T'an Chen-lin (1902-), Chinese Communist political officer who served with the New Fourth Army throughout the Sino-Japanese war. Thereafter, he held important regional posts in east China. A member of the Secretariat and the Political Bureau of the Chinese Communist party, he helped develop agricultural programs for the People's Republic of China and became director […]

T'an P'ing-shan (1887-2 April 1956), one of the most influential Communists in the Kuomintang hierarchy during the 1924-26 period of alliance. Upon his expulsion from both parties in 1927, he became a leader of the so-called Third party at Shanghai. He was readmitted to the Kuomintang in 1937, but he later helped organize the dissident […]

Su Yu (c. 1908-), Chinese Communist military leader who was deputy commander, under Ch'en Yi, of the New Fourth Army and its successor, the Third Field Army. After serving as chief of staff of the People's Liberation Army in 1954-58, he was made a vice minister of national defense in 1959. The Huit'ung district of […]

Jao Shu-shih (1901-), Communist official who served as political commissar of the New Fourth Army after October 1942. With the establishment of the Central People's Government in 1949, he received a number of important posts in east China. In 1953 he became a member of the State Planning Committee and director of the Chinese Communist […]

Nieh Jung-chen (1899-), marshal of the People's Republic of China. After serving as commander of the Shansi-Chahar-Hopei military district during the Sino-Japanese war, he became acting chief of staff (1950) and vice chairman (1954) of the People's Revolutionary Military Council. He was made chairman of the Scientific Planning Commission in 1957 and director of the […]

P'eng P'ai (22 October 1896-30 August 1929), the first Chinese Communist leader to organize peasants for political purposes and the founder of the short-lived Hai-lu-feng soviet. He was executed by the Nationalists at Shanghai. Born into a well-to-do landlord family in Haifeng (Hoifung), Kwangtung, P'eng P'ai received a traditional primary education in the Chinese classics. […]

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 […]