Editing Zhou Enlai (section)

==Nationalist-Communist split==

===Extent of cooperation===
Zhou's activities immediately after his removal from his positions at Whampoa are uncertain. An earlier biographer claims that Chiang Kai-shek put Zhou in charge of "an advanced training center for the CCP members and commissars withdrawn from the army".<ref>Hsu 53</ref> More recent Chinese Communist sources claim that Zhou had an important role at this time in securing Communist control of [[Ye Ting]]'s Independent Regiment. The regiment and Ye Ting later played a leading role in the Communists' first major military action, the [[Nanchang Uprising|Nanchang Revolt]].<ref name="Barnouin and Yu 35"/>

In July 1926, the Nationalists began the [[Northern Expedition]], a massive military attempt to unify China. The Expedition was led by [[Chiang Kai-shek]] and the [[National Revolutionary Army]] (NRA), an amalgam of earlier military forces with significant guidance from Russian military advisors and numerous Communists as both commanding and political officers. With the early successes of the Expedition, there was soon a race between Chiang Kai-shek leading the "right-wing" of the Nationalist Party and the Communists, running inside the "left-wing" of the Nationalists, for control of major southern cities such as Nanjing and Shanghai. At this point the Chinese portion of Shanghai was controlled by [[Sun Chuanfang]], one of the militarists targeted by the North Expedition. Distracted by fighting with the NRA and defections from his army, Sun reduced his forces in Shanghai, and the Communists, whose party headquarters was located in Shanghai, made three attempts to seize control of the city, later called "the three Shanghai Uprisings", in October 1926, February 1927 and March 1927.

===Activities in Shanghai===
[[File:Zhou Enlai 1927.jpg|thumb|right|230px|Zhou Enlai (1927)]]
Zhou was transferred to Shanghai to assist in these activities, probably in late 1926. It seems he was not present for the first uprising on 23–24 October,<ref>Hsu 55–56</ref> but he was certainly in Shanghai by December 1926. Early accounts credit Zhou with labor organizing activities in Shanghai after his arrival, or, more credibly, working to "strengthen the indoctrination of political workers in labor unions and smuggle arms for the strikers."<ref>Hsu 56</ref> Reports that Zhou "organized" or "ordered" the second and third uprisings on 20 February and 21 March exaggerate his role. Major decisions during this period were made by the Communist head in Shanghai, [[Chen Duxiu]], the Party's general secretary, with a special committee of eight party officials coordinating Communist actions. The committee also consulted closely on decisions with the Comintern representatives in Shanghai, headed by [[Grigori Voitinsky]].<ref>Smith 228</ref> The partial documentation available for this period shows that Zhou headed the Communist Party Central Committee's Military Commission in Shanghai.<ref>Smith 226</ref> He participated in both the February and March actions, but was not the guiding hand in either event, instead working with A. P. Appen, the Soviet military advisor to the Central Committee, training the pickets of the General Labor Union, the Communist controlled labor organization in Shanghai. He also worked to make union strong arm squads more effective when the Communists declared a "Red Terror" after the failed February uprising; this action resulted in the murder of twenty "anti-union" figures, and the kidnapping, beating, and intimidation of others associated with anti-union activities.<ref>Smith 227</ref>

The third Communist uprising in Shanghai took place from 20 to 21 March. Approximately 600,000 rioting workers cut power and telephone lines and seized the city's post office, police headquarters, and railway stations, often after heavy fighting. During this uprising, the insurrectionists were under strict orders not to harm foreigners, which they obeyed. The forces of [[Sun Chuanfang]] withdrew and the uprising was successful, despite the small number of armed forces available. The first Nationalist troops entered the city the next day.<ref>Spence 335</ref>

As the Communists attempted to install a soviet municipal government, conflict began between the Nationalists and Communists, and on 12 April Nationalist forces, including both members of the [[Green Gang]] and soldiers under the command of Nationalist general [[Pai Ch'ung-hsi]] attacked the Communists and quickly overcame them. On the eve of the Nationalist attack, [[Wang Shouhua]], who was both the head of the CCP Labor Committee and the Chairman of the General Labor Committee, accepted a dinner invitation from [[Du Yuesheng|"Big-eared Du"]] (a Shanghai gangster) and was strangled after he arrived. Zhou himself was nearly killed in a similar trap, when he was arrested after arriving at a dinner held at the headquarters of Si Lie, a Nationalist commander of Chiang's Twenty-sixth Army. Despite rumors that Chiang had put a high price on Zhou's head, he was quickly released by Pai Ch'ung-hsi's forces. The reasons for Zhou's sudden release may have been that Zhou was then the most senior Communist in Shanghai, that Chiang's efforts to exterminate the Shanghai Communists were highly secretive at the time, and that his execution would have been noticed as a violation of the cooperation agreement between the CCP and the KMT (which was technically still in effect). Zhou was finally only released after the intervention of a representative of the Twenty-sixth Army, Zhao Shu, who was able to convince his commanders that the arrest of Zhou had been a mistake.<ref>Barnouin and Yu 37</ref>

===Flight from Shanghai===
Fleeing Shanghai, Zhou made his way to [[Hankou]] (now part of [[Wuhan]]) and was a participant at the CCP's 5th National Congress there from 27 April to 9 May. At the end of the Congress, Zhou was elected to the Party's Central Committee, again heading the military department.<ref>Hsu 58</ref> After Chiang Kai-shek's suppression of the Communists, the Nationalist Party split in two, with the Nationalist Party's "left-wing" (led by [[Wang Jingwei]]) controlling the government in Hankou, and the party "right-wing" (led by Chiang Kai-shek) establishing a rival government in Nanjing. Still following Comintern instructions, the Communists remained as a "bloc inside" the Nationalist Party, hoping to continue expanding their influence through the Nationalists.<ref name="Hsu61">Hsu 61–64</ref> After being attacked by a warlord friendly to Chiang, Wang's leftist government disintegrated later in May 1927, and Chiang's troops began an organized purge of Communists in territories formerly controlled by Wang.<ref>Barnoun and Yu 38</ref> In mid-July Zhou was forced to go underground.<ref name="Hsu61" />

Pressured by their Comintern advisors, and themselves convinced that the "revolutionary high tide" had arrived, the Communists decided to launch a series of military revolts.<ref>Hsu 64</ref> The first of these was the [[Nanchang Uprising|Nanchang Revolt]]. Zhou was sent to oversee the event, but the moving figures seem to have been [[Tan Pingshan]] and [[Li Lisan]], while the main military figures were [[Ye Ting]] and [[He Long]]. In military terms, the revolt was a disaster, with the Communists' forces decimated and scattered.<ref>Wilbur</ref>

Zhou himself contracted malaria during the campaign and was secretly sent to Hong Kong for medical treatment by [[Nie Rongzhen]] and Ye Ting. After reaching Hong Kong, Zhou was disguised as a businessman named "Li" and entrusted to the care of local Communists. In a subsequent meeting of the CCP Central Committee, Zhou was blamed for the failure of the Nanchang campaign and temporarily demoted to being an alternate member of the Politburo.<ref>Barnouin and Yu 40–41</ref>