Vice-Chairman of the Peoples Republic of China
What was the position of Zhu De from Sep 1954 to Mar 1955?
Zhu De Zhu De ( ; also Chu Teh ; 1 December 1886 – 6 July 1976 ) was a Chinese general , military strategist , politician , revolutionary of the Chinese Communist Party . Born poor in 1886 in Sichuan , he was adopted by a wealthy uncle at age nine . His wealthy uncle provided him a superior early education that led to his admission into a military academy . After the academy , he joined a rebel army and soon became a warlord . It was after this period that he adopted communism . He ascended through the ranks of the Chinese Red Army as it closed in on securing the nation . By the time China was under Maos control , Zhu was a high-ranking official within the Chinese Communist Party . He served as commander-in-chief of the Eighth Route Army during the Second Sino-Japanese War . In 1955 he became one of the ten marshals of the Peoples Liberation Army , of which he is regarded as one of the principal founders . Zhu remained a prominent political figure until his death in 1976 . As the chairman of the Standing Committee of the National Peoples Congress from 1975 to 1976 , Zhu was the head of state of the Peoples Republic of China . Life . Early life . Zhu was born on December 1 , 1886 , to a poor tenant farmers family in Hung , a town in Yilong County , a hilly and isolated part of northern Sichuan province . Of the 15 children born to the family only eight survived . His family relocated to Sichuan during the migration from Hunan province and Guangdong province . His origins are often given as Hakka , but Agnes Smedleys biography of him says his people came from Guangdong and speaks of Hakka as merely associates of his . She also says that older generations of his family had spoken the Kwangtung dialect ( which would be close to but probably different from modern Cantonese ) and that his generation also spoke Sichuanese , a distinct regional variant of Southwest Mandarin that is unintelligible to other speakers of Standard Chinese ( Mandarin ) . Despite his familys poverty , by pooling resources Zhu was chosen to be sent to a regional private school in 1892 . At age nine he was adopted by his prosperous uncle , whose political influence allowed him to gain access to Yunnan Military Academy . He enrolled in a Sichuan high school around 1907 and graduated in 1908 . Subsequently , he returned to Yilongs primary school as a gym instructor . An advocate of modern science and political teaching rather than the strict classical education afforded by schools , he was dismissed from his post and entered the Yunnan Military Academy in Kunming . There he joined the Beiyang Army and the Tongmenghui secret political society ( the forerunner of the Kuomintang ) . Nationalism and warlordism . At the Yunnan Military Academy in Kunming , he first met Cai E ( Tsai Ao ) . He taught at the Academy after his graduation in July 1911 . Siding with the revolutionary forces after the Chinese Revolution , he joined Brig . Cai E in the October 1911 expeditionary force that marched on Qing forces in Sichuan . He served as a regimental commander in the campaign to unseat Yuan Shikai in 1915–16 . When Cai became governor of Sichuan after Yuans death in June 1916 , Zhu was made a brigade commander . Following the death of his mentor Cai E and of his first wife Xiao Jufang in 1916 , Zhu developed a severe opium habit that afflicted him for several years until 1922 , when he underwent treatment in Shanghai . His troops continued to support him , and so he consolidated his forces to become a warlord . In 1920 , after his troops were driven from Sichuan toward the Tibetan border , he returned to Yunnan as a public security commissioner of the provincial government . Around this time he decided to leave China for study in Europe . He first traveled to Shanghai , where he broke his opium habit and , according to historians of the Kuomintang , met Dr . Sun Yat-sen . He attempted to join the Chinese Communist Party in early 1922 , but was rejected for being a warlord . Converting to Communism . In late 1922 Zhu went to Berlin , along with his partner He Zhihua . He resided in Germany until 1925 , studying at one point at Göttingen University . Here he met Zhou Enlai and was expelled from Germany for his role in a number of student protests . Around this time he joined the Chinese Communist Party ; Zhou Enlai was one of his sponsors ( having sponsors being a condition of