Zhu Dae

Young years

Born in the village of Lijiavan, Ilun County, Sichuan Province , in a family of peasant tenants. His ancestors moved to Sichuan from the northern part of Guangdong . In 1944, mourning the death of his mother, Zhu De recalled that he was born in a poor family, in which there were 12 children in addition to him.

Due to poverty, it was impossible to feed them all, only the first eight survived, the rest had to be drowned [5] . Zhu Dae

According to another version, Zhu De was born into a wealthy landowner family ^[6] . P. V. Vladimirov also writes about the origin of Zhu De from a wealthy family in the book “ A Special Region of China. 1942-1945 ” ^[7] .

When Zhu De was nine years old, the landowner demanded an increase in rent, so the family had to leave his land, split up and live in different places. Before that, an uncle who did not have his children was engaged in raising the boy. He assigned Zhu De in 1892 to a village school, where he learned to read and write, read ancient books and worked at the same time helping his family. In 1905, Zhu De left for Shunqing, where he continued his studies. In 1907-1908, Zhu De continued his studies at the gymnasium in Chengdu , then returning to his native county of Ilong, he became a physical education teacher. However, Zhu De's progressive views provoked a hostile attitude from local officials and shenshi , and therefore Zhu De was forced to leave his native land.

In 70 days, Zhu De walked to Yunnanfu (now Kunming ), the capital of Yunnan province , where he joined the army, served as company clerk for several months, and then was admitted to the Yunnan Military School. There he got acquainted with the revolutionary ideas of Sun Yat-sen adherents. At the end of 1909, he joined the revolutionary organization Tongmenhoy ; fraternizing with fourteen other cadets, he vowed to fight for the salvation of China. In August 1911, Zhu De was among the top 100 cadets who graduated from college and was appointed platoon commander in parts of the Yunnan army.

The Militarist Period

The Xinhai revolution was immediately supported in Southwest China. On October 30, the 73rd regiment under the command of Li Genyuan and the 74th regiment under the command of General Tsai E , who carried out the general leadership of the uprising, revolted in Kunming . Zhu De, who had become company commander by that time, took part in the assault on the residence of the Governor General. On November 1, Tsai E sent troops to help revolutionaries in neighboring Sichuan province , and they included a company of Zhu De.

In the fall of 1912, Zhu De became the commander of the Yunnan Military School detachment and the teacher of military affairs. In the summer of 1913 he became commander of a battalion in charge of guarding the border with Vietnam and fighting local bandits. Acting against the bandits, Zhu De developed a specific tactic, subsequently reworked into the tactics of the CCP's guerrilla warfare. The successful operations of the Zhu De battalion led to the stabilization of the situation in the border region and the growing popularity of Zhu De himself. In early 1916, as a regiment commander, Zhu De took part in battles against supporters of the new monarchy, Yuan Shikai . Later, during the struggle between the regional militarists, Zhu De commanded a brigade as part of the Yunnan Army (later renamed the Army of the Peace of the State).

In August 1912, Zhu De was one of the first in Yunnan to join the newly created Kuomintang party . His political activities became more and more active, which was facilitated by the status of brigade commander and general rank. The "militaristic period" of Zhu De's life is poorly illuminated by his Chinese biographers, and the future marshal himself reluctantly recalled these years. In the years 1916-1920. The 3rd Infantry Brigade, Zhu De, controlled several counties in Sichuan and Yunnan. After an unsuccessful attempt to intervene in political life and stop the internecine struggle for power between local groups, his brigade suffered heavy losses and was disbanded in the spring of 1921. During the year, Zhu De headed the Kunming Police Department, then decided to resign. In 1922, he left Yunnan and moved to Shanghai. ^[8]

Joining the Communist Party

In July, in Shanghai, Zhu De met with Kuomintang leaders - Sun Yat-sen , Wang Jingwei and Hu Hanming . They suggested Zhu De to form an army to capture the province of Guangdong and help them in battle, but Zhu De refused, telling Sun Yat-sen that he had spent eleven years of his life on the erroneous tactics of using some militarists against the others, and that he finally decided to go to Europe to study Marxist theory and military affairs.

