The Tragedy of Zhou Enlai

CLAREMONT, CALIFORNIA – Among the architects of Chinese communism, Zhou Enlai’s role in both the 1949 revolution and the establishment of the new totalitarian regime was arguably second only to that of Mao Zedong.

Zhou influenced each stage of the Chinese Revolution: from the bloody battles for survival waged against the Kuomintang (Nationalist) government in the late 1920s and the mid-1930s to the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-45), and throughout the Maoist era (1949-76), during which he served as China’s premier.

But despite his long and illustrious political career, Zhou’s true character has remained shrouded in a thick mist of official propaganda. His public image, even in the West, is that of a selfless, gracious intellectual whose unmatched administrative skills were indispensable to building Chinese socialism under harsh conditions. This portrayal, of course, aligns closely with what the Communist Party of China (CPC) wants the Chinese people to believe – even today.

In some ways, Zhou’s legacy has fared better than Mao’s in the decades since their deaths. After all, the enormity of Mao’s crimes against the Chinese people has made it impossible for the CPC to portray him as an infallible leader. The most generous assessment of Mao, offered by his successor Deng Xiaoping in the early 1980s, was that Mao’s actions were “70% good and 30% bad.”

By contrast, the CPC has had no difficulty portraying Zhou as a political giant untainted by the Maoist regime’s treachery, brutality, and insanity. The only hint of criticism, reportedly also from Deng, was that the late premier occasionally acted against his own will during the Cultural Revolution out of self-preservation.

While China’s rulers have strong incentives to preserve Zhou’s image as one of modern history’s most virtuous public servants, Chen Jian apparently had a different objective: to uncover the real Zhou. After years of painstaking research, Chen, a history professor at NYU Shanghai, has succeeded in filling many gaps in our understanding of China’s longest-serving premier, who miraculously survived Mao’s relentless purges and political witch hunts.

To be sure, Chen faced a daunting task. Most of the records that could shed light on Zhou’s role in the major decisions that shaped the Maoist era – from the Anti-Rightist Movement and the Great Leap Forward to the launch of the Cultural Revolution, the Lin Biao Incident, and the Sino-American rapprochement – remain off-limits. Further complicating matters, some of the most sensitive documents – including Zhou’s “self-criticisms” from the Mao-orchestrated campaign against him, launched while Zhou was dying of cancer – were turned over to his widow and most likely destroyed.

Chen’s biography manages to overcome these constraints and offer fresh insights into Zhou’s complicated personality. What emerges is a portrait of a remarkably capable but deeply flawed politician who consistently sought to ensure his own political survival while attempting, often unsuccessfully, to mitigate the impact of Mao’s erratic and disastrous decisions. It is this duality that made Zhou both Mao’s indispensable accomplice and his submissive victim.

A Meteoric Rise

Born in March 1898 in Huai’an, now part of Jiangsu province, Zhou had an unremarkable childhood. His early life was profoundly shaped by years spent abroad at a time when China was mired in warlordism, national weakness, and widespread violence. Between 1917 and 1919, Zhou lived in Japan, where he hoped to gain admission to university. But when he failed to pass the Japanese-language entrance exams, he was forced to return to China, arriving just in time to participate in the historic May Fourth Movement, which served as a catalyst for the incipient communist cause.

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In late 1920, after serving six months in jail for his leftist activities, Zhou left for London before eventually settling in France. There, he joined the CPC and became a full-time revolutionary funded by the Comintern.

Zhou’s meteoric rise began as soon as he returned to China in 1924. At 26, he was appointed director of political affairs at the Whampoa Military Academy, under the command of Chiang Kai-shek himself. Under pressure from the Kremlin, Kuomintang leader Sun Yat-sen had formed an alliance with the newly established CPC. Zhou’s influence within the CPC grew quickly, and by December 1926, he had become a member of the party’s Central Military Commission and an official in its central personnel department.

Shortly after Chiang turned against the Communists in 1927, Zhou traveled to Moscow, where he was received by Joseph Stalin. Six months later, he returned to Shanghai to run the CPC’s intelligence operations. By the time he arrived in Jiangxi, where the Communists had established a tenuous “Soviet Republic,” Zhou was already one of the party’s top figures. It was there that his decades-long – and often fraught – relationship with Mao began.

Although their initial encounter was tense – largely because Mao suspected Zhou of conspiring with other Communist leaders who resented Mao’s arrogance and ambition – the two became allies during the legendary Long March, when the Chinese Red Army evaded Chiang’s Nationalist forces. At a key meeting in December 1934, Zhou threw his support behind Mao, who had been sidelined after losing an earlier power struggle in Jiangxi. Zhou’s machinations enabled Mao to rejoin the party’s leadership ranks.

The critical role Zhou played in Mao’s rise to power earned him no gratitude. Instead, over the next four decades, Mao rarely missed an opportunity to remind Zhou of his subordinate status, treating him as a loyal but guilt-ridden underling. His preferred method for keeping rivals in check was to compel them to perform “self-criticisms,” publicly confessing their “mistakes and crimes” against the party. Zhou first endured this psychological torment in November 1943 in Yan’an, the Communists’ remote base in northwestern China. To consolidate power, Mao launched the so-called Rectification Campaign, the first in a series of political purges aimed at intimidating fellow revolutionary leaders and eliminating those he perceived as potential threats.

Zhou’s high profile made him an ideal target for Mao’s witch hunt. In a humiliating display of self-abasement, Zhou was forced to speak before the Politburo for five days, denouncing himself for “crimes and mistakes” dating back to his time in Jiangxi. Needless to say, records of Zhou’s “confessions” were kept by the party and Mao, presumably as leverage to be used against him if necessary.

