The Chinese revolutionary generation 20

Non-Soviet revolutionary 1866–1925 ○ Liver cancer

Founding father of the Republic of China who framed the Three Principles of the People and the first united front

Born in Guangdong and educated in Hawaii and Hong Kong, he trained as a physician. He founded the Revive China Society in 1894 and the Tongmenghui in Tokyo in 1905 to overthrow the Qing and build a republic; after the 1911 revolution he became provisional president but soon yielded to Yuan Shikai. He formulated the Three Principles of the People (nationalism, democracy, people’s livelihood) and in 1923, after a joint statement with the Soviet envoy Joffe, accepted Soviet aid and Communist members joining the Kuomintang as individuals, opening the first united front. He died of liver cancer in Beijing in 1925; both Nationalists and Communists claimed his legacy.

Non-Soviet revolutionary 1879–1942 ○ Natural causes

The New Culture revolutionary who founded the CCP and led it for six years

“Only science and democracy — these two gentlemen we must take as our teachers.” — New Youth

Principal founder of the Chinese Communist Party and its first General Secretary (1921–1927). He spearheaded the New Culture Movement through the journal New Youth. Dismissed by the Comintern after the collapse of the First United Front, he later embraced Trotskyism.

Writers and artists 1881–1936 ○ Tuberculosis

Author of The True Story of Ah Q, father of modern Chinese literature who carried May Fourth’s critical spirit into the left-wing league

Born in Shaoxing, Zhejiang, he abandoned medical studies in Japan to “cure the spirit” of his people through literature. “Diary of a Madman”, published in New Youth in 1918, was the first vernacular short story; “The True Story of Ah Q” anatomised the spiritual servitude of the old society. After 1927 he translated Marxist literary theory in Shanghai and in 1930 became the guiding figure of the League of Left-Wing Writers, though never a party member. He died of tuberculosis in 1936; Mao later called him the “chief commander of China’s cultural revolution”.

Military commander 1886–1976 ○ Natural causes

Founder of the Chinese Red Army and the PLA, first among the Ten Marshals

Cornered by assassins, he told them "Don't shoot me — I'm only the cook," and survived; his men called him "Chief of the Cooks" ever after.

Commander-in-chief whose military leadership secured the Chinese Communist revolution. He joined Mao Zedong at Jinggangshan in 1928 to form the legendary Zhu-Mao Army, then elevated guerrilla warfare to a strategic art across the Long March, the war against Japan, and the Civil War. After the founding of the PRC he served as vice-chairman and chairman of the NPC Standing Committee, and was named first among the Ten Marshals in 1955. His journey from warlord general to communist, breaking an opium addiction and starting again, traces the arc of the Chinese Revolution more completely than almost any other life.

Non-Soviet revolutionary 1889–1927 ✕ Executed

The Peking University librarian who first embraced Marxism in China and nurtured the generation of Mao Zedong

In 'The Victory of Bolshevism' (November 1918): "Look! Every place in the world will see the victorious flag of Bolshevism and hear the triumphal song of Bolshevism. (…) From this day onward, this is no longer a world of the bourgeoisie, of capitalism, of imperialism. It is a world of labor, a world of Bolshevism!"

Pioneer of Chinese Marxism and co-founder of the CCP. As Peking University librarian he introduced Marxism to Mao Zedong and led the May Fourth Movement, championing the Russian Revolution. He architected the United Front and was executed by warlord Zhang Zuolin in 1927.

Military commander 1892–1986 ○ Natural causes

The “one-eyed dragon”, Red Army chief of staff and Deng Xiaoping’s partner who commanded at Huaihai

A Sichuan soldier who lost his right eye in battle in 1916, he joined the party in 1926 and took part in the Nanchang Uprising. Trained at the Frunze Military Academy, he was Red Army chief of staff on the Long March and, as commander of the 129th Division with Deng Xiaoping as political commissar, formed the “Liu–Deng” army in the war with Japan. In the civil war he led the 1947 thrust into the Dabie Mountains and the Huaihai campaign of 1948–1949, the decisive phase of the Communist victory. A marshal after 1949, he founded the Nanjing Military Academy and withdrew after being criticised for “dogmatism” in 1958.

