Editing Zhou Enlai (section)

==Early life==

=== Youth ===
[[File:Zhouenlai1912.jpg|thumb|left|Zhou Enlai (1912)]]
Zhou Enlai was born in [[Huai'an]], [[Jiangsu]] province, on 5 March 1898, the first son of his branch of the Zhou family. The Zhou family was originally from [[Shaoxing]] in [[Zhejiang]] province. During the late [[Qing dynasty]], Shaoxing was famous as the home of families such as Zhou's, whose members worked as government "clerks" (師爷, shiye) generation after generation.<ref>Lee 7</ref> To move up the ladder in civil service, the men in these families often had to be transferred, and in the late years of the Qing dynasty, Zhou Enlai's branch of the family moved to Huai'an. Even after the move, however, the family continued to view Shaoxing as its ancestral home.<ref>Lee 6</ref>

Zhou's grandfather, Zhou Panlong, and his granduncle, Zhou Jun'ang, were the first members of the family to move to Huai'an. Panlong apparently passed the provincial examinations, and Zhou Enlai later claimed that Panlong served as magistrate governing Huai'an county.<ref>Lee (180 n7) cites a recent study that claims Zhou Panlong did not actually serve as county magistrate.</ref> Zhou's father, Zhou Yineng, was the second of Zhou Panlong's four sons. Zhou's birth mother, surnamed Wan, was the daughter of a prominent Jiangsu official.{{NoteTag|During the Cultural Revolution, when "red" (poor) family background became essential for everything from college admission to government service, Zhou had to go back to his mother's mother whom he claimed was a farmer's daughter, to find a family member who qualified as "red".<ref name="Barnouin and Yu 11">Barnouin and Yu 11</ref>}}

Like many others, the economic fortunes of Zhou's large family of scholar-officials were decimated by a great economic recession that China suffered in the late 19th century. [[Zhou Yineng]] had a reputation for honesty, gentleness, intelligence and concern for others, but was also considered "weak" and "lacking in discipline and determination". He was unsuccessful in his personal life, and drifted across China doing various occupations, working in [[Beijing]], [[Shandong]], [[Anhui]], [[Shenyang]], [[Inner Mongolia]] and [[Sichuan]]. Zhou Enlai later remembered his father as being always away from home and generally unable to support his family.<ref>Barnouin and Yu 9</ref>

Soon after birth, Zhou Enlai was adopted by his father's youngest brother, Zhou Yigan, who was ill with tuberculosis. Apparently, the adoption was arranged because the family feared Yigan would die without an heir.{{NoteTag|This is the reason for the adoption given in Gao (23). Lee (11) suggests that it was due to the belief that having a son could cure a father's illness.}} Zhou Yigan died soon after the adoption, and Zhou Enlai was raised by Yigan's widow, whose surname was Chen. Madame Chen was also from a scholarly family and received a traditional literary education. According to Zhou's own account, he was very close to his adoptive mother and acquired his lasting interest in Chinese literature and opera from her. Madame Chen taught Zhou to read and write at an early age, and Zhou later claimed to have read the famous vernacular novel ''[[Journey to the West]]'' at the age of six.<ref>Lee 17, 21</ref> By the age of eight, he was reading other traditional Chinese novels, including ''the [[Water Margin]]'', ''[[Romance of the Three Kingdoms]]'', and ''[[Dream of the Red Chamber]]''.<ref name="Barnouin and Yu 11"/>

Zhou's birth mother Wan died in 1907 when Zhou was 9, and his adoptive mother Chen in 1908 when Zhou was 10. Zhou's father was working in Hubei, far from Jiangsu, so Zhou and his two younger brothers returned to Huai'an and lived with his father's remaining younger brother Yikui for the next two years.<ref>Lee 16–17</ref> In 1910, Zhou's uncle Yigeng, his father's older brother, offered to care for Zhou. The family in Huai'an agreed, and Zhou was sent to stay with his uncle in Manchuria at Fengtian (now [[Shenyang]]), where Zhou Yigeng worked in a government office.{{NoteTag|Zhou's father may have also been in Manchuria at this time, and Zhou may have lived with him for a while. Afterward Zhou's contacts with his father diminished. He died in 1941. See Lee 19–21 for a discussion of Zhou's relationship with his father.}}

