Editing Zhou Enlai (section)

===The Jiangxi Soviet===
{{Main|Jiangxi–Fujian Soviet}}
Following the failed Nanchang and Autumn Harvest Uprisings of 1927, the Communists began to focus on establishing a series of rural bases of operation in southern China. Even before moving to Jiangxi, Zhou had become involved in the politics of these bases. Mao, claiming the need to eliminate counterrevolutionaries and Anti-Bolsheviks operating within the CCP, began an ideological purge of the populace inside the Jiangxi Soviet. Zhou, perhaps due to his own success planting moles within various levels of the KMT, agreed that an organized campaign to uncover subversion was justified, and supported the campaign as de facto leader of the CCP.<ref>Barnouin and Yu 49</ref>

Mao's efforts soon developed into a ruthless campaign driven by paranoia and aimed not only at KMT spies, but at anyone with an ideological outlook different from Mao's. Suspects were commonly tortured until they confessed to their crimes and accused others of crimes, and wives and relatives who inquired of those being tortured were themselves arrested and tortured even more severely. Mao's attempts to purge the Red Army of those who might potentially oppose him led Mao to accuse [[Chen Yi (communist)|Chen Yi]], the commander and political commissar of the Jiangxi Military Region, as a counterrevolutionary, provoking a violent reaction against Mao's persecutions that became known as the "Futian Incident" in January 1931. Mao was eventually successful in subduing the Red Army, reducing its numbers from forty thousand to less than ten thousand. The campaign continued throughout 1930 and 1931. Historians estimate the total number who died due to Mao's persecution in all base areas to be approximately one hundred thousand.<ref>Barnouin and Yu 49–51</ref>

The entire campaign occurred while Zhou was still in Shanghai. Although he had supported the elimination of counterrevolutionaries, Zhou actively suppressed the campaign when he arrived in Jiangxi in December 1931, criticizing the "excess, the panic, and the oversimplification" practiced by local officials. After investigating those accused of anti-Bolshevism, and those persecuting them, Zhou submitted a report criticizing the campaign for focusing on the narrow persecution of anti-Maoists as anti-Bolsheviks, exaggerating the threat to the Party, and condemning the use of torture as an investigative technique. Zhou's resolution was passed and adopted on 7 January 1932, and the campaign gradually subsided.<ref>Barnouin and Yu 51–52</ref>

Zhou moved to the [[Jiangxi]] base area and shook up the propaganda-oriented approach to revolution by demanding that the armed forces under Communist control actually be used to expand the base, rather than just to control and defend it. In December 1931, Zhou replaced [[Mao Zedong]] as Secretary of the First Front Army with [[Xiang Ying]], and made himself political commissar of the Red Army, in place of Mao. Liu Bocheng, Lin Biao and [[Peng Dehuai]] all criticized Mao's tactics at the October 1932 [[Ningdu Conference]].<ref>Whitson and Huang 57–58</ref><ref name=wortzel1999>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rfu-hR8msh4C&pg=PA190|title=Dictionary of Contemporary Chinese Military History|isbn=9780313293375|last1=Wortzel|first1=Larry M|last2=Higham|first2=Robin D. S|year=1999|publisher=Bloomsbury Academic }}</ref>

After moving to Jiangxi, Zhou met Mao for the first time since 1927, and began his long relationship with Mao as his superior. In the Ningdu conference, Mao was demoted to being a figurehead in the Soviet government. Zhou, who had come to appreciate Mao's strategies after the series of military failures waged by other Party leaders since 1927, defended Mao, but was unsuccessful. After achieving power, Mao later purged or demoted those who had opposed him in 1932, but remembered Zhou's defense of his policies.<ref>Barnouin and Yu 52–55</ref>