Lin Biao

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Lin Biao in 1955

Lin Biao ( Chinese 林彪, Pinyin Lín Biāo ) or Lin Piao , maiden name Lin Yurong (林育蓉), (born December 5, 1907 in Huanggang , Hubei ; † September 13, 1971 in Öndörchaan , Mongolia ) was an important Chinese politician at the side by Mao Zedong .

family

Lin Biao and Ye Qun (葉群 / 叶群, Yè Qún ) married in 1942. They had two children together. A son Lin Liguo (林立果, Lín Lìguǒ ), who was also known as "Tiger" (老虎, Lǎohǔ ), and a daughter Lin Liheng (林立恒, Lín Lìhéng ), who is also Lin Doudou (林 豆豆), after Lin Biaos Favorite food.

Career

Lin Biao in Kuomintang uniform

Lin Biao was the son of a small landowner. He was born on December 5, 1907 in Huanggang, Hubei . After a few years in elementary school, he went to private school for about a year in 1916 and, against his father's will, embarked on a military career. He was influenced by social and cultural upheavals within China and interested in socialism and communism . In 1923 he therefore joined the socialist youth league. At the age of 18 he entered the Whampoa Military Academy of the Kuomintang , where he was promoted by Zhou Enlai and the Soviet General Wassili Blücher . In 1926 he finished his training there and joined the Chinese Communist Party in 1927 . As a result, he supported Mao Zedong in building the communist state in China and fought as commander of the 1st Army Corps against the National Revolutionary Army under Chiang Kai-shek . On the Long March (1934–1935), Lin commanded the Red Army vanguard . In August 1937, Lin was appointed commander in chief of the 115th Division of the Communist 8th Marching Army and ordered that Yan Xishan's forces be assisted in repelling the Japanese invasion of Shanxi . During these battles he organized a successful ambush at the Battle of Pingxingguan in September 1937 , which became one of the few successes on the battlefield for the Chinese at the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War . Lin Biao was seriously wounded by a sniper during a battle in 1938 and therefore stayed in the Soviet Union between 1938 and 1942 for medical treatment. After returning to China, he became a member of the CCP Central Committee in 1945 and Commander-in-Chief of the Red Army in 1946 .

In the civil war against Chiang Kai-shek he conquered Manchuria and thus created the conditions for the victory of the communist troops in 1949. After the capture of Beijing (January 31, 1949), his army group was subordinate to 1.5 million soldiers. He crossed the Yangtze River in the spring of 1949 and defeated one of the last intact Kuomintang armies stationed in central China during the campaign. The last position of the National Chinese to occupy Lin's armed forces was the tropical island of Hainan . Lin Biao was considered one of the most brilliant generals of the communists after the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949. Lin Biao has suffered from ongoing physical and mental health problems since his severe head injury in 1938. The exact state of his health was never known, in part because the medical records were never published. In 1954 he became Deputy Prime Minister of the People's Republic of China, in 1955 Marshal and member of the Politburo and in 1959 Minister of Defense in place of Peng Dehuai . After the great leap forward , he compiled the words of Chairman Mao Tsetung in 1960 , which eventually became popular as the " Mao Bible ". In 1966 he took part in the Cultural Revolution on Mao's side ; In 1969 he was appointed deputy Mao and replaced Liu Shaoqi , who had fallen out of favor with Mao because of his criticism, as deputy party chairman. This made him the designated successor to Mao Zedong.

Escape and death

Lin was killed in a plane crash on September 13, 1971 - according to official accounts after a coup he had planned was exposed and he wanted to flee to the Soviet Union . His plane crashed over the Mongolian desert, apparently because an attempt was made to escape the radar by flying low, resulting in increased fuel consumption. All of the passengers on the plane, including Lin Biao's wife Ye Qun and his son Lin Liguo, died. After Lin Biao's death, alleged crimes were exposed, but there is no clear evidence for them. In addition, a document about the "Project 571" (五七 一 工程; Pinyin: Wǔqīyī Gōngchéng), a collection of ideas for the coup d'état, was only found two months after his death. However, no clear connection between Lin Biao and this document could be established here either. It is also questionable why Lin's daughter Lin Liheng was not on board the plane; and why Lin Biao, militarily very successful, fled without joining the resistance.

According to Jung Chang , the whole thing was preceded by a quarrel with Mao, who apparently felt threatened by Lin's abundance of power - after Mao himself had brought about this because he urgently needed Lin Biao's support as commander-in-chief of the army for the planned cultural revolution and his position The party had been severely weakened by the criticism of Peng Dehuai , but above all Liu Shaoqi . In this context, Mao had to agree to the disempowerment of his devoted and favored Chief of Staff Luo Ruiqing . In addition, during the Cultural Revolution, Lin Biao had purged Peng Dehuai's supporters from the army, reorganized large parts of the state apparatus with members of his trust, and a small personality cult had been established for him.