===Education===
[[File:Zhou enlai student.jpg|thumb|right|Zhou Enlai as a student in [[Tianjin Nankai Middle School|Nankai Middle School]]]]
In Fengtian, Zhou attended the Dongguan Model Academy, a modern-style school. His previous education consisted entirely of homeschooling. In addition to new subjects such as English and science, Zhou was also exposed to the writings of reformers and radicals such as [[Liang Qichao]], [[Kang Youwei]], [[Chen Tianhua]], [[Zou Rong]], and [[Zhang Binglin]].<ref>Lee 25–26</ref><ref>Barnouin and Yu 13–14</ref> At the age of fourteen, Zhou declared that his motivation for pursuing education was to "become a great man who will take up the heavy responsibilities of the country in the future."<ref>Barnouin and Yu 14</ref> In 1913, Zhou's uncle was transferred to Tianjin, where Zhou entered the famous [[Tianjin Nankai High School|Nankai Middle School]].

Nankai Middle School was founded by [[Yan Xiu]], a prominent scholar and philanthropist, and headed by [[Zhang Boling]], one of the most important Chinese educators of the 20th century.<ref>Boorman "Chang Po-ling" (101) calls him "one of the founders of modern education in China".</ref> Nankai's teaching methods were unusual by contemporary Chinese standards. By the time Zhou began attending, it had adopted the educational model used at the [[Phillips Academy]] in the United States.<ref>Lee 39, 46</ref> The school's reputation, with its "highly disciplined" daily routine and "strict moral code",<ref>Lee 43</ref> attracted many students who later became prominent in public life. Zhou's friends and classmates there ranged from [[Ma Jun (20th century Chinese communist leader)|Ma Jun]] (an early communist leader executed in 1927) to [[Wu Guozhen|K. C. Wu]] (later mayor of Shanghai and governor of Taiwan under the Nationalist party).<ref>Lee 55 and 44</ref> Zhou's talents also attracted the attention of Yan Xiu and Zhang Boling. Yan in particular thought highly of Zhou, helping to pay for his studies in Japan and later France.<ref>Lee 77 and 152</ref>

Yan was so impressed with Zhou that he encouraged Zhou to marry his daughter, but Zhou declined. Zhou later expressed the reasons for his decision not to marry Yan's daughter to his classmate, [[Zhang Honghao]]. Zhou said that he declined the marriage because he feared that his financial prospects would not be promising, and that Yan would, as his father-in-law, later dominate his life.<ref>Barnouin and Yu 16</ref>

Zhou did well in his studies at Nankai; he excelled in Chinese, won several awards in the school speech club, and became editor of the school newspaper in his final year. Zhou was also very active in acting and producing dramas and plays at Nankai; many students who were not otherwise acquainted with him knew of him through his acting.<ref>Lee 64–66</ref> Nankai preserves a number of essays and articles written by Zhou at this time, and these reflect the discipline, training, and concern for country that Nankai's founders attempted to instill in their students. At the school's tenth commencement in June 1917, Zhou was one of five graduating students honored at the ceremony, and one of the two valedictorians.<ref>Lee 74</ref>

By the time that he graduated from Nankai, Zhang Boling's teachings of ''gong'' (public spirit) and ''neng'' (ability) had made a great impression on him. His participation in debates and stage performances contributed to his eloquence and skills of persuasion. Zhou left Nankai with a great desire to pursue public service, and to acquire the skills required to do so.<ref>Barnouin and Yu 18</ref>

Following many of his classmates, Zhou went to Japan in July 1917 for further studies. During his two years in Japan, Zhou spent most of his time in the East Asian Higher Preparatory School, a language school for Chinese students. Zhou's studies were supported by his uncles, and apparently Nankai founder Yan Xiu as well, but their funds were limited; during this period, Japan suffered from severe inflation.<ref>Lee 86 103</ref> Zhou originally planned to win one of the scholarships offered by the Chinese government; these scholarships, however, required Chinese students to pass entrance examinations in Japanese universities. Zhou took entrance examinations for at least two schools but failed to gain admission.<ref>Lee 89</ref> Zhou's reported anxieties were compounded by the death of his uncle, [[Zhou Yikui]], his inability to master Japanese, and the acute Japanese cultural chauvinism that discriminated against Chinese. By the time that Zhou returned to China in the spring of 1919, he had become deeply disenchanted with Japanese culture, rejecting the idea that the Japanese political model was relevant to China and disdaining the values of elitism and militarism that he observed.<ref>Barnouin and Yu 29–30</ref>