Socialist-bloc leader 1893–1976 ○ Natural causes

He rewrote the grammar of revolution for a peasant country

In a letter of 5 January 1930 to Lin Biao, he answered pessimism about the Red Army's prospects by invoking the old Chinese saying that 'a single spark can start a prairie fire.'

Born to a peasant family near Shaoshan, Hunan, he studied in Changsha and was shaped by the 1911 Revolution and by nationalist and anti-imperialist currents. Introduced to Marxism while working as a librarian at Peking University, he took part in the May Fourth Movement of 1919 and in July 1921 attended the Chinese Communist Party's First National Congress in Shanghai as one of thirteen delegates, becoming a founding member. He developed rural base areas, guerrilla warfare and protracted people's war; elected to the leadership at Zunyi in January 1935, he became Chairman of the Military Commission in November 1935 and took the party chairmanship only in 1943. He led land redistribution and industrialisation, intervened in the Korean War in October 1950, suppressed opponents, and presided over the Great Leap Forward of 1958–1962 and the Cultural Revolution launched in 1966.

Non-Soviet revolutionary 1893–1981 ○ Natural causes

Sun Yat-sen’s widow who stayed with the Kuomintang left and became a vice-chair of the People’s Republic

The second of the three Soong sisters of a wealthy Christian Shanghai family, she married Sun Yat-sen in 1915. Opposing Chiang Kai-shek’s anti-Communist coup in 1927 she became the symbol of the Kuomintang left, went to Moscow, and in the 1930s led the China League for Civil Rights in Shanghai. During the war with Japan she organised the China Defence League in Hong Kong to supply the Communist base areas. In 1949 she became a vice-chair of the Central People’s Government; shortly before her death in 1981 she joined the Communist Party and was named honorary president. Her younger sister Soong Mei-ling was Chiang Kai-shek’s wife.

Military commander 1896–1969 ○ Died in custody

The Hunanese who rose “with two kitchen knives”, commander of the Nanchang Uprising and the Second Front Army

Born to a poor peasant family in Sangzhi, Hunan, he left the legend of rising “with two kitchen knives”, commanded the Nanchang Uprising in 1927, and led the Second Front Army on the Long March.

From a poor family in western Hunan, he led local armed bands, rose to command a Nationalist army corps, and joined the party days after commanding the Nanchang Uprising of 1 August 1927. He built a base on the Hunan–Hubei border, led the Second Front Army on the Long March and the 120th Division in the war with Japan. After 1949 he was one of the ten marshals, chairman of the state sports commission and a vice-chairman of the Military Commission. Attacked by Lin Biao and Kang Sheng in the Cultural Revolution, he was confined and died in 1969 after being denied treatment; he was rehabilitated in 1974.

Non-Soviet revolutionary 1897–1979 ↓ Removed 1938 · natural causes

Chair of the founding congress who split with Mao on the Long March and defected to the Nationalists

A Peking University student leader in May Fourth, he chaired the party’s founding congress in 1921. After years of labour organising he went to the Eyuwan Soviet in 1931 and became political leader of the Fourth Front Army, which met Mao’s Central Red Army in Sichuan on the Long March in 1935. Clashing with Mao over marching north or west, he set up a rival “centre” and turned south, lost much of his army, and rejoined at Yan’an in 1936. Criticised in 1937, he fled to the Nationalist zone in 1938 and was expelled; he later wrote his memoirs in Hong Kong and Canada and died in Toronto.

Non-Soviet revolutionary 1898–1969 ○ Died in prison

CCP chief theoretician and PRC Chairman (1959–68), designated successor to Mao who was purged as China's foremost 'capitalist roader'

'Fortunately, history is written by the people' — Liu's final words to his family in 1969, before being transported under guard to Kaifeng.