In August 1970, at the 2nd plenary session of the Central Committee in Lushan , which was convened to prepare for the 4th National People's Congress, a dispute over the reintroduction of the presidential office arose, which Lin probably wanted to renew and transfer to Mao because he could then have become Vice President himself and thus officially ranked second in China's power structure. This post was vacated by the fall of Liu Shaoqi . Lin made the motion without consulting Mao, and the Politburo Standing Committee agreed, except for Mao. Chen Boda in particular supported Lin, which is why he soon disappeared in prison. Lin stated that Mao had developed Marxism-Leninism ingeniously, creatively and comprehensively and described it as the greatest genius and the only possible candidate for this office. It was known that this was Lin Biao's eulogy in the foreword to the Little Red Book . Zhang Chunqiao suggested not using these three adjectives because Mao did not want to include them in the party constitution. Mao vetoed the re-establishment of the office and called on Lin to " self-incriminate, " a humiliating process that many high-ranking communists, including also Zhou Enlai , had to submit. But Lin refused. In July 1971, Mao finally decided to get rid of Lin and his generals, Huang Yongsheng (黄永胜), Wu Faxian, Li Zuopeng (李作鹏), and Qiu Huizuo (邱 会 作). Therefore, from August 15 to September 12, he made a trip through southern China to prepare the officials for the overthrow of Lin Biao and his generals.

The May Day celebrations in Tian'anmen Square caused a scandal when Lin ignored the protocol and appeared for just a minute without speaking to Mao and his guests, including Prince Sihanouk of Cambodia. In this way, the public learned that the leadership was divided. There are many different theories as to what really happened on the night of September 13, 1971. There is a theory that Lin's son, Lin Liguo, planned an assassination attempt on Mao with friends, but it did not materialize because there was insufficient support from the army and Lin Liguo refused to commit suicide attacks by his friends. Lin, his wife and their son wanted to flee by plane to the Soviet Union, but Lin's daughter Lin Liheng, who was not informed about the plans and wanted to prevent anything from happening to her father, inadvertently disclosed the escape plan to the secret service, so that the family had to leave earlier than planned and board a plane that was not yet fully fueled. To escape the radar, the plane flew very low, which increased fuel consumption, and eventually crashed over Öndörchaan in Mongolia. The population only found out about his death a year late.

The Communist Party portrayed Lin as a traitor. All editions of the " Mao Bible " that had previously contained a foreword by Lin Biao were withdrawn. In August 1973 he was subsequently expelled from the party. 1974 began the campaign " Criticizes Confucius and Lin Biao " (批林批孔 运动, Pī Lín pī Kǒng yùndòng ).

Publications

  • Under the red banners, the general line of the party and the military science theories of Mao Tse-tung, forward. Foreign Language Literature Publishing House, Beijing 1959
  • Long live victory in the People's War! Foreign Language Literature Publishing House, Beijing 1968
  • Preface to the second edition of “Words from Chairman Mao Tsetung”. (December 16, 1966) (in: Words of Chairman Mao Tsetung. Foreign Language Literature Publishing House, Beijing 1967)
  • Report on the IX. Chinese Communist Party Congress. (Refunded April 1 and accepted April 14, 1969.) Foreign Language Literature Publishing House, Beijing 1969

Further publications by Lin Biao are contained in the anthology "Important documents of the great proletarian cultural revolution" (Verlag für foreign language literature, Beijing 1970).

literature

  • Peter Cardorff: The foreign policy of the PR-China. also includes: Les Evans: The 10th CCP Congress. also includes: Les Evans: A memorial to Lin Biao. 2nd edition. International Socialist Publications, Hamburg 1974.
  • Jung Chang , Jon Halliday : Mao. The life of a man, the fate of a people. Karl Blessing Verlag, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-89667-200-2 .
  • Peter Michael Jakobs: Criticism of Lin Piao and Confucius. Esoteric communication and intraelitarian conflicts in the People's Republic of China in 1973/74 (= Annales Universitatis Saraviensis. Law and Economics Department, Vol. 95). Heymann, Cologne et al. 1983, ISBN 3-452-19333-0 (also: Saarbrücken, University, dissertation, 1978).
  • Criticism of Lin Biao and Confucius. Volume 1. Foreign Language Literature Publishing House, Beijing 1975.
  • Roderick MacFarquhar, Michael Schoenhals: Mao's last revolution. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA et al. 2006, ISBN 978-0-674-02748-0 .
  • Jin Qiu: The culture of power. The Lin Biao incident in the Cultural Revolution. Stanford University Press, Stanford CA 1999, ISBN 0-8047-3529-8 .
  • Jürgen Reusch: Maoism in crisis. "Criticizes Lin Biao and Confucius ..." (= Marxist paperbacks. Series: Marxismus aktuell. Vol. 91). Verlag Marxistische Blätter, Frankfurt am Main 1975, ISBN 3-88012-393-4 .
  • Frederick C. Teiwes, Warren Sun: The tragedy of Lin Biao. Riding the Tiger during the Cultural Revolution 1966–1971. Hurst, London 1996, ISBN 1-85065-266-X .
  • Ming-le Yao: The Conspiracy. Coup and assassination of Lin Piao. Bertelsmann, Munich 1983, ISBN 3-570-00219-5 .
  • Wen-yüan Yao: About the social basis of the anti-party Lin Biao clique. Foreign Language Literature Publishing House, Beijing 1975.

Web links

Commons : Lin Biao  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Oskar Weggel: History of China in the 20th century. Stuttgart 1989, p. 273.
  2. ↑ This section only uses the 52nd chapter ("The Break with Lin Biao") of Chang's book as a source
Note: In this article, the family name is placed before the first name of the person. This is the usual order in Chinese. Lin is the family name here, Biao is the first name.
personal data
SURNAME Lin, Biao
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lín, Biāo; 林彪 (Chinese); Lin, Piao
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Chinese politician and marshal
BIRTH DATE December 5, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH Huanggang , Hubei
DATE OF DEATH September 13, 1971
PLACE OF DEATH Öndörchaan (Mongolia)