Zhou's diaries and letters from his time in Tokyo show a deep interest in politics and current events, in particular, the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the Bolsheviks' new policies. He began to read avidly [[Chen Duxiu]]'s progressive and left-leaning magazine, ''New Youth''.<ref>Barnouin and Yu 21</ref> He read early Japanese works on Marx, and it has been claimed that he even attended [[Kawakami Hajime]]'s lectures at Kyoto University. Kawakami was an important figure in the early history of Japanese Marxism, and his translations and articles influenced a generation of Chinese communists.<ref>Boorman (332) makes the claim that Zhou attended Kawakami's lectures</ref> However, it now seems unlikely that Zhou met him or heard any of his lectures.<ref>Lee 104</ref> Zhou's diaries also show his interest in Chinese student protests in opposition to the [[Sino-Japanese Joint Defense Agreement]] in May 1918, but he did not actively participate in them or return to China as part of the "Returning Home Movement".<ref>Itoh 113–114</ref> His active role in political movements began after his return to China.

===Early political activities===
[[File:Premier Zhou 1919.jpg|thumb|left|A young Zhou Enlai (1919)]]
Zhou returned to Tianjin sometime in the spring of 1919. Historians disagree over his participation in the [[May Fourth Movement]] (May to June 1919). Zhou's "official" Chinese biography states that he was a leader of the Tianjin student protests in the May Fourth movement,<ref name="Barnouin and Yu 22">Barnouin and Yu 22</ref> but many modern scholars believe that it is highly unlikely that Zhou participated at all, based on the total lack of direct evidence among the surviving records from the period.<ref name="Barnouin and Yu 22"/><ref>Lee 118–119</ref> In July 1919, however, Zhou became editor of the Tianjin Student Union Bulletin, apparently at the request of his Nankai classmate, [[Ma Jun (20th century Chinese communist leader)|Ma Jun]], a founder of the Union.<ref>Lee 125</ref> During its brief existence from July 1919 to early 1920, the Bulletin was widely read by student groups around the country and suppressed on at least one occasion by the national government as "harmful to public safety and social order."<ref>Lee 127–8</ref>

When [[Nankai University|Nankai became a university]] in August 1919, Zhou was in the first class, but was an activist full-time. His political activities continued to expand, and in September, he and several other students agreed to establish the "Awakening Society", a small group, never numbering more than 25.<ref>Lee 133.</ref> In explaining the goals and purpose of the Awakening Society, Zhou declared that "anything that is incompatible with progress in current times, such as militarism, the bourgeoisie, partylords, bureaucrats, inequality between men and women, obstinate ideas, obsolete morals, old ethics... should be abolished or reformed", and affirmed that it was the purpose of the Society to spread this awareness among the Chinese people. It was in this society that Zhou first met his future wife, [[Deng Yingchao]].<ref>Barnouin and Yu 23</ref> In some ways, the Awakening Society resembled the clandestine Marxist study group at [[Peking University]] headed by [[Li Dazhao]], with the group members using numbers instead of names for "secrecy". (Zhou was "Number Five", a pseudonym which he continued to use in later years.)<ref>Lee 137</ref> Indeed, immediately after the group was established, it invited Li Dazhao to give a lecture on Marxism.

Zhou assumed a more prominent active role in political activities over the next few months.<ref>Lee 138</ref> The largest of these activities were rallies in support of a nationwide boycott of Japanese goods. As the boycott became more effective, the national government, under pressure from Japan, attempted to suppress it. On 23 January 1920, a confrontation over boycott activities in Tianjin led to the arrest of a number of people, including several Awakening Society members, and on 29 January Zhou led a march on the Governor's Office in Tianjin to present a petition calling for the arrestees' release. Zhou and three other leaders were themselves arrested. The arrestees were held for over six months; during their detention, Zhou supposedly organized discussions on Marxism.<ref>Lee 139</ref> At their trial in July, Zhou and six others were sentenced to two months; the rest were found not guilty. All were immediately released since they had already been held over six months.

