Category Archives: Whos who

Lin Zhao

Lin Zhao (1932-1968) was a communist revolutionary turned dissident, executed during the Cultural Revolution for criticising Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). She was born Peng Lingzhao, the eldest child of an affluent family in Suzhou, Jiangsu province. Peng’s father was a magistrate who worked for the Nationalists while her mother, a successful banker, made secret donations to the Communists. A bright student and a voracious reader, Peng became interested in politics and at age 16 aligned herself with the CCP. Using the pen name Lin Zhao, she wrote articles attacking brutality and corruption in the Nationalist government. In late 1948 Lin defied her parents by running away from home and joining a CCP-run training camp, where she studied journalism, propaganda and Maoist ideology.

In 1950, Lin Zhao was deployed as a party cadre and sent into rural areas to implement Mao Zedong’s agrarian reforms. In this role she organised and oversaw land redistribution, the reorganisation of village life and ‘Speak Bitterness‘ hearings against former landlords. Despite her youth, Lin expressed no qualms about revolutionary violence, witnessing numerous executions and once ordering a landlord to be kept overnight in a tub of freezing water. In 1954 Lin enrolled at Beijing University, where she studied literature and poetry. University life moderated Lin’s political views and she began to question her commitment to Mao and the party. She secretly converted to Christianity and openly criticised CCP policies during the Hundred Flowers Campaign. For this, Lin was declared a ‘Rightist’, suspended from her studies and given menial work around the university, such as killing mosquitoes. In 1960 she was permitted to join her parents in Shanghai due to ill health.

“The cunning villains used our innocence, naivety and honesty; they incited and steered our virtue, purity and fervent temperaments. When we realized the actual absurdity of the situation and began to demand our democratic rights, we were subjected to unprecedented persecution and suppression. Our youth, passion, learning, idealism and joy were all sacrificed to the terrible rule of this wicked tyranny.”
Lin Zhao, writing in prison, 1966

In Shanghai, Lin joined an underground student group and continued to produce inflammatory articles, some of which detailed the famine unleashed by Mao’s Great Leap Forward. She also wrote several poems with liberal or anti-communist themes. Lin was arrested in October 1960 and detained for several years without trial. She was poorly treated in prison but continued to write anti-CCP prose and poetry, at times using a hairpin dipped in her own blood. In 1965 Lin was sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment but the onset of the Cultural Revolution saw this converted to the death penalty for “insanely attacking, cursing and slandering” Mao Zedong and the party. She was executed in April 1968 with a single gunshot to the head. Lin’s mother was informed of her death two days later when CCP officials handed her a bill for the bullet used in Lin’s execution. Lin was pardoned and rehabilitated by Deng Xiaoping‘s government in 1981, though discussion of her life and writings continue to be suppressed in China.

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Trofim Lysenko

Trofim Lysenko (1898-1976) was a Soviet Russian scientist and researcher who specialised in biology and agronomy (the growth and cultivation of plants for food and human use). Lysenko was born to a peasant family in what is now Ukraine. He studied in Kiev and conducted research in vernalisation (germination and plant growth in low temperatures). During the 1930s Lysenko developed many new but scientifically unfounded genetic and agronomical theories. He claimed that plant growth factors were hereditary, that plant species could be conditioned or ‘taught’ to grow faster or yield more by adjusting their environment. Freezing wheat seeds, for example, would expand the growing season and increase wheat yields. Lysenko’s theories not only promised greater production, they also challenged the findings of Western scientists. As a consequence, Lysenko enjoyed the support of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, while several scientists who criticised or challenged his work were arrested, exiled or executed.

After Stalin’s death in 1953 Lysenko’s theories fell out of favour and were widely discredited, both in the Soviet Union and the West. They remained popular in the People’s Republic of China, however, where they had arrived via Soviet advisors. Mao Zedong‘s ‘Eight Point Charter of Agriculture’ (1958) was strongly influenced by the theories of Lysenko. Chinese peasant farmers were ordered to embrace ‘Lysenkoism’ and to abandon techniques they had used for centuries. Farmers were ordered to ‘close plant’ seeds and seedlings, being assured by government officials that plants of the same species would not compete for water or nutrients. Lysenkoist theory claimed that deep ploughing the soil would encourage faster, deeper root growth. Chemical fertilisers and pesticides were also banned, the latter replaced by Mao’s disastrous Four Pests campaign (1958). The changes based on Lysenko’s pseudo-science had a disastrous effect on Chinese agricultural production in the late 1950s. They were a contributing factor to the Great Chinese Famine (1959-61). Lysenko himself was stripped of his government and academic roles and consigned to a small experimental farm. He died in 1976, two months after Mao Zedong.

