Lin Biao (Chinese: 林彪; 5 December 1907 – 13 September 1971) was a Chinese military commander and politician. Pivotal to the Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War, he commanded the Liaoshen and Pingjin campaigns at the head of the Manchurian Field Army, led the People's Liberation Army into Beijing, and swept the Kuomintang from the coastal provinces of Southeast China. He was ranked third among the Ten Marshals of the People's Republic of China, behind Zhu De and Peng Dehuai.
After 1949, Lin initially withdrew from active politics. He served as a Vice Premier from 1954 and as one of the Vice Chairmen of the Chinese Communist Party from 1958, before assuming the additional post of Minister of National Defense in 1959. In the early 1960s he played a key role in cultivating Mao Zedong's cult of personality, and was rewarded during the Cultural Revolution by being designated Mao's sole successor as the Party's only Vice Chairman, a position he held from 1966 until his death.
Lin died on 13 September 1971 when a Hawker Siddeley Trident crashed near Öndörkhaan, Mongolia, in circumstances that remain disputed. The official Chinese account of the "Lin Biao incident" holds that Lin and his family were fleeing after a failed coup attempt against Mao; others contend they fled fearing imminent purge. He was posthumously condemned as a traitor, and since the late 1970s has been officially grouped with Jiang Qing as one of the two principal "counter-revolutionary" forces held responsible for the worst excesses of the Cultural Revolution.
Revolutionary Youth
Lin Biao was the son of a prosperous merchant family in Huanggang, Hubei.Leung 69 His name at birth was "Lin Yurong". Lin's father opened a small handicrafts factory in the mid-late 1910s, but was forced to close the factory due to "heavy taxes imposed by local militarists". After closing the factory, Lin's father worked as a purser aboard a river steamship. Lin entered primary school in 1917,Lin 164 and moved to Shanghai in 1919 to continue his education.Lazitch and Drachkovitch 265–267 As a child, Lin was much more interested in participating in student movements than in pursuing his formal education.Lee 170 Lin transferred to Wuchang Gongjin High School () at 15. Lin joined a satellite organization of the Communist Youth League before he graduated high school in 1925. Later in 1925 he participated in the May Thirtieth Movement and enrolled in the newly established Whampoa (Huangpu) Military Academy in Guangzhou.
As a young cadet, Lin admired the personality of Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi), who was then the principal of the academy. At Whampoa, Lin also studied under Zhou Enlai, who was eight years older than Lin. Lin had no contact with Zhou after their time in Whampoa, until they met again in Yan'an in the late 1930s.Barnonin and Yu 240 Lin's relationship with Zhou was never especially close, but they rarely opposed each other directly.
After graduating from Whampoa in 1926, Lin was assigned to a regiment commanded by Ye Ting. Less than a year after graduating from Whampoa, he was assigned to the Northern Expedition, where he rose from deputy platoon leader to battalion commander within a few months. During this time Lin joined the Communist Party. By 1927 Lin was a colonel.
When he was twenty, Lin married a girl from the countryside with the family name "Ong". This marriage was arranged by Lin's parents, and the couple never became close. When Lin left the Kuomintang to become a communist revolutionary, Ong did not accompany Lin, and their marriage effectively ended.
Chinese Civil War After the Kuomintang-Communist split, Lin's commander, Ye Ting, joined forces with He Long and participated in the Nanchang Uprising on 1 August 1927.Leung 70 During the campaign Lin worked as a company commander under a regiment led by Chen Yi.Barnouin and Yu 242 Following the failure of the revolt, Lin escaped to the remote Communist base areas, and joined Mao Zedong and Zhu De in the Jiangxi–Fujian Soviet in 1928. After joining forces with Mao, Lin became one of Mao's closest supporters.
Lin became one of the most senior military field commanders within the Jiangxi Soviet. He commanded the First Army Group, and achieved a degree of power comparable to that of Peng Dehuai, who commanded the Third Army Group. According to Comintern representative Otto Braun, Lin was "politically... a blank sheet on which Mao could write as he pleased" during this period. After Mao was removed from power in 1932 by his rivals (the 28 Bolsheviks), Lin frequently attended strategic meetings in Mao's name and openly attacked the plans of Mao's enemies.Hu Chi-hsi 253
Within the Jiangxi Soviet, Lin's First Army Group was the best-equipped and arguably most successful force within the Red Army. Lin's First Army became known for its mobility, and for its ability to execute successful flanking maneuvers. Between 1930 and 1933, Lin's forces captured twice the number of prisoners of war and military equipment as the Third and Fifth Army Groups combined. The successes of Lin's forces are due partially to the division of labour within the Red Army: Lin's forces were more offensive and unorthodox than other groups, allowing Lin to capitalize on other Red Army commanders' successes.Hu Chi-hsi 263
During the Communists' defense against Chiang's 1933–34 Fifth Encirclement Campaign, Lin advocated a strategy of protracted guerilla warfare, and opposed the positional warfare advocated by Braun and his supporters. Lin believed that the best way to destroy enemy soldiers was not to pursue them or defend strategic points, but to weaken the enemy through feints, ambushes, encirclements, and surprise attacks. Lin's views generally conformed with the tactics advocated by Mao.Hu Chi-hsi 257–260
After Chiang's forces successfully occupied several strategic locations within the Jiangxi Soviet, in 1934, Lin was one of the first Red Army commanders to publicly advocate the abandonment of the Jiangxi Soviet, but he was opposed by most Red Army commanders, especially Braun and Peng Dehuai.Hu Chi-hsi 264 After the Communists finally resolved to abandon their base, later in 1934, Lin continued his position as one of the most successful commanders in the Red Army during the Long March. Under the direction of Mao and Zhou, the Red Army finally arrived at the remote Communist base of Yan'an, Shaanxi, in December 1936.