After Zhou's release, he and the Awakening Society met with several Beijing organizations and agreed to form a "Reform Federation"; during these activities Zhou became more familiar with Li Dazhao and met Zhang Shenfu, who was the contact between Li in Beijing and [[Chen Duxiu]] in Shanghai. Both men were organizing underground Communist cells in cooperation with [[Grigori Voitinsky]],<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.cinaforum.net/july-1-1921-foundation-of-the-communist-party-of-china/|title=July 1, 1921, "Foundation of the Communist Party of China" – CINAFORUM|date=1 July 2014|work=CINAFORUM|access-date=20 May 2018|language=it-IT|archive-date=21 May 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180521104334/http://www.cinaforum.net/july-1-1921-foundation-of-the-communist-party-of-china/|url-status=dead}}</ref> a Comintern agent, but Zhou apparently did not meet Voitinsky at this point.

Soon after his release, Zhou decided to go to Europe to study. (He was expelled from Nankai University during his detention.) Although money was a problem, he received a scholarship from [[Yan Xiu]].<ref>Lee 152</ref> In order to gain greater funding, he successfully approached a Tianjin newspaper, ''Yishi bao'' (literally, Current Events Newspaper), for work as a "special correspondent" in Europe. Zhou left Shanghai for Europe on 7 November 1920 with a group of 196 work study students, including friends from Nankai and Tianjin.<ref name="Twentyfive1">Barnouin and Yu 25</ref>

Zhou's experiences after the May Fourth incident seem to have been crucial to his Communist career.{{clarify|date=April 2017}} Zhou's friends in the Awakening Society were similarly affected. 15 of the group's members became Communists for at least some time, and the group remained close later on. Zhou and six other group members travelled to Europe in the next two years, and Zhou eventually married [[Deng Yingchao]], the group's youngest member.

===European activities===
[[File:Zhou Enlai 3.jpg|thumb|right|Zhou during his time in France (1920s)]]
Zhou's group arrived in [[Marseille]] on 13 December 1920. Unlike most other Chinese students, who went to Europe on work-study programs, Zhou's scholarship and position with ''Yishi bao'' meant that he was well provided for and did not have to do any work during his stay. Because of his financial position, he was able to devote himself full-time to revolutionary activities.<ref name="Twentyfive1" /> In a letter to his cousin on 30 January 1921, Zhou said that his goals in Europe were to survey the social conditions in foreign countries and their methods of resolving social issues, in order to apply such lessons in China after his return. In the same letter, Zhou told his cousin that, regarding his adoption of a specific ideology, "I still have to make up my mind."<ref name="twentysix1">Barnouin and Yu 26</ref>

While in Europe, Zhou, also named as John Knight, studied the differing approaches to resolving class conflict adopted by various European nations. In London in January 1921, Zhou witnessed a large miners' strike and wrote a series of articles for the ''Yishi bao'' (generally sympathetic to the miners) examining the conflict between workers and employers, and the conflict's resolution. After five weeks in London he moved to Paris, where interest in Russia's 1917 [[October Revolution]] was high. In a letter to his cousin, Zhou identified two broad paths of reform for China: "gradual reform" (as in England) or "violent means" (as in Russia). Zhou wrote that "I do not have a preference for either the Russian or the British way... I would prefer something in-between, rather than one of these two extremes".<ref name="twentysix1" />

Still interested in academic programs, Zhou traveled to Britain in January 1921 to visit [[Edinburgh University]]. Concerned by financial problems and language requirements, he did not enroll, returning to France at the end of January. There are no records of Zhou entering any academic program in France. In spring 1921, he joined a Chinese Communist cell.{{NoteTag|The date of this has been controversial. Most writers, such as Gao (41), now accept March 1921. Several of these cells were established in late 1920 and early 1921. The cells were organized before the Chinese Communist Party was established in July 1921, so there is some controversy over the membership status of cell members.}} Zhou was recruited by [[Zhang Shenfu]], whom he had met in August of the previous year in connection with [[Li Dazhao]]. He also knew Zhang through Zhang's wife, [[Liu Qingyang]], a member of the Awakening Society. Zhou has sometimes been portrayed at this time as uncertain in his politics,<ref>Gao 40, Levine 150</ref> but his swift move to Communism suggests otherwise.{{NoteTag|In addition to noting the uncertain status of cell members versus party members, Levine (151 n47) questions whether Zhou was at this point a "stalwart" Communist in his beliefs.}}