In Shanghai, Zhu De finally met with the Secretary General of the CPC Central Committee, Chen Duxiu, and expressed his desire to join the Communist Party. But Chen Duxiu refused Zhu De, believing that the high position that he occupied in the militarist units required a long time to test his sincerity and to study the Marxism , tasks and policies of the CCP.

In Germany, Zhu De met Zhou Enlai and in November 1922 joined the CCP. While in Germany, Zhu De was seriously engaged in self-education, studied German, studied the works of K. Marx , F. Engels , V.I. Lenin . In March 1924, Zhu De entered the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Gottingen . Along with his other studies and political activities, he did his utmost to increase his level of knowledge of military affairs, bought books on military theory, met with German officers and generals, and studied the famous operations of the First World War. When he was expelled from Germany for active participation in the political life of Chinese students (Zhu De actively pursued the policy of the united front of the CCP and the Kuomintang, issuing the Minsing magazine, preparing the manifestations of the Chinese community ^[8] ), he went to the USSR .

July 4, 1925 he arrived in Leningrad, and then in Moscow. For some time, Zhu De was studying at the Communist University of the Workers of the East , and then was sent to the village of Malakhovka, near Moscow, where military courses were located. On May 18, 1926, Zhu De went to Vladivostok , and then to Shanghai on July 12.

Politico-military work in the 1920s

In China, Zhu De's acquaintance with the local militarist Yang Sen led to the transfer of the latter's troops to the side of the Kuomintang National Revolutionary Army (NRA). The troops of Yang Sen were reorganized into the 20th corps of the NRA, and Zhu De became the commissioner (representative of the Kuomintang party ) of this corps. However, Yang Sen observed with disapproval how Zhu De’s actions resulted in “Bolshevization” of his units, and in January 1927 sent Zhu De and his active assistants to Wuhan under the pretext of familiarizing themselves with the work experience of the NRA headquarters.

In Wuhan, Zhu De received a new task from the CPC Central Committee - to deploy work among the troops of the 5th front of the NRA located in Nanchang , commanded by Yunnan General Zhu Peide. Zhu Peide, who knew Zhu De well, appointed him the chief adviser to the staff of the 5th Front and the commander of the training officer regiment. Heading the regiment, Zhu De, along with military training, paid special attention to the political education of cadets. Attraction of cadets into the ranks of the CCP was systematically proceeding.

Nanchang uprising. Commander-in-Chief of the Chinese Red Army

In April 1927, after the counter-revolutionary coup of Chiang Kai-shek , Zhu De had to leave Nanchang . On July 21, Zhu De illegally returned there, and on August 1, the units stationed in Nanchang revolted. On August 5, the rebel army marched south. Losses in battles, from illnesses and as a result of desertion were very large, only about 10 thousand soldiers made their way into the eastern part of Guangdong province in late September. In the Chaozhou-Shantou area, these units were defeated by superior enemy forces. The 25th division (about 3 thousand soldiers) under the command of Zhu De fought selflessly for three days at Sanheb against three enemy divisions, but was defeated. Having retreated with 2 thousand fighters from Sanheb, Zhu Dae gathered commanders and political workers in Maozhi to discuss further actions. At this meeting, Zhu De was one of the first in the CCP to put forward a course for guerrilla warfare in the countryside. At the end of October, the detachment arrived in Tianxin Yi (southeastern part of Jiangxi Province), where a reorganization was carried out. After the reorganization, only 300-400 people with two hundred rifles remained in the Zhu De detachment, but these were conscious fighters who decided to follow Zhu De and the CCP until the victory of the revolution. As a result of successful operations, the troops of Zhu De managed to capture several district towns and grew to ten thousand people, but in the end they had to retreat to the mountainous area on the borders of the provinces of Hunan and Jiangxi - Jinganshan, where they merged with a detachment of Mao Zedong (several hundred person). On May 4, 1928, at a mass rally in Lunshi, Ningan County, Jiangxi Province , the CPC Front Committee announced the creation of the 4th Corps of the Red Army of China. Zhu De became the commander of the corps, Mao Zedong became the commissar, and Chen Yi became the head of the political department.

