1906.5.31.–1978.8.3.
↓ Removed 1965 · natural causes
First minister of public security and chief of the general staff, purged on the eve of the Cultural Revolution as Lin Biao’s target
Mao trusted him as his closest security chief, saying "if the sky falls, Luo the Tall will prop it up." First minister of public security from 1949, he built the police apparatus for a decade, then led the general staff until his purge in late 1965.
From Sichuan and Whampoa’s sixth class, he served in Red Army political and security work and ran the Anti-Japanese Military and Political University. As first minister of public security from 1949 he built the police system and the campaign to suppress counter-revolutionaries, and after Peng Dehuai’s fall in 1959 he managed the army as chief of the general staff. Putting training before politics, he was denounced by Lin Biao at the end of 1965 for plotting to seize military power, fell, and injured his legs in a suicide attempt in 1966. Rehabilitated in 1977 as secretary-general of the Military Commission, he died after surgery in West Germany the next year.
Also known as: Lo Jui-ching
Activities and affiliations
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1928–
Security, intelligence and policing
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1929–1949
Chinese Communist revolutionary forces (before 1949)Military and political leadership in the Red Army and Eighth Route Army
Military command -
1936–
Communist Party of ChinaEducational leadership at the Anti-Japanese Military and Political University
Education -
1959–1965
People’s Republic of China state institutionsChief of the PLA General Staff
Military command -
People’s Republic of China state institutionsMinister of Public SecurityMain
Security, intelligence and policing
Career Timeline
- 1928Joined the CCP
- 1929–1949Military and political leadership in the Red Army and Eighth Route Army
- 1936Educational leadership at the Anti-Japanese Military and Political University
- 1949–1959Minister of Public Security
- 1959–1965Chief of the General Staff
- 1965Removed amid conflict with Lin Biao
- 1977Returned as Secretary-General of the Central Military Commission
Related historical events
1977-78: backing the debate on the criterion of truth
In August 1977 Luo Ruiqing returned as a standing committee member and secretary-general of the Central Military Commission, not yet fully restored from his fall; that year the party's 11th National Congress elected him to the Central Committee. It was a comeback after twelve years of persecution, medical treatment and amputation, and it was his last public office.
On 26 March 1978 the People's Daily ran a short article, "There is only one criterion". Luo saw that it raised the question of what verifies truth, summoned the responsible officials of the Liberation Army Daily, and told them that Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought were truths but could not verify truth themselves: only practice was the criterion. He instructed the army paper to publicise and support the view.
When the Guangming Daily published "Practice is the sole criterion for testing truth" on 11 May and the People's Daily, Liberation Army Daily and other papers reprinted it the next day, the dispute sharpened. Luo directed the army paper to produce a weighty commentary; told that the party school had drafted "A most basic principle of Marxism" addressing the point, he supervised several revisions. He consulted Mao's On Practice and related writings, urged the inclusion of Mao's and Deng Xiaoping's relevant statements, discussed the draft with Hu Yaobang in six telephone calls, and had it published as a special commentator's article in the Liberation Army Daily on 24 June. The People's Daily and Guangming Daily carried it the same day.
Under continued pressure over the debate, Luo said that if there was trouble he would take responsibility himself, a promise he repeated to the army paper's leadership before leaving for leg surgery in West Germany in July. He died there in August 1978, while the dispute was still running; in December the Third Plenum of the 11th Central Committee disavowed the "two whatevers".