Liu Zhidan

Chinese Communist revolutionary forces (before 1949) Marxism–Leninism 1903–1936 ✕ Killed in action

Red Army commander who founded the Shaanxi–Gansu base where the Long March ended

Born into a literati family in Bao'an, northern Shaanxi, he was influenced by the May Fourth Movement at Yulin Middle School and joined the CCP in 1925. After Whampoa he served as a National Revolutionary Army officer in the Northern Expedition in 1927 and was attached to Feng Yuxiang's Guominjun, which he left after the April 12 Incident to join the Communist armed struggle. After the failed Weihua Uprising of 1928 he returned home, founded the Shaanxi–Gansu and northern Shaanxi bases and raised the Red 26th and 27th Corps. In 1935 he defeated Zhang Xueliang's troops but was purged by commissars sent from Shanghai and was about to be executed when the Long Marchers arrived and Mao had him released. His base became the Yan'an Soviet. He was killed in April 1936 on the Eastern Expedition into Shanxi, and his home county of Bao'an was renamed Zhidan in his honour.

Also known as: Liu Chih-tan