Lin Piao (1907-), Chinese Communist military leader who became a marshal of the People's Republic of China in 1955, minister of defense in 1959, and the second-ranking member of the party in 1966. A native of Huangkang hsien, Hupeh, Lin Piao was the son of a small landholder (listed in Chinese Communist biographies of Lin […]

Li Li-san (c.1900-), leading Chinese Communist labor organizer who became de facto head of the party in 1928. After being removed from office in 1930 and censured by the Comintern, he spent 15 years in exile in the Soviet Union. He returned to China in 1946, having been restored to membership in the Central Committee, […]

Li Chi-shen (1886-9 October 1959), commander of the Fourth Army (1925-26) who served during the Northern Expedil^ion as governor of Kwangtung, military affairs commissioner, and acting president of the Whampoa Military Academy. He became the top-ranking military and political officer at Canton. He later participated in several movements which opposed Chiang Kaishek. After being expelled […]

Chiang Kuang-nai (1887-), a Kwangtung army officer, was active as a commander in the warfare after 1924, but won particular renown in the stubborn resistance of the Nineteenth Route Army to the Japanese at Shanghai in 1932. Chiang became in 1952 an official in the government at Peking. Born into a fairly prosperous landlord family […]

Hu Tsung-nan (1895-14 February 1962), Nationalist army commander who became known as the "King of the Northwest." During the Sino-Japanese war he commanded the First Army, the Seventeenth Army Group, and the Thirty-fourth Group Army. In 1943 he received command of the First War Area. He served the National Government in Taiwan as commander of […]

Ho Lung 賀龍 T. Yun-ch'ing 雲卿 Ho Lung (11 March 1896-), Hunanese military leader who, with Yeh T'ing (q.v.) staged the Nanchang uprising of 1 August 1927. He helped build the Chinese Communist military establishment in the 1930's and 1940's. After 1949 he served the Central People's Government in such posts as commander of the […]

Kuan Hsiang-ying (1902-July 1946), Chinese Communist who became general secretary of the Communist Youth League in 1928. A close associate of Ho Lung, he served as Ho's political commissar at the Hunan-Hupeh soviet base (1932-33) and in the 120th Division of the Eighth Route Army (1937-40). Although in poor health after 1941, Kuan headed the […]

Fu Tso-yi (1895-), a military officer who, as top commander in north China after 1947, negotiated the surrender agreement under which the Chinese Communist forces entered Peiping in 1949. He began his career under Yen Hsi-shan (q.v.) and served as governor of Suiyuan from 1931-47. In 1949 he became minister of water conservancy in the […]

Fang Chih-min (1900-6 July 1935), Communist organizer in Kiangsi. He founded the northeast Kiangsi soviet and headed the Red Army's Anti-Japanese Vanguard Unit. He was captured and executed in 1935 by the Nationalists. Born into a peasant family. Fang Chih-min received his early education in the Chinese classics in his native village of lyang, Kiangsi. […]

Teng Chung-hsia ( 1897-1 933) , one ofthe earliest Communists in China and a leader of the effort to create a unified national labor movement. He is chiefly remembered as the author of the Chvcng-kuo chih-kung yün-tung chien-shih [short history of the Chinese labor movement]. He was executed by the Nationalist authorities. Born into a […]