Editing Zhou Enlai (section)

==Activities during World War II==

===Propaganda and intelligence in Wuhan===
When the Nationalist capital of Nanjing [[Battle of Nanking|fell to the Japanese]] on 13 December 1937, Zhou accompanied the Nationalist government to its temporary capital of [[Wuhan]]. As the chief representative of the CCP in the nominal KMT-CCP cooperation agreement, Zhou established and headed the official KMT-CCP liaison office. While running the liaison office, Zhou established the Yangtze Bureau of the Central Committee. Under cover of its association with the [[Eighth Route Army]], Zhou used the Yangtze Bureau to conduct clandestine operations within southern China, secretly recruiting Communist operatives and establishing Party structures throughout KMT-controlled areas.<ref name="Twentyone1">Barnouin and Yu 71</ref>

In August 1937, the CCP secretly issued orders to Zhou that his united front work was to focus on Communist infiltration and organization at all levels of the government and society. Zhou agreed to these orders, and applied his considerable organizational talents to completing them. Shortly after Zhou's arrival in Wuhan, he convinced the Nationalist government to approve and fund a Communist newspaper, the "New China Daily", justifying it as a tool to spread anti-Japanese propaganda. This newspaper became a major tool for spreading Communist propaganda, and the Nationalists later viewed its approval and funding as one of their "biggest mistakes".<ref name="Seventytwo1">Barnouin and Yu 72</ref>

Zhou was successful in organizing large numbers of Chinese intellectuals and artists to promote resistance against the Japanese. The largest propaganda event that Zhou staged was a week-long celebration in 1938, following the successful [[Battle of Taierzhuang|defense of Taierzhuang]]. In this event, between 400,000 and 500,000 people took part in parades, and a chorus of over 10,000 people sung songs of resistance. Fundraising efforts during the week raised over a million yuan. Zhou himself donated 240 yuan, his monthly salary as deputy director of the Political Department.<ref name="Seventytwo1" />

While he was working in Wuhan, Zhou was the CCP's main contact person with the outside world, and worked hard to reverse the public perception of the Communists as a "bandit organization". Zhou established and maintained contacts with over forty foreign journalists and writers, including [[Edgar Snow]], [[Agnes Smedley]], [[Anna Louise Strong]] and [[Rewi Alley]], many of whom became sympathetic to the Communist cause and wrote about their sympathies in foreign publications. In sympathy with his efforts to promote the CCP to the outside world, Zhou arranged for a Canadian medical team, headed by [[Norman Bethune]], to travel to Yan'an, and assisted the Dutch film director [[Joris Ivens]] in producing a documentary, ''400 Million People''.<ref>Barnouin and Yu 72–73</ref>

Zhou was unsuccessful in averting the public defection of [[Zhang Guotao]], one of the founders of the CCP, to the KMT. Zhang was prepared to defect due to a disagreement with [[Mao Zedong]] over the implementation of the united front policy, and because he resented Mao's authoritarian leadership style. Zhou, with the aid of [[Wang Ming]], [[Bo Gu]] and [[Li Kenong]], intercepted Zhang after he arrived in Wuhan, and engaged in extensive negotiations through April 1938, in order to convince Zhang not to defect, but these negotiations were unsuccessful. In the end, Zhang refused to compromise and placed himself under the protection of the KMT secret police. On 18 April, the CCP Central Committee expelled Zhang from the Party, and Zhang himself issued a statement accusing the CCP of sabotaging efforts to resist the Japanese. The entire episode was a serious setback for Zhou's attempts to improve the prestige of the Party.<ref>Barnouin and Yu 73–74</ref>

===Military strategy in Wuhan===
In January 1938, the Nationalist government appointed Zhou as the deputy director to the Political Department of the Military Committee, working directly under General [[Chen Cheng]]. As a senior Communist statesman holding the rank of lieutenant-general, Zhou was the only Communist to hold a high-level position within the Nationalist government. Zhou used his influence within the Military Committee to promote Nationalist generals that he believed were capable, and to promote cooperation with the Red Army.<ref name="Twentyone1" />

