CHU TEH (1947-74)

One of China´s greatest military leaders and the founder of the Chinese Communist Army.

Born in a peasant family, he attended the Yunnan Military Academy from which he graduated in 1911, taking part in the same year in the overthrow of the Ch´ing dynasty.

In 1922 he went to Europe and studied in Berlin and at the University of Göttingen. While in Germany, Chu Teh joined the Chinese Communist Party. Expelled from Germany in 1926 for his political activities, he returned to China, where concealing his Communist affiliation, he became an officer in the Kuomintang Army.

On Aug. 1, 1927 he took part in the Communist-led Nan-ch´ang uprising against the Kuomintang, an event that is regarded by the Communists as marking the birth of the Chinese Red Army. Whenn the uprising failed, Chu Teh led the remaining mutineers to join Mao Tse-tung ´s small guerrilla forces. The two formed the 4th Red Army, with Chu Teh as commander and Mao Tse-tung as political commisar.

Chu fought beside Mao almost continually for the next 22 years as head of the Communist military forces, first in south central China and then during the Long March (1934-35), when the military superiority of Chiang Kai-shek´s Nationalist forced the Communist to flee to Northwest China. He continued as the senior Communist military leader during the Sino-Japanese War (1937-45) and in the Civil War (1946-49) against the Nationalists, retaining command of the People´s Liberation Army until 1954.

Although a Politburo member from 1934, Chu Teh was never regarded as a contender for political power. When ranks were initiated in the army he was made a marshal, and from 1959 he served as chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People´s Congress, the nominal legislature.