red Army Corps, which then numbered about 20,000 rifles. It became the most dreaded section of the Red Army. Chielfly due to Lin's extraordinary talent as a tactician, it destroyed, defeated or outmanoeuvred every Government force sent against it and was never broken in battle...
"Like many able Red commanders, Lin has never been outside China, speaks and reads no language but Chinese. Before the age of 30, however, he has already won recognition beyond Red circles. His articles in the Chinese Reds' miliary magazines... have been republished, studied and criticised in Nanking military journals, and also in Japan and Soviet Russia. (Red Star Over China, Victor Gollancz 1937, pages 109-110. Page 135 in the 1972 Penguin edition, which has a few revisions. Note that old-style English transliterations are used in both editions for Chinese names.)
Red Star Over China also has an interesting indication that Lin and Mao were close personally. "Between acts at the Anti-Japanese Theatre, there was a general demand for a duet by Mao Tse-tung and Lin Biao, the twenty-eight year old president of the Red Academy, and formerly a famed young cadet on Chiang Kai-shek's staff. Lin blushed like a schoolboy, and got them out of the 'command performance' by a graceful speech, calling on the women Communist for a song instead." (Ibid, page 84.)
A different view is taken by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday ("Mao: The Untold Story," Knopf, 2005), which covers the Mao-Lin relationship in depth.
"Lin lauded Mao to the skies in public, although he felt no true devotion to Mao, and at home he would often make disparaging and even disdainful remarks about him, some of which entered his diary. It was out of pure ambition that Lin stood by Mao and boosted him — the ambition to be Mao's No. 2 and successor. He told his wife that he wanted to be 'Engels to Marx, Stalin to Lenin, and Chiang Kai-shek to Sun Yat-sen.'" (Chang and Halliday, page 504)
According to Chang and Halliday, Lin remained valuable to Mao because, like the Chairman, he continued to put personal power above the interests of the country. In contrast, Peng, who was purged with Lin's help after challenging Mao over the famine in 1959, remained a figure of great moral courage throughout his life.
Sino-Japanese War
As commander of the 115th Division of the Communist 8th Route Army, Lin orchestrated the ambush at Pingxingguan in September 1937, which was one of the few battlefield successes for the Chinese in the Second Sino-Japanese War (which began before World War II, though it merged into it). Lin was seriously injured in 1938 and was given the post of commandant of the Communist Military Academy at Yan'an. He spent the next three years (1939-1942) in Moscow. After returning to Yan'an, Lin was involved in troop training and indoctrination assignments.
Chinese Civil War (1945-49)
With the resumption of Civil War after World War II, Lin was made Secretary of the Northeast China Bureau and commanded the Red Army forces that conquered the Manchurian provinces and then swept into North China. In achieving victory, he abandoned the cities and employed Mao's strategy of guerrilla warfare and winning peasant support in the countryside.
"Within a year he entrapped the core of Chiang Kai-shek's American-armed and American-trained armies, capturing or killing a total of thirty-six generals. Following victory in Manchuria, Lin encircles Chiang's main forces in northern China. Peking [Beijing] surrendered to him without a battle. (Red Star Over China, 1972 Penguin edition, page 548).
During this period, several separate Red Armies fought on different fronts. Including Deng Xiaoping's achievements in Central China, which were important to his subsequent power. But Lin Biao's achievements have generally been rated as the decisive breakthrough.
Politician
Lin Biao's exact role in the 1950s is unclear. It seems he was frequently ill, and so had less of a role that his achievements might have entitled him to.
In his autobiography, Dr. Li Zhisui (Mao's personal physician) writes that Lin was mentally unbalanced rather than suffering from any chronic physical illness. Li's account of Lin's condition is quite a bit different than the official Chinese version, both before and after Lin's fall.
According to Edgar Snow:
"In July 1950, Lin Piao was elected to the PB [Politburo, the top layer of party authority]. Early in China's intervention in the Korean War, in November 1950, Lin Piao led the 'Chinese People's Volunteer Corps' in a counteroffensive which took General MacArthur's headquarters by surprise. Using 'human sea' tactics, Lin pushed the American and United Nations troops to near-disaster. Withdrawn from Korea, supposedly because of illness, he again spend some time recuperating in Russia. Marshal P'eng Teh-huai [Peng Dehuai] replaced him. A deputy chairman of the Party military affairs committee from 1950, and a deputy premier, he was re-elected to the PB in 1956, a year after he was promoted to the rank of marshal of the PLA.
Snow's account of Lin's leadership in Korea is incorrect. As is well documented in Chen Jian's China's Road to the Korean War, Goncharov, Lewis and Xue's Uncertain Partners, and more recently Shen Zhihua's Mao Zedong, Sidalin, yu Chaoxian Zhanzheng, Lin opposed China's entry into the Korean War. In early October 1950, Peng Dehuai was named commander of the Chinese forces bound for Korea, and Lin went to the Soviet Union for medical treatment. Lin actually flew to the USSR with Zhou Enlai and participated in negotiations with Stalin concerning Soviet support for China's intervention, suggesting that Mao still trusted Lin despite his opposition to joining the war.