In March 1929, Zhu De married Kang Keqing, a Komsomol member since 1926, a participant in the 1927 uprising in Wanan County, Jiangxi Province. In 1928, she joined the Red Army, came to Jinganshan, and in 1931 was admitted to the CCP.

Considering the authority in the CCP and the merits of Zhu De in military affairs, the Central Committee of the CCP appointed him Commander-in-Chief of the Red Army of China on August 28, 1930, and he was elected as a candidate member of the Central Committee at the Third Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPC (September 1930). Under the leadership of Zhu De, four punitive campaigns of the Kuomintang were repelled. Due to disagreements on the nature of the conduct of hostilities in October 1932, Mao Zedong was replaced as political commissar of the Red Army Zhou Enlai .

In 1934, under the pressure of Chiang Kai-shek troops, the situation in the Central Soviet Region became critical. Zhu De developed a plan to break through the four fortified lines of the enemy’s encirclement, as a result of which the CCP armed forces made a strategic relocation to the north-west of the country, which was later called the Great Campaign .

War with Japan

In 1937, after the outbreak of war with Japan and the formation of a united front of the CPC and the Kuomintang , the Communists agreed to include their troops in the People's Revolutionary Army. On August 22, 1937, Chairman of the Military Committee of the National Government, Chiang Kai-shek, issued an order to transform the Red Army into the 8th Army of the National Revolutionary Army of China. Zhu De was appointed her commander, and Peng Dehuai was appointed his deputy. On September 25th, troops under the command of Zhu De attacked a Japanese brigade in the area of ​​the Pinginguan mountain passage.

During the anti-Japanese struggle, Zhu De strongly defended the idea of ​​a united front with the Kuomintang, instead of the autonomous guerrilla war advocated by Mao Zedong, he defended the tactics of combined operations, that is, a combination of regular units and partisan detachments in collaboration with the military units of the Kuomintang National Government. Enjoying great authority in the army, he occupied the highest command posts for a long time, without interfering in the inner-party life, which Mao Zedong took control of. The latter duumvirate (Zhu-Mao) was quite happy with the latter, but over time, Mao's growing autocratic regime began to interfere with the second leading center in the army - on April 12, 1940, the CPC Central Committee Secretariat decided to second Zhu De from the front to work in Yanan. ^[8]

The Kuomintang War

In the early 1940s Zhu De, subject to the general trends of inner-party life, moves to the position of supporters of Mao Zedong, in his speeches and reports confirming full solidarity with the party leader. Already at the Seventh Congress of the CPC (1945), he attributed to Mao all the successes of the party in the anti-Japanese struggle, a leading role in the construction of the armed forces, indicated the need to always follow the ideas of the leader. Although Zhu De still did not represent himself as a consistent follower of the leader’s ideas, his speech was highly appreciated by Mao and at the I plenary meeting of the 7th convocation Central Committee of the CPC, Zhu was elected a member of the Politburo and Secretary of the Central Committee.

Zhu De joined the work of the Secretariat of the Central Committee in the fall of 1945, while Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai negotiated with Chiang Kai-shek in Chongqing . Together with them, Zhu De takes part in the Political Consultative Conference (PAC) with the participation of representatives of the Kuomintang and mediators from the American side. The last attempt to avoid confrontation did not justify its goals and in June 1946 a general offensive of the Kuomintang forces began, which served as the beginning of a new stage of the civil war. Именно тогда, маршал, проявив незаурядную политическую интуицию, предложил идею, во многом обусловившую исход нового витка военного противостояния. В сентябре 1945 года ЦК, признав аргументы Чжу Дэ убедительными, принимает новый стратегический курс «развёртывания на север, обороны на юг». 100-войсковая группировка и 10 тысяч кадровых работников, подготовленные к переброске в Южный Китай, по настоянию Чжу Дэ, были отправлены в Маньчжурию для создания там военно-политической и экономической базы партии в войне с гоминьданом. Кроме этого, Чжу Дэ занимался планированием, подготовкой и осуществлением решающих сражений этой войны — Ляошэньского , Хуайхайского и Пекин-Тяньцзинького ; под его руководством было успешно проведено форсирование Янцзы , освобождены важнейшие города Центрально-Южного Китая ( Нанкин , Шанхай , Ухань ) ^[8] .

