Mao's designated successor and the military genius who won the Chinese Civil War, third among the Ten Marshals
Told that the public saw him as 'Mao's best student,' Lin Biao was pleased and said: 'I don't have any talent. What I know, I learned from Chairman Mao.'
Lin Biao was one of the Chinese Communist Party's most brilliant military commanders, who led the Liaoshen and Pingjin campaigns in Manchuria to annihilate the Kuomintang's main forces and marched the People's Liberation Army into Beijing. Ranked third among the Ten Marshals in 1955, he became Minister of National Defense and spearheaded Mao Zedong's personality cult while vigorously advancing the Cultural Revolution. In 1966 he was made the Party's sole Vice Chairman and Mao's designated successor, reaching the apex of power before falling out with Mao in the early 1970s. After a failed coup attempt, he died in a plane crash over Mongolia on 13 September 1971 while fleeing toward the Soviet Union.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1925Entered Whampoa Military Academy; joined the CCP
- 1932Commander, 1st Red Army Corps
- 1937Commander, 115th Division — victory at Pingxingguan
- 1948–1949Northeast Field Army commander; won Liaoshen and Pingjin campaigns, entered Beijing
- 1955Marshal of the PRC, third among the Ten Marshals
- 1959Minister of National Defense — led Mao's cult of personality and politicization of the PLA
- 1966–1971Sole Vice Chairman of the CCP, Mao's designated successor
Related historical events
- 1927–1936From Jinggangshan to Yan’an: the soviet bases and the Long MarchCommander of the First Army GroupCommanded the vanguard army group of the Long March.
- 1937–1945The war with Japan and the second united front115th Division commander, victor of PingxingguanWon the first victory in September 1937, then was wounded and treated in the Soviet Union.
- 1945–1949The Chinese Civil WarNortheast Field Army commander at Liaoshen and PingjinConquered Manchuria and took north China, the decisive phase of the victory.
- 1950–1953The Korean WarMao's first choice to command, who refusedMao first named Lin to command the PVA, but Lin declined citing ill health and left for medical treatment in the Soviet Union. Whether he opposed the intervention itself remains debated.
- 1958–1962The Great Leap Forward and the Great FamineReplaced Peng Dehuai as defence ministerTook over the army after Lushan and brought the Mao cult into it.
- 1966–1976The Cultural RevolutionSuccessor who built the Mao cult, killed in the 1971 crashBacked the Cultural Revolution through the army; died in Mongolia in September 1971.
The Liaoshen Campaign (1948): Lin Biao's Decisive Victory
The Liaoshen Campaign (12 September – 2 November 1948) was the first of the Chinese Civil War's three great campaigns and the summit of Lin Biao's military maturity. As commander of the Northeast Field Army, he destroyed the three isolated Kuomintang strongholds in Manchuria (Jinzhou, Changchun, and Shenyang) one by one.
The pivot of the campaign was the fortress city of Jinzhou at the southern tip of Liaoning. Commanding the neck of the Liaoxi Corridor, Jinzhou linked Manchuria to the North China Plain; once it fell, the Nationalist forces in Manchuria would be cut off from the interior and ripe for annihilation. Lin initially concentrated on besieging Changchun and was hesitant to strike Jinzhou, but Mao Zedong persuaded him with the conception of 'knocking on Jinzhou to close the door.' After their strategic argument, on 14 October 1948 Lin launched the general assault on Jinzhou with 250,000 troops and the bulk of his artillery and armor; the city fell in roughly a day, capturing garrison commander Fan Hanjie and some 80,000 men.
The fall of Jinzhou triggered a chain collapse. In Changchun the Nationalist 60th Army defected and the New 7th Army surrendered; in Shenyang the garrison of 140,000 crumbled almost without resistance. The counteroffensive of Liao Yaoxiang's 9th Army was checked and encircled at Heishan and annihilated. After 52 days, all of Manchuria fell under Communist control, giving the PLA a strategic numerical superiority over the Kuomintang for the first time since its founding.
The victory was the culmination of the mobile-warfare tactics Lin had devised and refined himself since the civil war's opening. Starting from rural guerrilla war, he rebuilt the People's Liberation Army into a regular force capable of street fighting and large-scale encirclement-and-annihilation operations, with an organizational precision that moved a relieved Mao to cable him urging minimal friendly losses. Flush with the Liaoshen victory, Lin commanded over a million soldiers as he swept into the Pingjin Campaign in North China, opening the sequence of three great campaigns that sealed the Kuomintang's collapse.