An early organizer of the CCP labour movement, he led the Anyuan coal miners' strike and built trade unions in Shanghai and Wuhan. His 1939 lectures 'How to Be a Good Communist' became a foundational text of Marxist party-building theory, and he was instrumental in enshrining Mao Zedong Thought in the 1945 Party Constitution. As PRC Chairman from 1959, he led post-Great Leap Forward economic adjustment with pragmatic measures including 'three freedoms and one guarantee,' which put him on a collision course with Mao. Denounced as the 'commander of the bourgeoisie headquarters' during the Cultural Revolution, he was expelled from the Party in 1968 and died in detention in 1969; Deng Xiaoping fully rehabilitated him as a 'great Marxist' in 1980.

Socialist-bloc leader 1898–1976 ○ Natural causes

The PRC's first premier and an architect of its foreign policy

His 1971 secret talks with Kissinger opened the way for Nixon's arrival in Beijing on 21 February 1972, and the Shanghai Communiqué of 28 February 1972 reordered the Cold War triangle.

A Chinese statesman born in Huai'an, Jiangsu in 1898 and died in Beijing in 1976. One of the CCP's earliest leaders, he joined a Chinese communist cell in Paris, served in the Political Department of the Whampoa Military Academy, and acted as the Party's chief negotiator through the Xi'an Incident and the Chongqing negotiations. Appointed premier (of the Government Administration Council, later the State Council) with the founding of the PRC in October 1949, he served until his death in 1976, and concurrently as foreign minister from 1949 to 1958, becoming an architect of early PRC foreign policy. After the Zunyi Conference he was subordinate to Mao, and amid the upheavals of the Cultural Revolution he kept the state running and managed the balance of power.

Non-Soviet revolutionary 1899–1935 ✕ Executed

Marxist literary critic who first sang The Internationale in Chinese, and party leader in 1927

18 June 1935, a small hill in Changting's Zhongshan Park. Facing the firing squad, Qu Qiubai sat down on the grass, smiled at the executioner and said, "Right here is fine!" He died singing The Internationale.

A leading intellectual of the May Fourth generation, Qu learned Russian and became one of the first Chinese correspondents to report on Bolshevik Russia from Moscow. Returning in 1923, he succeeded Chen Duxiu as de facto leader of the CCP, directing an insurrectionary line that included the Guangzhou Uprising, and served on the Comintern Executive Committee Presidium. After his political fall, he co-led the League of Left-Wing Writers with Lu Xun and Mao Dun, laying the foundations of Marxist literary theory in China and translating Russian and Soviet literature: most enduringly The Internationale into Chinese. Arrested by the Kuomintang in 1935, he was executed in Changting, singing The Internationale on the way to his death.

Non-Soviet revolutionary 1899–1967 ✕ Removed 1930 · suicide

Labour organiser whose 1930 urban-insurrection “Li Lisan line” led the party and cost him his position

From Hunan, he joined the party while a work-study student in France and organised the Anyuan miners’ strike of 1922 and the May Thirtieth Movement of 1925. From 1928 he held effective control of the Central Committee and in 1930, declaring a revolutionary high tide, ordered attacks on Changsha, Wuhan and other cities that failed; condemned by the Comintern, he was removed and summoned to Moscow, where he stayed fifteen years and married a Soviet wife. He returned in 1946 and served as labour minister. Persecuted early in the Cultural Revolution, he killed himself in 1967 and was rehabilitated in 1980.

Non-Soviet revolutionary 1900–1976 ↓ Removed 1959 · heart attack

A “28 Bolsheviks” returnee who became general secretary after Zunyi and sided with Peng Dehuai at Lushan in 1959

A Sun Yat-sen University graduate counted among the “28 Bolsheviks”, he backed Mao against Bo Gu at the Zunyi Conference in 1935 and became the party’s general secretary. He led propaganda and theory at Yan’an and ceded real power to Mao after the rectification movement. After 1949 he was ambassador to Moscow and vice-minister of foreign affairs; at the 1959 Lushan Conference he criticised the Great Leap and was purged with Peng Dehuai as an “anti-party clique”. Exiled during the Cultural Revolution, he died of heart disease in 1976 and was rehabilitated in 1979.