In the [[Battle of Taierzhuang|Tai'erzhuang campaign]], Zhou used his influence to ensure that the most capable Nationalist general available, [[Li Zongren]] be appointed overall commander, despite Chiang's reservations about Li's loyalty. When Chiang was hesitant to commit troops to the defense of [[Tai'erzhuang]], Zhou convinced Chiang to do so by promising that the Communist [[Eighth Route Army]] would simultaneously attack the Japanese from the north, and that the [[New Fourth Army]] would sabotage the [[Tianjin–Pukou Railway|Tianjin-Pukou railroad]], cutting off Japanese supplies. In the end, the defense of Tai'erzhuang was a major victory for the Nationalists, killing 20,000 Japanese soldiers and capturing a large quantity of supplies and equipment.<ref name="Twentyone1" />

===Adoption of orphans===
[[File:Zhouenlai.jpg|right|thumb|220px|Zhou (left) with his wife [[Deng Yingchao]] (center) and [[Sun Weishi]]]]
While serving as the CCP ambassador to the KMT, the childless Zhou met and befriended numerous orphans. While in Wuhan Zhou adopted a young girl, [[Sun Weishi]], in 1937. Sun's mother had taken her to Wuhan after Sun's father was executed by the KMT in 1927, during the [[Shanghai massacre of 1927|White Terror]]. Zhou came upon the sixteen-year-old Sun crying outside of the Eighth Route Army Liaison Office because she had been refused permission to travel to Yan'an, due to her youth and lack of political connections. After Zhou befriended and adopted her as his daughter, Sun was able to travel to Yan'an. She pursued a career in acting and direction, and later became the first female director of spoken drama (''huaju'') in the PRC.<ref name="Lee497">Lee and Stephanowska 497</ref>

Zhou also adopted Sun's brother, Sun Yang.<ref>Zhang 3</ref> After accompanying Zhou to Yan'an, Sun Yang became Zhou's personal assistant. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Sun Yang became the president of [[Renmin University]].<ref name="Lee497" />

In 1938, Zhou met and befriended another orphan, [[Li Peng]]. Li was only three when, in 1931, his father was also killed by the Kuomintang. Zhou subsequently looked after him in [[Yan'an]]. After the war, Zhou systematically groomed Li for leadership and sent him to be educated in energy-related engineering in Moscow. Zhou's placement of Li within the powerful energy bureaucracy shielded Li from [[Red Guards (People's Republic of China)|Red Guards]] during the [[Cultural Revolution]], and Li's eventual rise to the level of Premier surprised no one.<ref>Spence 688</ref>

===Flight to Chongqing===
When the Japanese army approached Wuhan in the fall of 1938, the [[National Revolutionary Army|Nationalist Army]] [[Battle of Wuhan|engaged the Japanese]] in the surrounding regions for over four months, allowing the KMT to withdraw farther inland, to [[Chongqing]], bringing with them important supplies, assets, and many refugees. While he was en route to Chongqing, Zhou was nearly killed in the [[1938 Changsha Fire|"fire of Changsha"]], which lasted for three days, destroyed two thirds of the city, killed twenty thousand civilians, and left hundreds of thousands of people homeless. This fire was deliberately caused by the retreating Nationalist army in order to prevent the city from falling to the Japanese. Due to an organizational error (it was claimed), the fire was begun without any warning to the residents of the city.<ref>Barnouin and Yu 74</ref>

After escaping from [[Changsha]], Zhou took refuge in a Buddhist temple in a nearby village and organized the evacuation of the city. Zhou demanded that the causes of the fire be thoroughly investigated by authorities, that those responsible be punished, that reparations be given to the victims, that the city be thoroughly cleaned up, and that accommodations be provided for the homeless. In the end, the Nationalists blamed three local commanders for the fire and executed them. Newspapers across China blamed the fire on (non-KMT) arsonists, but the blaze contributed to a nationwide loss of support for the KMT.<ref>Barnouin and Yu 74–75</ref>

===Early activities in Chongqing===
Zhou Enlai reached Chongqing in December 1938, and resumed the official and unofficial operations that he had been conducting in Wuhan in January 1938. Zhou's activities included those required by his formal positions within the Nationalist government, his running of two pro-Communist newspapers, and his covert efforts to form reliable intelligence networks and increase the popularity and organization of CCP organizations in southern China. At its peak, the staff working under him in both official and covert roles totaled several hundred people.<ref>Barnouin and Yu 75–76</ref> After finding that his father, Zhou Shaogang, was unable to support himself, Zhou looked after his father in Chongqing until his father's death in 1942.<ref name="BY124" />

