China in mourning for great military leader

Press, 8 July 1976, Page 8

China in mourning for great military leader

NZPA New York For as long as war continues to be regarded by men as an adventure as well as a tragedy, and as long as battles continue to be identified with the names of their victorious commanders rather than with their casualties, Marshal Chu Teh, who has died in Peking at the age of 90, will be remembered as one of the most extraordinary soldiers in history, writes John L. Hess, of the New York Times News Service (through the N.Z.P.A.).

He was the commander of the Chinese Red Army in three campaigns which, cumulatively, changed the history of the world: the Long March of 1934-36: the resistance against the Japanese occupation of North China in 1937-38; and the final defeat of the Chinese nationalist (Taiwanese) Armies in 1948-49.

In each, he fought enemies far superior in arms and numbers, and in each, he won.

After a decade of civil war marked by enormous casualties and devastating setbacks, the main remnants of the Red Armies in October, 1934, were concentrated on the border of the Kiagsi and Fukien provinces in southeast China, in a tightening noose of Kuomintang forces. From there, Chu, as commander, with Mao Tse-tung as political commissar, led their forces, 100,000 men, in a break-out to the west.

Walking by night to avoid air attacks, pausing to fight innumerable skirmishes, leaving their wounded in care of peasants to survive if they could, the Red Army crossed mountains, rivers, and deserts for 8000 miles (12,880 km to arrive in Yenan in the Shensi province a year later. Chu himself had been separated from the vanguard lat mid-point, for reasons not

altogether clear, and arrived with a second army a year later.

At the end of the war, in violation of an order from Chiang Kai-shek, Chu told his forces to accept the surrender of the Japanese wherever they were. A race began to occupy key zones, and by mid-1946, civil was was raging.

Chu’s armies then numbered about 2 million in the regular and militia forces; Chiang’s perhaps as many as 10 million; and Chiang had strong logistical help from the United States. The Nationalists overran the Communist capital of Yenan in March, 1947. but the discipline, tactics, patriotic aura, and appeal to the peasantry of the Communists turned the tide. In 1948 and 1949. the Reds swept through Manchuria and North China, and drove Chiang and the remnants of his armies to Taiwan. Soon afterwards, Nationalist generals at Sian kidnapped Chiang Kai-shek and obtained his agreement to turn from “bandit repression” to resisting the Japanese invasion of North China. The Red Army was renamed the Eighth Route Army, with Chu as commander, nominally under Chiang. Chu crossed the Yellow River into Shansi in September, 1937, and engaged the Japanese. Forced to retreat, he left units behind to conduct guerrilla warfare. Chiang broke with the Communists in 1941 for the second time — the first being the bloody repression of 1927 — but Chu’s forces continued to fight the Japanese and, on occasion, the Nationalists, throughout the war.

Chiang’s policy of blockading the Reds while reserving his main forces for postwar consolidation! brought

friction with the American mission led by General Joseph (“Vinegar Joe”) Stilwell. Efforts to bring the two sides together against the Japanese failed, and Stilwell was replaced, but some American aid did reach Chu’s forces.

Chu Teh was born in Hung, in the Chwan province, in 1886, the son of “poor tenant farmers,” by his account, or of wealthy landlords, according to others. After a brief period as a teacher, he enrolled in the Yunnan Military Academy, where he came under Nationalist influence inspired by Sun Yat-sen.

As a company commander two years later, he took part in the revolt that toppled the Manchu regime in Yunnan. Joining the Kuomintang, he rose to become a brigade commander in Szechwan.

By the friendly account of Agnes Smedley in a biography, “The Great Road” (1956), Chu “was caught in the net of warlordism.” Less friendly accounts say that he became an opium addict, with a harem of wives and concubines. But under radical influence he is said to have reformed, and in 1922 he wept to Europe to study Marxism and history. In Berlin, Chu met Chou En-lai, joined the new Chinese Communist Party, studied at the university, and took part in student activities. Expelled from Germany in 1926, he returned to a country in civil war. On one side were the Nationalists, in close if uneasy alliance with the Com- ■ munists: on the other, the warlords, independent provincial chiefs who sometimes changed sides, and who often collaborated with the foreigners based in major ports. The Communists led a network of political agitators

in the Nationalist armies, and fomented strikes in major cities.

When Chiang purged them in a series of massacres in mid-1927, the survivors rallied inland. Chu played a role in their brief seizure of Nanchang and their march on Swatow, where they were routed. With a few thousand men, Chu made his way to the Kiangsi Hunan area, where they were joined by a force led by Mao in 1928. Fighting chiefly in the Kiangsi region, beating off four campaigns by Chiang’s forces in 1930-33, Chu built his army up to 200,000 men. The 1934 campaign, however, threatened to overrun the Kiangsi stronghold. So the Long March began. The disappearance of Marshal Chu Teh from the Chinese political scene should not, in itself, have any direct important political consequences for the future of China, writes Georges Biannic, of Agence France-Press (through the N.Z.P.A.).

He was one of the last great, historic marshals, with Liu Po-cheng and Yeh Chien-ying, but he was not generally regarded as playing a key role in Chinese political life: at least to outward appearances. He was seen only during formal ceremonies, such as accepting ambassadors’ letters of accreditation, a function which he took over from former acting President of the republic, Tung Pi-Wu, who died in April of last year, also aged 90. A military strategist of genius, Marshal Chu was in the habit of remarking to some of his visitors that he left politics to the politicians. This was partly in jest, in a country where the Communist Party still rules by the gun and in which no-one can be unaware of the pervasive presence of politics.