probationary membership , the stage before actual membership ) . In July 1925 , after being expelled from Germany , he traveled to the Soviet Union to study military affairs and Marxism at the Communist University of the Toilers of the East . While in Moscow He Zhihua gave birth to his only daughter , Zhu Min . Zhu returned to China in July 1926 to unsuccessfully persuade Sichuan warlord Yang Sen to support the Northern Expedition . In 1927 , following the collapse of the First United Front , Kuomintang authorities ordered Zhu to lead a force against Zhou Enlai and Liu Bochengs Nanchang Uprising . Having helped orchestrate the uprising , Zhu and his army defected from the Kuomintang . The uprising failed to gather support , however , and Zhu was forced to flee Nanchang with his army . Under the false name of Wang Kai , Zhu managed to find shelter for his remaining forces by joining warlord Fan Shisheng . Zhu-Mao . Zhus close affiliation with Mao Zedong began in 1928 when , with the help of Chen Yi and Lin Biao , Zhu defected from Fan Shishengs protection and marched his army of 10,000 men to Jiangxi and the Jinggang Mountains . Here Mao had formed a soviet in 1927 , and Zhu began building up his army into the Red Army , consolidating and expanding the Soviet areas of control . The meeting , which happened on the Longjiang Bridge on April 28 , 1928 , was facilitated by Mao Zetan , who was Maos brother serving under Zhu . He carried a letter to his brother Mao Zedong where Zhu stated , We must unite forces and carry out a well-defined military and agrarian policy . This development became a turning point , with the merged forces forming the Fourth Red Army , with Zhu as Military Commander and Mao as Party representative . Zhus leadership made him a figure of immense prestige ; locals even credited him with supernatural abilities . During this time Mao and Zhu became so closely associated that to the local villagers they were known collectively as Zhu-Mao In 1929 , Zhu De and Mao Zedong were forced to flee Jinggangshan to Ruijin following military pressure from Chiang Kai-shek . Here they formed the Jiangxi Soviet , which would eventually grow to cover some 30,000 square kilometers ( 11,584 square miles ) and include some three million people . In 1931 Zhu was appointed leader of the Red Army in Ruijin by the CPC leadership . He successfully led a conventional military force against the Kuomintang in the lead-up to the Fourth Counter Encirclement Campaign ; However , he was not able to do the same during the Fifth Counter Encirclement Campaign and the CPC fled . Zhu helped form the 1934 break-out that began the Long March . Red Army leader . During the Long March Zhu and Zhou Enlai organized certain battles in tandem . There were few positive effects since the real power was in the hands of Bo Gu and Otto Braun . In the Zunyi Conference , Zhu supported Mao Zedongs criticisms of Bo and Braun . After the conference , Zhu cooperated with Mao and Zhou on military affairs . In July 1935 Zhu and Liu Bocheng were with the Fourth Red Army while Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai with the First Red Army . When separation between the two divisions occurred , Zhu was forced by Zhang Guotao , the leader of Fourth Red Army , to go south . The Fourth Red Army barely survived the retreat through Sichuan Province . Arriving in Yanan , Zhu directed the reconstruction of the Red Army under the political guidance of Mao . During the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War , he held the position of Commander-in-Chief of the Red Army and , in 1940 , Zhu , alongside Peng Dehuai , devised and organized the Hundred Regiments Offensive . Initially , Mao supported this offensive . While a successful campaign , Mao later attributed it as the main provocation for the devastating Japanese Three Alls Policy later and used it to criticize Peng at the Lushan Conference . Later life . In 1949 Zhu was named Commander-in-Chief of the Peoples Liberation Army ( PLA ) . He also served as the Vice-Chairman of the Communist Party ( 1956–1966 ) and Vice-Chairman of the Peoples Republic of China ( 1954–1959 ) . Zhu oversaw the PLA during the Korean War within his authority as Commander-in-Chief . In 1955 , he was conferred to the rank of marshal . At the Lushan Conference , he tried to protect Peng Dehuai , by giving some mild criticisms of Peng ; rather than denouncing him , he merely gently reproofed his targeted comrade , who was a