Soon after arriving in Chongqing, Zhou successfully lobbied the Nationalist government to release Communist political prisoners. After their release, Zhou often assigned these former prisoners as agents to organize and lead Party organizations throughout southern China. The efforts of Zhou's covert activities were extremely successful, increasing CCP membership across southern China tenfold within months. Chiang was somewhat aware of these activities and introduced efforts to suppress them but was generally unsuccessful.<ref>Barnouin and Yu 76–77</ref>

[[File:Sun Weishi Zhou Enlai in Moscow.jpg|right|thumb|220px|Zhou Enlai and Sun Weishi in Moscow, 1939.]]
In July 1939, while in Yan'an to attend a series of Politburo meetings, Zhou had an accident horseback riding in which he fell and fractured his right elbow. Because there was little medical care available in Yan'an, Zhou traveled to [[Moscow]] for medical treatment, using the occasion to brief the [[Comintern]] on the status of the united front. Zhou arrived in Moscow too late to mend the fracture, and his right arm remained bent for the rest of his life. [[Joseph Stalin]] was so displeased with the CCP's refusal to work more closely with the Nationalists that he refused to see Zhou during his stay.<ref>Barnouin and Yu 77</ref> Zhou's adopted daughter, Sun Weishi, accompanied Zhou to Moscow. She remained in Moscow after Zhou left in order to study for a career in theater.<ref name="Lee497" />

===Intelligence work in Chongqing===
On 4 May 1939, the Politburo accepted Zhou's assessment that Zhou should focus his efforts on creating a network of secret CCP agents working covertly and for long periods. Communists were directed to join the KMT, if doing so would increase the ability of agents to infiltrate the KMT administrative, educational, economic, and military establishments. Under the cover of the Office of the Eighth Route Army (moved to a stately building on the outskirts of Chongqing), Zhou adopted a series of measures to expand the CCP intelligence network.<ref name="BY78">Barnouin and Yu 78</ref>

By the time that Zhou returned to Chongqing in May 1940, a serious rift had formed between the KMT and the CCP. Over the course of the next year, the relationship between the two parties degenerated into arrests and executions of Party members, covert attempts by agents of both sides to eliminate each other, propaganda efforts attacking each other, and major military clashes. The united front was officially abolished after the [[New Fourth Army Incident|Anhui Incident]] in January 1941, when 9,000 Communist soldiers of the [[New Fourth Army]] were ambushed, and their commanders either killed or imprisoned by government troops.<ref>Barnouin and Yu 77, 82–83</ref>

Zhou responded to the rift between the KMT and CCP by directing Party leaders to conduct their operations more secretly. He maintained propaganda efforts via the newspapers that he directed and kept in close contact with foreign journalists and ambassadors. Zhou increased and improved CCP intelligence efforts within the KMT, Wang Jingwei's [[Reorganized National Government of China|Nanjing government]], and the Empire of Japan, recruiting, training, and organizing a large network of Communist spies. [[Yan Baohang]], a secret Party member active in Chongqing diplomatic circles, informed Zhou that [[Führer|German dictator]] [[Adolf Hitler]] was planning to attack the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941. Under Zhou's signature, this information reached Stalin on 20 June, two days before Hitler attacked, though Stalin did not yet believe that Hitler would actually carry through with the attack.<ref>Barnouin and Yu 82–87</ref>

===Economic and diplomatic activities===
Despite worsening relations with [[Chiang Kai-shek]], Zhou operated openly in Chongqing, befriending Chinese and foreign visitors and staging public cultural activities, especially Chinese theater. Zhou cultivated a close personal friendship with General [[Feng Yuxiang]], making it possible for Zhou to circulate freely among the officers of the Nationalist Army. Zhou befriended the General He Jifeng, and convinced He to secretly become a member of the CCP during an official visit to Yan'an. Zhou's intelligence agents penetrated the [[Sichuan]]ese army of General [[Deng Xihou]], resulting in Deng's secret agreement to supply ammunition to the Communist New Fourth Army. Zhou convinced another Sichuanese general, [[Li Wenhui]], to covertly install a radio transmitter that facilitated secret communication between Yan'an and Chongqing. Zhou befriended [[Zhang Zhizhong]] and [[Nong Yun]], commanders in the [[Yunnan]] armed forces, who became secret CCP members, agreed to cooperate with the CCP against Chiang Kai-shek, and established a clandestine radio station that broadcast Communist propaganda from the provincial government building in [[Kunming]].<ref>Barnouin and Yu 88</ref>