The cell Zhou belonged to was based in Paris;<ref>Goebel, [http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/history/twentieth-century-european-history/anti-imperial-metropolis-interwar-paris-and-seeds-third-world-nationalism?format=HB#contentsTabAnchor ''Anti-Imperial Metropolis''], pp.&nbsp;1–2.</ref> in addition to Zhou, Zhang, and Liu it included two other students, Zhao Shiyan and Chen Gongpei. Over the next several months, this group eventually formed a united organization with a group of Chinese radicals from Hunan, who were living in Montargis south of Paris. This group included such later prominent figures as [[Cai Hesen]], [[Li Lisan]], [[Chen Yi (marshal)|Chen Yi]], [[Nie Rongzhen]], [[Deng Xiaoping]], and also Guo Longzhen, another member of the Awakening Society. Unlike Zhou, most of the students in this group were participants in the work-study program. A series of conflicts with the Chinese administrators of the program over low pay and poor working conditions resulted in over a hundred students occupying the program's offices at the Sino-French Institute in Lyon in September 1921. The students, including several people from the Montargis group, were arrested and deported. Zhou was apparently not one of the occupying students and remained in France until February or March 1922, when he moved with Zhang and Liu from Paris to Berlin. Zhou's move to Berlin was perhaps because the relatively "lenient" political atmosphere in Berlin made it more favorable as a base for overall European organizing.<ref>Lee 159</ref> In addition, the Western European Secretariat of the [[Comintern]] was located in Berlin and it is clear that Zhou had important Comintern connections, though the nature of these is disputed.<ref>Levine 169–172</ref> After moving operations to Germany, Zhou regularly shuttled between Paris and Berlin.

Zhou participated in the [[Diligent Work-Frugal Study Movement]].<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Marquis |first1=Christopher |url= |title=Mao and Markets: The Communist Roots of Chinese Enterprise |last2=Qiao |first2=Kunyuan |date=2022 |publisher=[[Yale University Press]] |isbn=978-0-300-26883-6 |location=New Haven |pages= |doi=10.2307/j.ctv3006z6k |jstor=j.ctv3006z6k |oclc=1348572572 |author-link=Christopher Marquis |s2cid=253067190}}</ref>{{Rp|page=37}}

Zhou returned to Paris by June 1922, where he was one of the twenty two participants present at the organization of the [[Chinese Youth Communist Party]], established as the European Branch of the Chinese Communist Party.{{NoteTag|This description is based on Lee 161. Other sources give varying dates, places and numbers of people.}} Zhou helped draft the party's charter and was elected to the three member executive committee as director of propaganda.<ref>Barnouin and Yu 27</ref> He also wrote for and helped edit the party magazine, ''Shaonian'' (Youth), later renamed ''Chiguang'' (Red Light). It was in Zhou's capacity as general editor of this magazine that Zhou first met [[Deng Xiaoping]], only seventeen years old, whom Zhou hired to operate a mimeograph (copy) machine.<ref>Barnouin and Yu 28</ref> The party went through several reorganizations and name changes, but Zhou remained a key member of the group throughout his stay in Europe. Other important activities Zhou undertook included recruiting and transporting students for the [[Communist University of the Toilers of the East|University of the Toilers of the East]] in Moscow, and the establishment of the Chinese Nationalist Party ([[Kuomintang]] or KMT) European branch.

In June 1923, the Third Congress of the Chinese Communist Party accepted the Comintern's instructions to ally with the KMT, led at the time by [[Sun Yat-sen]]. These instructions called for CCP members to join the Nationalist Party as "individuals", while still retaining their association with the CCP. After joining the KMT, they would work to lead and direct it, transforming it into a vehicle of revolution. Within several years, this strategy would become the source of serious conflict between the KMT and the CCP.<ref>Barnouin and Yu 31</ref>

As well as joining the KMT, Zhou helped organize the founding of the Nationalist Party European branch in November 1923. Under Zhou's influence, most of the European branch's officers were in fact communists. Zhou's wide-ranging contacts and personal relationships formed during this period were central to his career. Important party leaders, such as [[Zhu De]] and [[Nie Rongzhen]], were first admitted to the party by Zhou.

By 1924, the Soviet-Nationalist alliance was expanding rapidly and Zhou was summoned back to China for further work. He left Europe probably in late July 1924,{{NoteTag|Lee cites Zhou's last public activity in Europe as a Nationalist Party farewell dinner on 24 July.}} returning to China as one of the most senior Chinese Communist Party members in Europe.