Non-Soviet revolutionary 1904–1950 ○ Cerebral haemorrhage

The organiser among Yan’an’s five secretaries, dead a year after the People’s Republic was founded

From Hunan, he studied at the Communist University of the Toilers of the East in Moscow and led the Communist Youth League. On the Long March he commanded the Second Front Army with He Long, and as the party’s delegate to the Comintern in 1938 he helped win recognition of Mao’s leadership. From 1943 he ran party organisation and finance as a Secretariat member, one of the “five secretaries” with Mao, Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai and Zhu De. His health failed after 1949 and he died of a cerebral haemorrhage in 1950 at 46.

Non-Soviet revolutionary 1904–1974 ○ Died

Leader of the "28 Bolsheviks" and Mao Zedong's foremost political rival

During the 1932 Shanghai Incident, Wang declared China faced "a struggle between two nations — the newborn Chinese Soviet Republic and the rotten Republic of China," calling this confrontation "the core of the total of the current Chinese political life."

The leading figure of the "28 Bolsheviks" trained at Moscow's Sun Yat-sen University, he imported a Comintern-loyal dogmatic line and led the early CCP's Moscow-aligned leadership. He was Mao Zedong's strongest rival, targeted in Mao's essays "On Practice" and "On Contradiction" and purged in the 1942 Rectification Movement as the symbol of dogmatism.

Writers and artists 1904–1986 ○ Natural causes

From Miss Sophia’s Diary to The Sun Shines over the Sanggan River, a writer who lived through Yan’an and the anti-rightist purge

From Hunan, she made her name in 1928 with Miss Sophia’s Diary, a portrait of the modern woman’s inner life, and joined the party after the Nationalists executed her husband Hu Yepin in 1931. She reached the Red Army area in northern Shaanxi in 1936 and was welcomed by Mao, but her 1942 essay “Thoughts on March 8” on sexism at Yan’an drew criticism in the rectification movement. Her land-reform novel The Sun Shines over the Sanggan River won a Stalin Prize in 1951; in the 1957 anti-rightist campaign she was labelled a rightist and spent more than twenty years labouring on a farm in the Great Northern Wilderness. She was rehabilitated in 1979.

Writers and artists 1906–1947 ✕ Executed

The writer whose “Wild Lilies” criticised privilege at Yan’an and made him the rectification movement’s first victim

A translator and writer from Henan, he went to Yan’an in 1937 and translated Marxist classics. In March 1942 his essay “Wild Lilies” in Liberation Daily pointed to graded rations and clothing for cadres and to the disillusionment of the young; in the rectification movement he was branded a “Trotskyist” and became the target of mass criticism meetings. Arrested in 1943, he was executed at Xing County, Shanxi, in 1947 during the retreat from Yan’an before the Nationalist offensive. In 1991 the Ministry of Public Security formally withdrew the Trotskyist charge.

Non-Soviet revolutionary 1907–1946 ✕ Killed in crash

The CCP's young General Secretary who represented the Comintern line and later built the Party's press apparatus

During the Rectification Movement, he confessed: "I caused such great damage to the Party — no matter how hard I work, I can never make up for this loss." He added: "I am the person most responsible for all the disastrous consequences — here there is no 'one of.'"

General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (1931–1935), Bo Gu led the Party through the Jiangxi Soviet period and the early Long March. A member of the '28 Bolsheviks' trained at Moscow's Sun Yat-sen University, he represented the Comintern's left line alongside Wang Ming. After being ousted by Mao Zedong at the Zunyi Conference, he served as head of the Organization Department, director of Xinhua News Agency, and editor-in-chief of Liberation Daily, laying the institutional foundations of the CCP's press and propaganda apparatus. He died in a plane crash in 1946 while returning to Yan'an from the Chongqing negotiations.