The Loyal Lieutenant

This may explain why Zhou rarely resisted Mao’s authority. His political vulnerability, together with his administrative talent, made Zhou a valuable asset: a competent and non-threatening lieutenant on whom Mao could rely without question.

The closest Mao came to firing Zhou was in 1956, when the premier dared to challenge him directly on economic policy. Although Mao refrained from lashing out immediately, owing to the Politburo’s support for Zhou’s position, he retaliated two years later by orchestrating a series of ugly public confrontations, all but accusing Zhou of being a “rightist” and forcing him into yet another round of “self-criticisms.”

To ensure that Zhou would never wield enough power to defy his wishes again, Mao also stripped him of much of his administrative authority by establishing “small leading groups” to oversee key policy areas such as finance and foreign affairs, and appointing either loyalists or Zhou’s rivals to chair them. (Chinese President Xi Jinping would later adopt this tactic to sideline Premier Li Keqiang soon after assuming leadership of the CPC in late 2012).

This experience fundamentally changed Zhou; his hair reportedly turned gray soon afterward, and he never again expressed even the slightest hint of disagreement in Mao’s presence.

Although Zhou’s new modus operandi saved his skin, it came at a high cost for China. When Mao launched the Great Leap Forward in 1958, Zhou privately feared that Mao’s radical plans for agricultural collectivization and forced industrialization would lead to economic ruin, yet he chose to remain silent.

In fact, Zhou sometimes sided against fellow revolutionary leaders who dared to challenge Mao’s policies. When Marshal Peng Dehuai enraged Mao by privately warning him at the 1959 Lushan Conference about the Great Leap Forward’s disastrous economic toll, Zhou initially sympathized with Peng. But once Mao made clear his intent to purge Peng, Zhou quickly joined other senior leaders in denouncing him.

Zhou’s survival instincts became even more evident during the Cultural Revolution. At several critical junctures, he acted as Mao’s enforcer in the purge of senior leaders, including the chief of staff of the People’s Liberation Army in late 1965, the mayor of Beijing, and a legendary general, all of whom considered Zhou a friend. Mao further solidified Zhou’s role by making him head of the notorious Central Office on Special Cases, the outfit responsible for persecuting senior party officials, and putting him directly in charge of the case against Liu Shaoqi, Mao’s main rival and the Cultural Revolution’s primary target.

Ever the loyal henchman, Zhou dutifully carried out Mao’s orders. Liu, who had worked closely with Zhou before the Cultural Revolution and supported him during his 1956 clash with Mao, was expelled from the party and denounced as a traitor, before dying in prison in 1969. With the exception of Foreign Minister Chen Yi, Zhou did not defend any of Mao’s targets. He even signed the arrest warrant for his own adopted daughter, who died in prison.

Citing Zhou’s pledge of eternal loyalty to Mao in May 1966 – just before the official launch of the Cultural Revolution – Chen argues that Zhou’s support was crucial to Mao’s political schemes. Although Mao had already secured the military’s backing, he could not have confronted his top rivals within the party without Zhou’s endorsement, as Zhou controlled the state’s administrative apparatus. During some of the most pivotal moments in the Cultural Revolution, Mao and Zhou held private meetings to discuss sensitive political matters. Zhou would then faithfully execute the Chairman’s directives.

A Humiliating End

In addition to his unquestioning compliance with Mao’s wishes, Zhou possessed another valuable survival skill: an uncanny ability to read the tyrant’s moods and intentions. This talent enabled him to offer advice and promote policies that aligned with Mao’s primary objectives while steering him away from potential disasters. Although he could never openly contradict the Chairman, Zhou knew he could make himself truly indispensable by helping Mao achieve certain goals without needlessly jeopardizing the regime’s existence – his ultimate security guarantee.

But Zhou underestimated Mao’s paranoia and capacity for gratuitous cruelty. When Zhou was diagnosed with early-stage bladder cancer in May 1972, Mao explicitly prohibited surgery and ordered that neither Zhou nor his wife be informed of the diagnosis. Mao continued to interfere in Zhou’s medical care, issuing directives that made it impossible for his doctors to treat him. This interference led to extended delays in Zhou’s surgery, likely contributing to the rapid deterioration in his health and eventual death less than four years later.

Apparently unsatisfied with merely sabotaging Zhou’s medical treatment, Mao launched a campaign to vilify the ailing premier. In June 1972, a cancer-stricken Zhou was once again forced into self-criticism, denouncing himself as a “criminal” on three consecutive evenings.

Mao’s sadistic campaign against Zhou did not let up even as Zhou’s health deteriorated. In 1973, Mao fabricated what became known as the “Zhou-Kissinger scandal.” On a visit to Beijing, US National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger offered China favorable terms to advance strategic cooperation between the two countries. Likely envious of the credit his premier was receiving for the Sino-American rapprochement, Mao accused Zhou of being “too soft.”

By the end of his life, Zhou was physically and psychologically broken. In one of his final letters to Mao, written in June 1975, Zhou again denounced himself in a desperate show of loyalty. “Despite the Chairman’s endless teaching,” Zhou wrote, “I have still repeatedly made mistakes or even committed crimes. About all this, I feel tremendous shame and regret.”

Through his reconstruction of Zhou’s tragic life, Chen reveals the dehumanizing nature of politics under a totalitarian dictatorship. A man of extraordinary talent, Zhou would have been an outstanding leader had he served a different regime. But within a system ruled by a violent megalomaniac dictator, Zhou had to engage in an endless series of self-debasing public rituals, sacrificing every shred of personal dignity for the sake of political survival. Given Zhou’s docile response to Mao’s cruelty in his final years, it is difficult not to conclude that the late premier thought it was worth the cost.

• Chen Jian, Zhou Enlai: A Life (Harvard University Press, 2024).