Lin and Peng Dehuai were generally considered the Red Army's best battlefield commanders, and were not rivals during the Long March. Both of them had supported Mao's rise to de facto leadership at the Zunyi Conference in January 1935. Lin may have become privately dissatisfied with Mao's strategy of constant evasion by the end of the Long March, but continued to support Mao publicly.Salisbury 188
The American journalist Edgar Snow met Lin Biao in the Communist base of Shaanxi in 1936,Hu Chi-hsi 267 and wrote about Lin in his book, Red Star Over China. Snow's account focused more on the role of Peng than Lin, evidently having had long conversations with, and devoting two whole chapters to, Peng (more than any other individual apart from Mao). Though he said of Lin:
Lin Biao did not present the bluff, lusty face of Peng Dehuai. He was ten years younger, rather slight, oval-faced, dark, handsome. Peng talked with his men. Lin kept his distance. To many he seemed shy and reserved. There are no stories reflecting warmth and affection for his men. His fellow Red Army commanders respected Lin, but when he spoke, it was all business...
The contrast between Mao's top field commanders could hardly have been more sharp, but on the Long March they worked well together, Lin specializing in feints, masked strategy, surprises, ambushes, flank attacks, pounces from the rear, and stratagems. Peng met the enemy head-on in frontal assaults and fought with such fury that again and again he wiped them out. Peng did not believe a battle well fought unless he managed to replenish—and more than replenish—any losses by seizure of enemy guns and converting prisoners of war to new and loyal recruits to the Red Army.Salisbury 191–192
With Mao Zedong, Lin Biao shared the distinction of being one of the few Red commanders never wounded. Engaged on the front in more than a hundred battles, in field command for more than 10 years, exposed to every hardship that his men have known, with a reward of $100,000 on his head, he miraculously remained unhurt and in good health.
In 1932, Lin Biao was given command of the 1st Red Army Corps, which then numbered about 20,000 rifles. It became the most dreaded section of the Red Army. Chiefly due to Lin's extraordinary talent as a tactician, it destroyed, defeated or outmanoeuvered every Government force sent against it and was never broken in battle....
Like many able Red commanders, Lin has never been outside China, speaks and reads no language but Chinese. Before the age of 30, however, he has already won recognition beyond Red circles. His articles in the Chinese Reds' military magazines... have been republished, studied and criticised in Nanking (Nanjing) military journals, and also in Japan and Soviet Russia.Snow 135 Within a year of Snow's reporting, Lin was seriously wounded.Mackerras, McMillen, and Watson 141 A Red Army soldier shot him by mistake.
Lin and Mao generally had a close personal relationship,Snow 84 but some accounts claim that Lin sometimes made disparaging comments about Mao in private, and that Lin's support of Mao was largely for the pursuit of power.Chang and Halliday 504 After arriving in Yan'an, Lin became the principal of the newly founded Chinese People's Anti-Japanese Military and Political University. In 1937, Lin married one of the students there, a girl named Liu Ximin, who had earned the nickname "University Flower".Lee 170–171
Chinese-Japanese War (1931–1945)
In August 1937, Lin was named commander-in-chief of the 115th Division of the Communist 8th Route Army and ordered to aid Yan Xishan's forces in repelling the Japanese invasion of Shanxi. In this capacity, Lin orchestrated the ambush at Pingxingguan in September 1937, which was one of the few battlefield successes for the Chinese in the early period of the Second Sino-Japanese War (known in China as the "War of Resistance Against Japan").
In 1938, while he was still leading Chinese forces in Shanxi, Japanese soldiers who had joined the Communists and were serving under Lin's command presented Lin with a Japanese uniform (reportedly an officer's winter coat, which Lin eagerly accepted as he lacked a suitable one himself) and katana, which they had captured in battle. Lin then put the uniform and katana on, jumped onto a horse, and rode away from the army. While riding, Lin was spotted alone by a sharpshooter in Yan's army. The soldier was surprised to see a Japanese officer riding a horse in the desolate hills alone. He took aim at Lin and severely injured him.Lee 171 The bullet grazed Lin's head, penetrating deep enough to leave a permanent impression on his skull.Hannam and Lawrence 4 After being shot in the head, Lin fell from his horse and injured his back.
Recovering from his wounds and ill with tuberculosis, Lin left for Moscow at the end of 1938, where he served as the representative of the Chinese Communist Party to the Executive Committee of the Communist International. He remained in Moscow until February 1942, working on Comintern affairs and writing for its publication. Lin was accompanied by his wife, Liu Ximin, but their relationship deteriorated in Moscow, and Lin eventually returned to Yan'an without her.