Kim Il-Sung

Kim Il-Sung (1912-94) was a Korean-born socialist, military officer and, from the late 1940s, the dictatorial leader of North Korea. Much of what we know about Kim and his life is obscured or coloured by state propaganda. Born near Pyongyang, reportedly to a Christian family, the infant Kim relocated to Manchuria (northern China) where he received a typical Chinese education. As a teenager, he rejected his family’s religious beliefs and became interested in left-wing politics. In 1927 the 15-year-old Kim was imprisoned for his political views by China’s Nationalist government. He was released three years later, joined the Chinese Communist Party (1931) and returned to Korea to join anti-Japanese resistance groups there. According to North Korean accounts, Kim became an important guerrilla leader, commanding a regiment of several hundred men and finding his way onto a Japanese ‘wanted’ list. Kim later crossed into the Soviet Union and enlisted in the Red Army, where he served as a captain during World War II.

After the war Soviet forces occupied the northern half of the Korean peninsula. As Cold War tensions caused Korea to harden into two separate states, Stalin installed Kim as the puppet leader of North Korea. Modelling himself on both Stalin and Mao Zedong, Kim developed his own ideology (“Kim Il-Sung Thought”), approved a Soviet-style five-year plan and promised a program of land reform. Kim also expanded his military and threatened war with American-backed South Korea. His army was bolstered by the communist victory in China (October 1949); thousands of Korean soldiers who had fought under Mao returned home to join Kim’s Korean People’s Army (KPA). Kim initiated an invasion of South Korea in June 1950. Before ordering this attack he obtained approval from Stalin and a commitment from Mao, who agreed to deploy Chinese ground forces if they were needed. Kim’s assault on the South triggered the Korean War, which soon involved a United Nations coalition led by the United States as well as Chinese forces.

Fighting in the Korean War ended with an armistice signed in July 1953. No treaty was signed so North Korea and South Korea are technically still at war today. After the war, North Korea was given Soviet and Chinese aid and advisors to rebuild infrastructure and defences. Kim Il-Sung tightened his control on North Korea, instigating brutal purges and repressions of political dissidents and suspected counter-revolutionaries. The personality cult surrounding Kim was also intensified, state propaganda and education hailing him as the “Great Leader”. Its totalitarian political system and mistreatment of its own people led to North Korea becoming a pariah state, shunned by other nations. China, however, has continued to maintain close ties with North Korea.

Information and resources on this page are © Alpha History 2018-23.
Content on this page may not be copied, republished or redistributed without the express permission of Alpha History. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use.
This website uses pinyin romanisations of Chinese words and names. Please refer to this page for more information.

Nikita Khrushchev

Khrushchev, Nikita (1894-1971) was leader of the Soviet Union from the death of Stalin in 1953 until his removal from power in 1964. Born into a humble peasant family, Khrushchev participated in the Russian Revolution (1917), the Russian Civil War (1918-21) and World War II (1939-45). He was a committed communist who rose through the ranks of the party. Khrushchev was loyal to Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin and was directly involved in Stalin’s purges of the Communist Party in the 1930s. When Stalin died in 1953 Khrushchev became a contender for the Soviet leadership. It took another two years for him to stave off other contenders and consolidate his power.

Khrushchev’s relationship with Mao Zedong and communist China was troubled. In February 1956 Khrushchev delivered his famous ‘Secret Speech’, denouncing the tyranny, brutality and “abuses of power” under his former mentor Stalin. This placed Mao, who had always praised Stalin as a great communist leader, in an awkward position. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was forced to revise its position on Stalin, admitting his “shortcomings and mistakes” while hailing his “great achievements”. Khrushchev made three state visits to China in the 1950s but none went well. Mao, who had been poorly treated by Stalin while visiting Moscow in 1949, returned the favour on the visiting Khrushchev. During a 1958 visit, Mao flatly rejected Khrushchev’s joint defence proposals. Another visit the following year went so badly that Khrushchev cut it short and returned home early. He later ordered the withdrawal of Soviet technical advisors from China.

