MINXIN PEI
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.”
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