Китайская Народная Республика

После провозглашения КНР 1 октября 1949 года Чжу Дэ был вновь назначен главнокомандующим НОАК , а 19 октября стал ещё и заместителем председателя Народно-революционного военного совета. В 1954 году на 1-й сессии Всекитайского собрания народных представителей Чжу Дэ был избран заместителем Председателя КНР. В 1955 году, когда в НОАК были введены воинские звания, Чжу Дэ и девяти другим военачальникам было присвоено звание маршала КНР, он был награждён тремя высшими орденами страны. Глава китайской делегации на XX съезде КПСС.

По мере работы в правительстве менялось отношение Чжу Дэ к Мао Цзэдуну . В 1959 году, после провала « большого скачка » Мао Цзэдуну пришлось уйти с поста Председателя КНР, уступив этот пост Лю Шаоци , а Чжу Дэ был избран вместо Лю Шаоци председателем Постоянного комитета Всекитайского собрания народных представителей. На этом посту Чжу Дэ отстаивал реалистический курс в руководстве экономикой и социальными процессами, выступал с резкой критикой субъективизма, командного стиля, кампаний по борьбе с «уклонами».

Во время Культурной революции , когда многие руководители партии и государства, в том числе Лю Шаоци и Дэн Сяопин , а также видные военачальники Хэ Лун , Чэнь И , Сюй Сянцянь , Не Жунчжэнь , Е Цзяньин подверглись нападкам и преследованиям, Чжу Дэ не стал молчать. В ответ жена Мао Цзэдуна Цзян Цин инспирировала травлю Чжу Дэ хунвэйбинами . 18 октября 1969 года по указанию Линь Бяо Чжу Дэ в числе других деятелей КПК был выслан из Пекина. 83-летнего полководца сослали в Гуандун , в небольшой городок Цунхуа, где он пробыл под строгим наздором до июля 1970 года. Возвращение Чжу Дэ в Пекин из ссылки было связано с недовольством со стороны Мао Цзэдуна стремлением Линь Бяо занять вакантный пост Председателя КНР.

На 1-й сессии Всекитайского собрания народных представителей 4-го созыва (январь 1975 года) Чжу Дэ был вновь избран председателем Постоянного комитета ВСНП, несмотря на все происки Цзян Цин . До самых последних дней своей жизни Чжу Дэ продолжал активно работать и лёг в больницу лишь за несколько дней до своей смерти. Чжу Дэ умер в 15 часов 01 минуту 6 июля 1976 года в возрасте 90 лет.

После смерти имя Чжу Дэ пользуется заслуженным уважением. Его имя всегда называют первым при перечислении «десяти маршалов» КНР . Ему отведён зал в Доме памяти на главной площади Пекина. В Военном музее революции народа Китая на видном месте экспонируется автомобиль, подаренный ему руководителями СССР ^[9] . Его имя указывается в ряду выдающихся китайских «пролетарских революционеров старшего поколения и героев, павших во имя революции»: так, на церемонии открытия XIX съезда КПК (2017) её участники «глубоким молчанием почтили память Мао Цзэдуна, Чжоу Эньлая, Лю Шаоци, Чжу Дэ, Дэн Сяопина, Чэнь Юня и других скончавшихся» ^[10] .

Чжу Дэ, чьё имя в переводе с китайского значит «Красная Добродетель», был стойким и решительным человеком.

В молодости он пристрастился к курению опиума . Но решив не дать наркотикам погубить себя, Чжу несколько дней провёл на пароходе, не сходя на берег — за это время он много перестрадал, но от вредной привычки избавился. ^[9]