To continue with Snow's account:
"In 1959 the Chinese Party bitterly debated future policy towards the USSR. Obvious and bitter personal rivalry had developed between P'eng and Lin in which Mao himself was a protagonist.... P'eng Teh-huai was relieved as Minister of Defence and Lin Piao replaced him. Lin Piao's reforms aimed as 'de-Russification'. 'Professional-officer-cast' mentality was fought, titles and insignia of rank were abolished, special officer privileges ended, the Yenan type of soldier-peasant-worker combination was restored, and the Thought of Mao Tse-tung superseded all other ideological texts...
"In 1965 Lin published a lengthy thesis on revolution in the underdeveloped countries, entitled Long Live the Victory of the People's War!. Lin's article likened the 'emerging forces' of the poor in Asia, Africa, and Latin America t the 'rural areas of the world', while the affluent countries of the West were likened to the 'cities of the world'. Eventually the 'cities' would be encircled by revolutions in the 'rural areas', following the Thought of Mao Tse-tung. Lin made no promise that China would fight other people's wars, however; they were advised to depend mainly on 'self-reliance'." (Red Star Over China, Biographical Notes in the 1972 Penguin edition, pages 548-9).
Surprisingly, Edgar Snow does not mention Peng's criticism of the Great Leap Forward, seen by some authorities as the main reason for his removal. The whole matter remains murky, since all witnesses are partisan. At the time, outsiders had no idea of the actual issues:
"On Sept. 17 [1959] Peking announced that Marshal Lin Piao had succeeded Marshal Peng Teh-huai as defence minister… "Marshal Lin Piao was commander-in-chief of the people’s liberation army which conquered the whole of mainland China in 1948-49, but owing to a breakdown of health he was inactive for many years. His return to health and to official activity was indicated when, in 1958, he was appointed a member of the Politburo. Marshal Peng, whose fame was not enhanced by the failure of the Quemoy operation in 1958, remained a deputy prime minister." (Britannica Book of the year 1960)
Due to periods of ill health and physical rehabilitation in the USSR, Lin was slow in his rise to power. In 1958 he was named to the Politburo Standing Committee, becoming one of the architects of the Cultural Revolution. He worked closely with Mao, creating a cult of personality for him. Lin compiled some of Chairman Mao's writings into handbook, the Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong, which became known simply as "the Little Red Book."
After the purging of Liu Shaoqi, on April 1, 1969, at the CCP's Ninth Congress, Lin Biao emerged with as primary military power and second in ranking behind Mao Zedong in the party. Even the party constitution was later modified to put Lin as Mao's special successor.
As the Cultural Revolution spun out of control, the People's Liberation Army, under Lin's command, effectively took over the country from the party.
Downfall
Lin disappeared in 1971. The circumstances surrounding Lin's death remain clouded.
Some historians believe Mao had become uncomfortable with Lin's power and had planned to purge him and Lin planned a pre-emptive coup. The Chinese government explanation was that Lin, with the help of his son Lin Liguo, had planned to assassinate Mao sometime between September 8 and 10, 1971. According to Dr. Li Zhisui's autobiography, Mao's personal physician, Lin's own daughter, Lin Liheng (Doudou), inadvertantly exposed her father's plot. Doudou had become estranged from her mother Ye Qun and incorrectly believed that her mother was plotting against her father.
As his plans failed, Lin and his family (his wife Ye Qun and his sons) and several personal aides attempted to escape to the Soviet Union. They were chased to the airport by Red Guards and their prearranged plane did not take onboard enough fuel before taking off. Their plane is said to have crashed in Mongolia on September 13, 1971 after running out of fuel, and all on board were killed.
Li Zhisui writes that there was a feeling of relief in the Chinese government when word came from Mongolia that there were no survivors. Zhou Enlai reportedly said, "死得好, 死得好" (it's good that they're dead).
One view is that Lin opposed the raprochement with the USA, which Zhou Enlai was organising, but with Mao's approval. This was contrary to Lin's strategy of 'Peoples War'. Lin, unlike Mao, did not have a history of making compromises and retreats when it suited him.
There was also claims that Lin was secretly negotiating with the Kuomintang on Taiwan to restore the KMT government in China in return for a high position in the new government. These claims were never formally confirmed nor denied by either the Chinese or Taiwanese governments.
Most of the high military command was purged within a few weeks of Lin's disappearance. The National Day celebrations on October 1, 1971 were cancelled. The news of Lin Biao's plot and disappearance was withheld for nearly a year. When it did break, the people felt betrayed by Mao's "best student."
In the years after Lin's death, Jiang Qing, Mao's fourth wife and a former political ally of Lin's, started the Criticize Confucius, Criticize Lin Biao campaign, aimed at using Lin's scarred image to rid her own political enemies, notably Zhou Enlai. Like many major proponents of the Cultural Revolution, Lin's image was manipulated after the movement. For many formal publications, negative aspects of the Cultural Revolution were blamed on Lin and later on the so-called Gang of Four. Lin was never politically rehabilitated.
Quotations
- "Study Chairman Mao's writings, follow his teachings, act according to his instructions, and be a good soldier of his." - Foreword of The Little Red Book
- "Sailing the sea needs a helmsman; making a revolution needs Mao Zedong thought."
- Comrade Mao Zedong is the greatest Marxist and Leninist of our time. Comrade Mao Zedong ingeniously, creatively, and completely inherited, defended and developed Marxism and Leninism, and upgraded Marxism and Leninism to a brand-new stage."
External links
- The Lin Biao Reference Archive
- Lin Biao Biography From Spartacus Educationalde:Lin Biao
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