The most significant point of difference between Khrushchev and Mao Zedong was their attitude to the West. Mao had based his entire foreign policy on anti-imperialist, anti-American paranoia and propaganda. Khrushchev, however, was prepared to open up friendlier negotiations with Washington and other Western countries. This outraged Mao, who viewed concessions to the West as a sign of weakness. When Khrushchev retreated during the Cuban missile crisis in October 1962, Mao made public statements accusing him of cowardice. The Sino-Soviet war of words continued through the 1960s. Khrushchev became a target of CCP propaganda, which painted him as a traitor to Marxist-Leninism. During the Cultural Revolution, the persecuted Liu Shaoqi was condemned as the ‘Chinese Khrushchev’. As for the real Khrushchev, hardliners forced him out of power in 1964 and he took no further part in Soviet politics. He penned his memoirs before dying in 1971.

Chen Yun

Chen Yun (1905-95) was a revolutionary, politician and economic planner who held several important positions within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the national government. Chen was born near Shanghai in 1905. He received a rudimentary education before gaining work with a printing firm. Chen soon became involved in the union movement, joined the CCP (1925) and studied in Moscow (1927). In 1934 he was elected to the CCP Central Committee and participated in the Long March. Chen joined the Politburo in 1940. By this point, his economic prowess was well known in the party, which led to Chen being given responsibility for industrial and infrastructure projects. During the 1950s he oversaw the First Five Year Plan (1953-57) and the acquisition and distribution of Soviet aid.

An economic realist who opposed radical or ambitious change, Chen did not support Mao Zedong‘s Great Leap Forward. He voiced criticisms of the policy in early 1959, calling for the government to accept Soviet food aid and suggesting that economic targets be revised. Unlike his fellow critic, Peng Dehuai, Chen escaped Mao’s retribution at Lushan, retaining his place in the party hierarchy. Between 1960 and 1962 he acted as an economic advisor to Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping, as they attempted to reform the economy. Chen was attacked as a ‘bourgeois moderate’ during the Cultural Revolution, though not as vehemently as Liu Shaoqi and others. He was purged from the party and spent several years in isolation, including three years working in an industrial factory in Jiangxi province. Chen was rehabilitated by Deng Xiaoping after Mao’s death and returned to prominent advisory roles in the government. He retired in 1992 and died three years later.

Peng Zhen

Peng Zhen (1902-97, Wade-Giles: P’eng Chen) was a communist revolutionary and politician, and the mayor of Beijing during the early 1950s. Born to a poor family in Shanxi province, Peng worked with left-wing labour and youth groups before joining the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1926. He was later imprisoned for several years by the Nationalists. Peng fought with the CCP’s anti-Japanese guerrillas during the 1930s. An effective organiser and administrator, he was given several important roles in China’s northeast. By 1945 Peng was a member of the Politburo. Six years later he became the mayor of Beijing, a position he held until his downfall.

Peng’s removal from office was triggered by his opposition to Mao Zedong during the first days of the Cultural Revolution. In January 1965 the Politburo named Peng at the head of the Five Man Group, which was tasked with responding to anti-socialist ideas in art and literature. Unlike Mao, Peng did not consider dissenting cultural ideas a matter for the government; he believed they should be dealt with through academic debate, by “seeking facts from truth”. The Five Man Group’s refusal to take firm action led to its dissolution and replacement in May 1966 and the onset of the Cultural Revolution. Peng was sacked from his positions, purged from the CCP and subject to harassment by the Red Guards. He was rehabilitated by Deng Xiaoping in 1979 and restored to his role as mayor of Beijing. Peng became chairman of the National People’s Congress in 1983, occupying this role until his retirement in 1988.

George Marshall

George Catlett Marshall (1880–1959) was a highly decorated American general, statesman, diplomat and military leader. Born into a middle-class family in Pennsylvania, Marshall was educated at a military college before joining the US Army as a second lieutenant in 1902. He served in the Philippines and World War I, and by the outbreak of World War II was US Chief of Staff (1939-45). Marshall resigned his commission after the war but was sent into China by US president Harry Truman, with orders to prevent a civil war between Jiang Jieshi‘s Nationalists and Mao Zedong’s Communists.