Zhou remained the primary CCP representative to the outside world during his time in Chongqing. Zhou and his aides [[Qiao Guanhua]], [[Gong Peng]] and [[Wang Bingnan]] enjoyed receiving foreign visitors and made a favorable impression among American, British, Canadian, Russian, and other foreign diplomats. Zhou struck visitors as charming, urbane, hard-working, and living a very simple lifestyle. In 1941, Zhou received a visit from [[Ernest Hemingway]] and his wife, [[Martha Gellhorn]]. Gellhorn later wrote that she and Ernest were extremely impressed with Zhou (and extremely unimpressed with Chiang), and they became convinced that the Communists would take over China after meeting him.<ref>Barnouin and Yu 89</ref>

Because Yan'an was incapable of funding Zhou's activities, Zhou partially funded his efforts through donations from sympathetic foreigners, overseas Chinese, and the [[China Welfare Institute|China Defense League]] (supported by Sun Yat-sen's widow, [[Soong Ching-ling]]). Zhou also undertook to start and run a number of businesses throughout KMT- and Japanese- controlled China. Zhou's businesses grew to include several trading companies operating in several Chinese cities (primarily Chongqing and Hong Kong), a silk and satin store in Chongqing, an oil refinery, and factories for producing industrial materials, cloths, Western medicines, and other commodities.<ref name="BY80">Barnouin and Yu 79–80</ref>

Under Zhou, Communist businessmen made great profits in currency trading and commodity speculation, especially in American dollars and gold. Zhou's most lucrative business was generated by several opium plantations that Zhou established in remote areas. Although the CCP had been engaged in the eradication of opium smoking since its establishment, Zhou justified opium production and distribution in KMT-controlled areas by the huge profits generated for the CCP, and by the debilitating effects that opium addiction might have on KMT soldiers and government officials.<ref name="BY80" />

===Relationship with Mao Zedong===
In 1943, Zhou's relationship with Chiang Kai-shek deteriorated, and he returned permanently to Yan'an. By then, Mao Zedong had emerged as the [[Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party]] and was attempting to have his political theories (literally [[Maoism|"Mao Zedong Thought"]]) accepted as the Party's dogma. Following his ascent to power, Mao organized [[Yan'an Rectification Movement|a campaign]] to indoctrinate the members of the CCP. This campaign became the foundation of the Maoist personality cult that later dominated Chinese politics until the end of the [[Cultural Revolution]].<ref name="Ninetyfive1">Barnouin and Yu 91–95</ref>

After returning to Yan'an, Zhou Enlai was strongly and excessively criticized in this campaign. Zhou was labelled, along with the generals [[Peng Dehuai]], [[Liu Bocheng]], [[Ye Jianying]], and [[Nie Rongzhen]], as an "empiricist" because he had a history of cooperating with the Comintern and with Mao's enemy, [[Wang Ming]]. Mao publicly attacked Zhou as "a collaborator and assistant of dogmatism... who belittled the study of Marxism-Leninism". Mao and his allies then claimed that the CCP organizations that Zhou had established in southern China were in fact led by KMT secret agents, a charge which Zhou firmly denied, and which was only withdrawn after Mao became convinced of Zhou's loyalty in the latest period of the campaign.<ref name="Ninetyfive1" />

Zhou defended himself by engaging in a long series of public reflections and self-criticisms, and he gave a number of speeches praising Mao and Mao Zedong Thought and giving his unconditional acceptance of Mao's leadership. He also joined Mao's allies in attacking [[Peng Shuzhi]], [[Chen Duxiu]], and [[Wang Ming]], who Mao viewed as enemies. The persecution of Zhou Enlai distressed Moscow, and [[Georgi Dimitrov]] wrote a personal letter to Mao indicating that "Zhou Enlai... must not be severed from the Party." In the end, Zhou's enthusiastic acknowledgement of his own faults, his praise for Mao's leadership, and his attacks on Mao's enemies eventually convinced Mao that Zhou's conversion to Maoism was genuine, a precondition for Zhou's political survival. By the seventh congress of the CCP in 1945, Mao was acknowledged as the overall leader of the CCP, and the dogma of Mao Zedong Thought was firmly entrenched among the Party's leadership.<ref name="Ninetyfive1" />