target of Mao Zedong . Mao wasnt satisfied with Zhu Des behavior . After the conference , Zhu was dismissed from vice chairmen of Central Military Commission , not in least part due to his loyalty for the fallen Peng . In April 1969 , during the summit of the Cultural Revolution , Zhu was dismissed from his position on the Politburo Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China , and the activity of the National Peoples Congress was halted . In August 1969 , Lin Biao issued a command that dispatched important martial figures to distant areas due to the tension between China and Soviet Union , and Zhu De was driven to Guangzhou . In 1973 Zhu was reinstated in the Standing Committee . He continued to work as a statesman until his death on 6 July 1976 . His passing came six months after the death of Zhou Enlai , and just two months before the death of Mao Zedong . Zhu was cremated three days later , and received a funeral days afterwards . Personal life . Marriage . Zhu De married four times , according to the unfinished biography written by Agnes Smedley . However , there is no evidence of his marrying the mother of his only daughter . His known relationships were with : - Xiao Jufang ( or Hsiao Chu-fen ) . Xiao was a fellow student of Zhus at Kunming Normal Institute ( ) . The pair married in 1912 . Xiao died of a fever in 1916 after giving birth to Zhus only son , Baozhu . - Chen Yuzhen ( ) . After the death of Xiao Jufang , Zhu was advised to find a mother for his infant son . He was introduced to Chen by friends in the military . Chen had participated in revolutionary activities in 1911 , as well as in 1916 . Chen reportedly set the condition that she would not marry unless her future husband proposed to her in person , which Zhu did . The two married in 1916 . Chen looked after the home , even building a study for Zhu and his scholarly friends to meet , which she furnished with pamphlets , books , and manifestos on the Russian October Revolution . In the spring of 1922 , Zhu left his home to visit the Sichuanese warlord Yang Sen . According to Agnes Smedleys biography , Zhu considered himself separated from Chen after leaving her and felt free to marry again , though there had been no formal divorce . Chen was killed by the Kuomintang in 1935 . - He Zhihua ( ) . He met Zhu in Shanghai and followed him to Germany in late 1922 . When Zhu was deported from Germany in 1925 , she was already pregnant and later gave birth in a village on the outskirts of Moscow . Zhu named the daughter Sixun ( ) , but relations between He and Zhu had diminished and she rejected his choice , naming the baby Feifei ( ) . He sent her daughter to live with her sister in Chengdu shortly after the birth . She then married Huo Jiaxin ( ) in the same year . He returned to Shanghai in 1928 . She reportedly betrayed wanted communists to the Kuomintang , before being blinded in a gun attack by Red Army soldiers that killed her husband . After this , she returned to Sichuan , dying of illness before 1949 . - Wu Ruolan ( or Wu Yu-lan ) . Wu was the daughter of an Intellectual from Jiuyantang ( ) in Hunan . Zhu met Wu after attacking Leiyang with the Peasants and Workers Army . They married in 1928 . In January 1929 , Zhu and Wu were encircled by Kuomintang troops at a temple in the Jinggang Mountains . Zhu escaped , but Wu was captured . She was executed by decapitation and her head was allegedly sent to Changsha for display . - Kang Keqing ( Kang Ke-ching or Kang Keh-chin ) . Zhu married Kang in 1929 when he was 43 . She was a member of the Red Army and also a peasant leader . Kang was highly studious and Zhu taught her to read and write before they married . Kang outlived him . Unlike most women who joined the Long March , she did not become part of the propaganda unit marching at the rear . Kang fought by the side of her husband , distinguishing herself as a combat soldier , a markswoman , and a troop leader . Children . - Zhu Baozhu ( ) was born in 1916 and later changed his name to Zhu Qi ( ) . He died in 1974 from illness . - Zhu Min ( ) was born in Moscow in April 1926 to He Zhihua ( ) . Zhu De named her Sixun ( ) , but she rejected this and choose Feifei ( ) . He Zhihua sent her daughter to her sister in Chengdu shortly after her birth , where she went by the name He Feifei ( ) . She pursued higher education in Moscow from 1949 to 1953 before teaching at Beijing Normal University . She died of illness in 2009 . Awards . - Chinese Soviet Republic