The so-called ‘Marshall Mission’ (December 1945 to January 1947) aimed to broker an agreement and form a Chinese coalition government (Truman wanted a strong unified China to counter the growing power of the Soviet Union). Marshall formed a three-man committee with Nationalist representative Zhang Qun and communist delegate Zhou Enlai. Negotiations continued for almost two years. While a brief ceasefire was achieved, it could not be sustained and the civil war was resumed. According to Marshall, “the greatest obstacle to peace [in China] has been the complete, almost overwhelming suspicion with which the Chinese Communist Party and the Guomindang regard each other”.

Marshall returned to America and turned his attention to Europe. He was a key sponsor of the 1948 European Recovery Program, an economic aid initiative to assist European reconstruction after the devastation of World War II. This program came to bear his name: the ‘Marshall Plan‘. Marshall became Truman’s Secretary of State in 1947 but retired in 1949 due to ill health. His skills and expertise were sought again in 1950, when America became a key protagonist in the Korean War. Truman appointed Marshall as Secretary of Defense, a position from which he resigned in 1951. Marshall’s contribution to post-war geopolitics has divided opinion. Some hail Marshall as a brilliant administrator while some criticise him for failing to prevent the communist victory in China and America’s involvement in the Korean War.

Joseph Stalin

Joseph Stalin (1879-1953, born Josef Dzhugashivili) was a Russian communist revolutionary and, from the late 1920s, the dictatorial leader of the Soviet Union. Stalin’s de facto leadership of world communism shaped the development of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Chinese Revolution itself. Born into a peasant family in Georgia, Stalin studied for entry into the priesthood before leaving the seminary and becoming involved in radical politics. He joined the Bolshevik revolutionary movement under Vladimir Lenin, raising funds for the group through bank robbery and extortion. By the 1917 revolution in Russia, Stalin had risen into the senior ranks of the Bolshevik party, though he was not among its intellectual leaders.

When Lenin was incapacitated by a major stroke in 1922, Stalin began to accumulate support in preparation for a charge at the leadership. After Lenin’s death (1924) Stalin outmanoeuvred his main rival Leon Trotsky, eventually forcing him into exile. By the late 1920s, Stalin was the unchallenged ruler of the Soviet Union. He implemented his own policies, including ‘socialism in one country’ (a retraction from international socialism), expansion of the military, rapid industrial growth and the collectivisation of Russian peasant farms. Stalin’s agricultural policies were the main cause of the 1932-33 Soviet famine which killed as many as eight million people, most of them in Ukraine. Stalin was even more ruthless with suspected political rivals and enemies of the state. Under his rule, the Soviet Union became notorious for its purges, show trials, secret police, surveillance of citizens, censorship, propaganda, torture and extra-legal killings. Stalin also authorised an intense personality cult that painted him as a strong but benevolent ruler.

As leader of the world’s largest socialist state, Stalin exerted considerable influence on both the young Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Chinese Revolution. Through the Moscow Comintern, Stalin provided early support and direction for the CCP – but he thought the party too small and weak to initiate a socialist revolution. Instead, Stalin chose to back Jiang Jieshi and the Guomindang. He hoped to exploit their military strength, waiting for a time when communists could infiltrate and seize control of the Guomindang. After the Shanghai Massacre of April 1927, Stalin supported the formation of a Chinese Red Army and peasant soviets in rural areas. His chief concern in the 1930s, however, was preventing China from being overrun by Japanese imperialists. As a consequence, Stalin maintained support for both the CCP and the Nationalists.

The relationship between Stalin and CCP leader Mao Zedong was complex. In public Mao heaped praise on Stalin, hailing him as a visionary leader and a friend to Chinese communists. In private, however, the two leaders had significant ideological differences, coupled with a low regard for each other. Mao and Stalin did not meet until late 1949, during Mao’s state visit to Moscow. It did not go well, Stalin snubbing Mao and offering a paltry amount of military aid. Stalin also hinted at a willingness to commit Soviet forces if war broke out on the Korean peninsula. When the Korean War erupted in 1950, Stalin refused to deploy ground forces, providing only some air support. He also provided the Chinese with weapons and munitions but insisted they be charged full price. These incidents and broken promises taught Mao never to trust Stalin again, though in public he maintained his praise of the Soviet leader. Stalin died in 1953, leaving Mao as the world’s most senior communist leader.

