Editing Zhou Enlai (section)

===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.