Chinese politician Lin Biao was one of the main leaders of the Communist Party in his country. He was considered the closest associate of Mao Zedong. Today Biao is best known for his mysterious death.
Early years
Lin Biao was born on December 5, 1907 in a small village in Hubei Province. His father was a bankrupt manufacturer. When Yu Rong (birth name) reached the age of ten, he left his home to get an education. China has a huge population. To break into the people, you had to put a lot of effort. Education has been one such social lift.
As in the Russian empire at the beginning of the 20th century, Chinese educational institutions of that time were hotbeds of revolutionary ideas. At the age of 17, the future Lin Biao joined the Communist Party. The young man changed his name in 1905. This habit was the norm among socialists who took party pseudonyms.
Communist supporter
Of all the available types of education, Lin Biao chose the military. This predetermined his fate. His career in the army continued until 1927, when a state campaign was launched in China againstcommunists. Then Lin Biao, according to his convictions, broke with the then authorities and joined the ranks of the rebel opponents of the political system.
A talented military man led the creation of detachments for the Red Army. Biao quickly became a prominent figure among the communists. In the early 1930s, he was already on the Executive Committee of the Party. This advance was facilitated by Mao Zedong. The two politicians became faithful comrades for many years. When Zedong became party leader, Biao became his right hand.
During the war with Japan
In 1937, Japan attacked China. The outbreak of the Patriotic War became a theater of operations, in which Lin Biao demonstrated his own skills in full scale. He was one of the outstanding communist strategists and tacticians. The officer was appointed head of the 115th division. This military formation participated in several important battles. The key one was the Battle of Pingxiguan, where Lin Biao was the main creator of the Chinese victory.
The collision occurred on September 24, 1937. The Japanese Imperial Army was defeated. The victory was an important event for the Chinese. The Biao army was mostly partisans. They needed success like air to inspire the soldiers. And so it happened. Much later, when the communists came to power, the Battle of Pingxiguan became an important propaganda story. It was thanks to such victories that Lin Biao became a national hero. A photo of a military man got into local patriotic newspapers. Biao was popular not only in the army, but also among the people, among the peasants.
In the Soviet Union
After being wounded in 1939, Biao was sent to the Soviet Union for treatment. In Moscow, Zedong's closest associate also carried out a diplomatic mission. When the commander recovered, he did not return to his homeland, but remained in Russia, where he became the representative of the Communist Party of China in the Comintern.
With the beginning of the war between the Third Reich and the Soviet Union, Stalin finally became an ally of his eastern comrades-in-arms, fighting against the Japanese, who also sided with the Germans. Lin Biao in the USSR carried out delicate instructions from the Central Committee of his party. In 1942, after a three-year break, he finally returned to his homeland. Biao was elected a member of the Central Committee at the 7th Party Congress. He continued to fight against the Japanese invaders. They were expelled from the mainland after all the allied powers that defeated Hitler in Europe were on the side of China.
Civil War
In 1945, Japan admitted its defeat, and the Communists decided to finally take power in the country into their own hands. Now the last period of the civil war between the supporters of Zedong and the former republican government in the person of the Kuomintang began. Lian Biao was appointed commander of the United Democratic Army, which had about three hundred thousand people. This huge force was supposed to destroy the resistance of the opponents of the communists.
Lian Biao received tangible support from the Soviet Union, where he had previously spent several productive diplomatic years. Help from the USSRallowed the commander-in-chief to cross the strategically important Sungari River three times. Success in Manchuria allowed Liang Bao to drive the Republicans out of this important region. In 1948 he was made commander in the North-Eastern field army. When the Kuomintang was finally defeated, the famous military man went to negotiate with the enemy as one of the most important delegates of the diplomatic mission.
Marshal of the People's Republic of China
After the victory of the Communists in the civil war in 1949, the People's Republic of China was formed. Lin Biao received various military or administrative positions (for example, he was a commander in the Central Military Region). He, no doubt, belongs to a number of communists who created the prototype of modern China. In 1955, for his many services in the army, the commander received the rank of marshal. A little later he became a member of the Politburo.
In 1959, the communist leadership decided that Lin Biao would become the new Minister of Defense. Marshal took up his duties against the backdrop of the defeat of the opposition in the ranks of the party. His predecessor as defense minister, Peng Dehuai, was fired for criticizing Mao Zedong. Biao, on the contrary, was completely loyal to the "great helmsman". Largely thanks to his efforts in China, the imposition of the Mao personality cult began, by analogy with the process that took place shortly before in the Soviet Union with the image of Stalin.
Second after Mao
The apotheosis of Lin Biao's power fell onthe second half of the 60s. Then the so-called cultural revolution began in China. It was a state attack on any dissent in society. The intelligentsia was repressed, criticism of the authorities was forbidden, etc. Biao himself supported this process from the side of the army. He planted the personality cult of Mao in the troops. It was the marshal who initiated the idea of mass printing the Red Book, a collection of Zedong quotes. This edition has become the largest in all of China. Lin Biao assured that every soldier had to be able to handle weapons and remember the words of the leader.
In 1969, the marshal became the country's only deputy chairman of the Central Committee of the party. In the nomenklatura system, this fact was an important hint for the future. All of China - from the military to the peasants - at that time considered Biao the only legitimate successor to Mao as the leader of the country.
Mysterious Death
However, almost being at the very top of power, Lin Biao lost in the hardware struggle to his ill-wishers. At first, he quarreled with almost the entire Politburo. But the real blow for the marshal was the discovery by the state security agencies of a conspiracy against the authorities among his own supporters. There are different points of view about this movement. Some believe that Lin Biao himself led the organization of the coup, others believe that he did not suspect anything until the last moment.
The secret plan revealed by the Chinese Chekists was called "Project 571". The conspirators planned to get rid of Mao Zedong by any means available. Consideredpoisoning, kidnapping or killing with poisonous gas. There is also a theory that the putschists hoped for the support of the USSR.
When the authorities found out about the "project 571", the marshal was relaxing at the resort. He tried to flee the country with his loved ones on his own plane. The board went north. Most likely, Lin Biao counted on the support of the Soviet Union. The plane, however, crashed in the Mongolian steppe. So on September 13, 1971, the Minister of Defense of China died.
Discredit Campaign
The communist authorities immediately after the incident launched a campaign to discredit the marshal in the eyes of the Chinese people. These mass events were soon called "Criticism of Lin Biao and Confucius". Agitators compared the marshal to an ancient philosopher and attributed non-communist views to him. In particular, he was accused of wanting to revive the slave system. The mysterious death of Lin Biao and the subsequent ambiguous reaction of the authorities are still the subjects of a heated dispute between historians from various countries.
Despite the propaganda campaign and official bans, today the image of Biao is returning to the mass consciousness of the Chinese. Museums are dedicated to him, and relatives even managed to publish memoirs. Interestingly, in today's China, Lin Biao and Putin are often compared and considered to be politically similar figures.