Feng Guifen

Feng Guifen (1809-74, Wade-Giles: Feng Kuei-fen) was a Chinese scholar, writer and reformer of the mid 19th century. He is best known as the ideological father of the Self-Strengthening Movement. Born into a family of affluent landlords in Jiangsu province, Feng worked in both academia and the public service. He spent a good deal of time in Shanghai, where he came into frequent contact with Western merchants and diplomats. Like other neo-Confucians he despised Western foreigners, condemning them as barbarians – but Feng also recognised the need for China to adopt and embrace Western methods and technologies. In 1861 Feng published Jiaobinlu Kangyi (‘Essays of Protest’). These essays suggested a host of improvements and reforms, including changes to government, bureaucracy and fiscal collections. They also listed a number of specific scientific reforms and engineering projects. Despite these sweeping proposals. Feng was adamant that Chinese society should remain fundamentally Confucian. He was eager to copy and embrace Western technology and knowledge – but not the structures and values of Western society. Feng died in 1874 but his writings had a strong influence on later reformers, including Li Hongzhang, Kang Youwei and the Guangxu Emperor.

Kang Sheng

Kang Sheng (1898-1975, Wade-Giles: K’ang Sheng), was a senior member of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and head of the party’s intelligent bureau or secret police for more than three decades. Kang was born into a land-owning family in Shandong province and attended a boys’ elementary school. He later studied at a German School in Qingdao, taught in a rural school, travelled to Europe, enrolled at Shanghai University and joined the CCP. He became an active labour organiser, participating in activities against the Guomindang and managing to escape Jiang Jieshi‘s clutches during the Shanghai Massacre in April 1927. Kang was arrested in 1930 but was later released. He returned to CCP ranks and was eventually given charge of the Special Work Committee that oversaw the party’s intelligence and security operations.

In 1933 Kang went to Soviet Russia, became involved in the Comintern and worked closely with the Soviet secret police (NKVD). He was elected to the CCP Politburo in absentia and established a party agency called the Office for the Elimination of Counter-Revolutionaries, which targeted Chinese living in Russia. Kang acquired both power and experience in dealing with witnesses and liquidating alleged traitors. He returned to China in November 1937, carrying Joseph Stalin’s orders to bring the CCP back in line with Soviet policies and to maintain the Second United Front against the Japanese. In Yan’an, Kang aligned himself with Mao Zedong, after recognising Mao as the party’s likely leader. Kang’s insight into Soviet motivations in China, coupled with his support for Mao’s wife Jiang Qing, contributed to his rise within the party hierarchy. In Yan’an, Kang oversaw intelligence operations against the Japanese, the Guomindang and within the party. He was a key figure in the Yan’an Rectification Campaign, overseeing interrogations and torturous punishments of party members. Kang was removed from some of his security positions in 1945 but he turned his focus towards the hated landlords, encouraging peasants to kill them and rich peasants during the land reforms of the late 1940s.

Kang’s legacy of retribution and brutality continued in the new society beyond 1949. Between 1950 and 1954 he virtually disappeared from the public view, theoretically because he was unwell. For a time ranked sixth in the party hierarchy, he began to drop down the list rather dramatically – but by May 1956 he was back in public view and had regained his position. Kang was rewarded for his support of Mao during the Great Leap Forward (1958-1961) by being given important positions. He was involved in the purge of Peng Zhen following the Hai Rui Dismissed from Office furore in 1966. He held the positions of Head of the Organisation and Propaganda Leading Group, advisor to the Cultural Revolution Group and Head of the CCP Propaganda Department. Kang also played a leading role in the subjugation of the Red Guards after their excesses early in the Cultural Revolution. As a member of the Central Case Examination Group (CCEG), which was devoted to the persecution of so-called ‘anti-party’ individuals, Kang wielded huge power, with former president Liu Shaoqi the CCEG’s most important victim.

By August 1973 Kang was very ill with cancer and withdrew again from public life, however, he was still appointed a party vice chairman. Kang Sheng was forever adaptable to circumstances, knew how to manipulate alliances and then to strategically withdraw from them, thus avoiding the purges in which he readily participated. After his death on December 16th 1975, Kang Sheng was given a full Communist Party funeral, where he was praised as a “proletarian revolutionary”. In October 1980, just before the disgraced Gang of Four were placed on trial, Kang Sheng was posthumously expelled from the Party. John Byron and Robert Pack described him in their 1972 book The Claws of the Dragon as the “evil genius” behind Mao Zedong and the atrocities he inflicted on the Chinese people.