(1898–1976), Chinese revolutionary. Zhou Enlai was one of the most important leaders of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the government of the People's Republic of China (PRC, 1949– ). He was born in 1898 in Jiangsu Province in a family native to Shaoxing in Zhejiang Province, with a family history typical of that locality, long noted for producing the educated aides who provided indispensable services to appointed officials in imperial times. Zhou's radical political career began with his participation in the May Fourth Movement in the city of Tianjin in 1919. This led to his arrest and imprisonment for several months, after which he traveled to Europe as a student and clandestine radical activist. Active mainly in France from 1920 to 1924, Zhou lived for shorter periods in Germany and Britain as well. He joined the Chinese Communist Party in 1921 and was the leading founder of the Paris-based Chinese Communist Youth Group. Returning to China in 1924, Zhou married Deng Yingchao, another former student activist with whom he had corresponded regularly for four years, and joined the work of the CCP in its new alliance with the Guomindang (Nationalist Party) of Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925), then based in Guangzhou (Canton). In preparation for the "Nationalist Revolution" to reunite China, Zhou served as deputy director of the Whampoa Military Academy, where Chiang Kai-shek (1887–1975) was commandant. During the Northern Expedition (1926–1927), which was undertaken to combat warlords in the north, Zhou organized labor and directed a general strike in Shanghai, facilitating the Nationalist takeover of China's most important city. Chiang's subsequent crackdown on Communism drove Zhou and his comrades into hiding. After that, Zhou organized the Nanchang uprising and became one of the founders and leaders of the Red Army. Zhou began to work closely with Mao Zedong (1893–1976) after the Communist regime in Jiangxi was destroyed by the Nationalist government. During the Long March (the Communists' flight from Jiangxi to Shaanxi), Zhou's support of Mao decisively helped Mao in his rise to dominance in the CCP. From that time on, Zhou served as Mao's right-hand man until his death. While Mao formulated doctrine, Zhou translated doctrine into practical policies. His organizational talents featured a notable ability to maintain discipline and cohesion within the CCP. During the Xian Incident of 1936, when Chiang Kai-shek's generals held Chiang captive until he would agree to postpone fighting the Communists until after the Japanese were defeated, Zhou helped to negotiate a partial rapprochement between the Communists and Nationalists and as chief liaison officer maintained relations between the two until the end of the war against Japan. During the decisive struggle against the Nationalists during the civil war of 1946– 1949, Zhou directed political indoctrination programs that induced captured Nationalist soldiers to fight on the Communist side. From the inauguration of the People's Republic of China until his death, Zhou was head of state (premier of the State Council) and was a popular paternal figure among the Chinese people. Zhou also served as foreign minister from 1949 to 1958 and was respected abroad as a skilful, urbane, and dignified diplomat. One of Zhou's leadership techniques was to acknowledge personal responsibility for problems faced by the CCP. For example, following the tragic failure of the Great Leap Forward (1958– 1960), Mao's attempt to industrialize at the village level, Zhou was able to diffuse responsibility for the disaster and deflect blame from Mao. During the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), Zhou used his political influence and skills to limit the chaotic effects of the campaign and protect some of the victims of leftist excesses. Before becoming ill during the 1970s, he played an important role in the emergence of the PRC from isolation and the adoption of a program of economic reform. Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping (1904–1997) was a protégé and close associate whose Four Modernizations program announced in 1978 was a continuation of Zhou's earlier work.
Following Zhou Enlai's death on 9 January 1976, preceding Mao's by precisely nine months, the Chinese people responded with an outpouring of grief. In April 1976, on the occasion of an annual festival honoring the dead, they gathered to mourn their loss in public. In Beijing, as crowds of citizens paying their respects to Zhou swelled tremendously in size, authorities became alarmed about their oblique expression of antigovernment sentiment and forcibly dispersed the crowds in an event known as the Tiananmen Incident of 1976.
Further Reading
CCP Central Committee Editorial Committee on Party Literature. (1981) Selected Works of Zhou Enlai. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press.
Wilson, Dick. (1984) Zhou Enlai: A Biography. New York: Viking.
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