The “one-eyed dragon”, Red Army chief of staff and Deng Xiaoping’s partner who commanded at Huaihai
He lost his right eye at Fengdu in 1916 and became the “One-Eyed Dragon”: a founder of the People’s Liberation Army and one of the strategists who commanded the Huaihai campaign in November 1948.
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.
Also known as: Liu Po-cheng
Activities and affiliations
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1926–1927
Republic of China state institutionsCommander, 15th Provisional Army, National Revolutionary Army
Military command -
1926–1986
Military command
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1927–1949
Chinese Communist revolutionary forces (before 1949)Chief of the Red Army General Staff; Commander, Second Field Army
Military command -
1951–1958
People’s Republic of China state institutionsPresident, PLA Military Academy
Education -
People’s Republic of China state institutionsMarshal of the People's Republic of ChinaMain
Military command
Career Timeline
- 1912–1913Entered the Sichuan military academy; fled to Shanghai after the Second Revolution failed
- 1926.05Joined the CCP; in December commander-in-chief of the Luzhou–Shunqing uprising
- 1927.08.01Chief of staff of the Nanchang Uprising
- 1927.11–1930Studied in the Soviet Union, including the Frunze Military Academy
- 1932–1937Chief of Staff of the Red Army
- 1935.01–05Vanguard on the Long March: crossed the Wu River, took Zunyi, swore brotherhood with an Yi leader and directed the Dadu crossing
- 1937–1945Commander of the 129th Division, Eighth Route Army
- 1945.08–1949.01Commander of the Shanxi–Hebei–Shandong–Henan Military Region; won the Shangdang campaign, moved into the Dabie Mountains in 1947 and fought the Huaihai campaign with the Central Plains Field Army
- 1949.02–12Commander of the Second Field Army; head of the Nanjing Military Control Commission; campaign into the Southwest
- 1951.01–1958.09President and political commissar of the PLA Military Academy
- 1955Marshal of the People’s Republic of China
- 1966.01Vice-Chairman of the Central Military Commission
Related historical events
- 1924–1927The first united front, the Northern Expedition and the catastrophe of 1927Nanchang Uprising participantAfter joining the party in 1926, he took part in the Nanchang Uprising.
- 1927–1936From Jinggangshan to Yan’an: the soviet bases and the Long MarchChief of staff of the Red ArmyLed the Jinsha and Dadu crossings and the passage through Yi territory.
- 1937–1945The war with Japan and the second united frontCommander of the 129th DivisionBuilt the Jin-Ji-Lu-Yu base with Deng Xiaoping.
- 1945–1949The Chinese Civil WarCentral Plains Field Army commander at HuaihaiLed the 1947 Dabie thrust and the Huaihai campaign.
- 1949Establishment of the People’s Republic of ChinaProposed a Soviet-style paradeHaving watched a Red Square parade, he proposed the format of the founding parade.
Military education and the “dogmatism” campaign: the Nanjing school
Right after the founding of the republic Liu turned to military education. In January 1951 he was appointed president and political commissar of the Chinese PLA Military Academy; the English-language source calls the Nanjing posting a demotion. The Chinese-language source records that under his own maxim that running troops requires first running a school he personally trained instructors and wrote, reviewed and translated teaching materials, and that departments for the navy, air force, artillery, armoured troops, anti-chemical defence and intelligence were opened one after another, building the PLA's command-college system for all arms and services. The same source says he sought to transplant the regular-warfare doctrine he had learned in the Soviet Union, and the English source likewise notes that he organised translations of military textbooks from the Soviet Union and elsewhere and introduced the great campaigns from antiquity to the Second World War to his students.
The school work made him a target of political attack. After Khrushchev's Secret Speech of 1956 a party-wide call went out to overcome dogmatism and empiricism, and in the military investigations and purges directed by Peng Dehuai Liu became a key target. Subordinates and deputies, among them Xiao Ke, were censored and held in custody, and Liu had to make repeated self-criticisms for his support of them. The Chinese-language source states that at the 1958 enlarged meeting of the Central Military Commission Peng Dehuai and others criticised him as the representative of military dogmatism, that on 10 July 1958 the ailing Liu was helped into Huairen Hall in Zhongnanhai to deliver a self-criticism, and that he left the academy's leadership on 13 September and was in effect set aside. The English-language source instead places the anti-dogmatism campaign and his self-criticisms from 1956 and his departure for Beijing and semi-seclusion in 1959, so the two sources differ on the timing of his exit. Liu had been appointed vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission in 1954, made a marshal in 1955 and elected to the Politburo in 1956, but those titles did not carry Peng's real power.