He Long

Early life

He Long was a member of the Tujia ethnic group.^[1] Born in Sangzhi, Hunan, he and his siblings, including He Ying, grew up in a poor peasant household, despite his father being a minor Qing military officer.^[2] His father was a member of the Gelaohui (Elder Brother Society), a secret society dating back to the early Qing dynasty. A cowherd during his youth, he received no formal education.^[3] When He was 20, he killed a local government tax assessor who had killed his uncle for defaulting on his taxes.^[4] He then fled and became an outlaw, giving rise to the legend that he began his revolutionary career with just two kitchen knives.^[3] After beginning his life as an outlaw, he gained a reputation as a "Robin Hood-like figure". His signature weapon was a butcher knife.^[2]

Around 1918, He raised a volunteer revolutionary army that was aligned with a local Hunan warlord,^[4] and in 1920, his personal army joined the National Revolutionary Army.^[5] In 1923, He was promoted to command the Nationalist Twentieth Army. In 1925, He ran a school for training Kuomintang soldiers. While running this school, He became close with some of his students who were also Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members.^[4] During the 1926 Northern Expedition, He commanded the 1st Division, 9th Corps of the National Revolutionary Army.^[6] He served under Zhang Fakui during the Northern Expedition.^[4]

In late 1926, He joined the CCP.^[5] According to the Communist Party Members Website, he only joined the Party at the end of August or the beginning of September 1927, after allegedly sending up to 70 requests.^[7] In 1927, after the collapse of Wang Jingwei's leftist Kuomintang government in Wuhan and Chiang Kai-shek's suppression of communists, He left the Kuomintang and joined the Communists, commanding the 20th Corps, 1st Column of the Red Army.^[4]

He and Zhu De planned and led the main force of the Nanchang Uprising in 1927. In the Nanchang Uprising, He and Zhu led a combined force of 24,000 men and attempted to seize the city of Nanchang, but they were not able to secure it against the inevitable Kuomintang attempt to retake the city. The campaign suffered from logistical difficulties, and the Communists suffered 50% casualties in the two months of fighting. Most of He's soldiers who survived surrendered, deserted, and/or rejoined the KMT. Only 2,000 survivors eventually returned to fight for the Communists in 1928, when Zhu reformed his forces in Hunan.^[8]

After his forces were defeated, He fled to Lufeng, Guangdong. He spent some time in Hong Kong, but was later sent by the CCP to Shanghai, then to Wuhan.^[4] Chiang Kai-shek continuously tried to persuade him rejoin the Kuomintang, but failed.^[9][7]

Communist guerrilla

After the failure of the Nanchang Uprising, He turned down an offer by the CCP Central Committee to study in Russia and returned to Hunan, where he raised a new force in 1930.^[6] His force controlled a broad area of the countryside in the Hunan-Hubei border region, around the area of Lake Hong, and organized this area into a rural soviet. In mid-1932, Kuomintang forces targeted He's Soviet as part of the Fourth Encirclement Campaign. He's forces abandoned their bases, moved southwest, and established a new base in Northeast Guizhou in mid-1933.^[10]

In 1934, Ren Bishi joined He in Guizhou with his own surviving forces after also being forced to abandon his Soviet in another Encirclement Campaign. Ren and He merged forces, with He becoming the military commander and Ren becoming the commissar.^[11] He joined the Long March in November 1935, over a year after forces led by Zhu De and Mao Zedong were forced to evacuate their own Soviet in Jiangxi.^[5] He's ability to resist the Kuomintang was partially due to his position on the periphery of Communist-controlled territory.^[2] While on the Long March, He's forces met Communist forces led by Zhang Guotao in June 1936, but both He and Ren disagreed with Zhang about the direction of the Long March, and He eventually led his forces into Shaanxi to join Mao Zedong by the end of 1936. During this period, he repeatedly thwarted Chiang's plans to annihilate his army.^[12] In 1937, He settled his troops in Northwestern Shaanxi and established a new headquarters there.^[11] Because the Second Army of the Chinese Red Army under He Long's command was one of the few Communist forces to arrive in Yan'an mostly intact, his force was able to assume the responsibility of protecting the new capital after their arrival.^[2]

When the Red Army was reorganized into the Eighth Route Army in 1937, He was placed in command of the 120th Division.^[5] He Long was also assigned the official rank of Lieutenant General by the National Revolutionary Army.^[13] From late 1938 to 1940, He fought both the Japanese army and Kuomintang-affiliated guerrillas in Hubei.^[11] He's responsibilities increased during the Second Sino-Japanese War, and in 1943, he was promoted to be the overall commander of Communist forces in Shanxi, Shaanxi, Gansu, Ningxia, and Inner Mongolia.^[5] By the end of World War II, He commanded a force of approximately 175,000 troops across Northwestern China. His most notable subordinates included Zhang Zongxun, Xu Guangda, and Peng Shaohui.^[14]

He was successful in expanding Communist base areas throughout the period of World War II. Part of He's success was due to the social confusion caused by Japan's Ichi-Go Offensive in the areas of China that Japanese operations effected. He was frequently able to expand Communist areas of operation by allying with local, independent guerrilla forces who were also fighting the Japanese. He's experience fighting the Kuomintang and the Japanese led him to question Mao's unconditional emphasis on the importance of ideological guerrilla warfare at the expense of conventional tactics and military organization.^[15]

In October 1945, one month after the Japanese surrender, the command of He's forces was transferred to Peng Dehuai, which operated as the "Northwest Field Army". He became Peng's second-in-command, but spent most of the rest of the Chinese Civil War in central CCP headquarters, in and around Yan'an.^[14] After the Japanese surrender, in 1945, He was elected to the CCP Central Committee, and his influence rose within both the military and the Communist political system. He then became a leading figure in mobilizing cadres to work in other regions throughout China when the Civil War resumed.^[16] Near the end of the Chinese Civil War, He was made Director of the Xi'an Military Control Commission, and promoted to command the First Field Army, which was active in Southwest China.^[15] As part of the Southwest Bureau's leadership, he was one of the leaders behind the Chengdu Campaign, Battle of Xichang and the Battle of Chamdo.^[17][18] His "slow first, fast later" approach facilitated conditions for a decisive Communist victory in Chengdu.^[19] After the Communists won the Civil War in 1949, He spent most of the 1950s in both civilian and military roles in the Southwest, most notably as Vice Chairman of the Southwest Military and Political Committee.^[11][20] In this position, he made crucial appointments that shaped the military and political landscape of several provinces, including in bandit suppression efforts.^[21][22]

In the People's Republic

He's military accomplishments were recognized when he was promoted to being one of the Ten Marshals in 1955,^[15] and he served in a number of civilian positions. He was also made Vice Premier, concurrently heading the National Sports Commission, and in that role facilitated sports exchanges with the Soviet Union and the Eastern European countries.^{[23]: 139 [24]} He Long had had prior experience in organizing sports competitions since the Red Army period, and in 1951, established the earliest professional sports team established nationwide after the Civil War, facing pressure in appointing instructors and coaches who had worked under the Kuomintang.^[25] He was one of the most well-traveled members of the CCP elite, and led numerous delegations abroad, meeting with leaders of other Asian countries, the Soviet Union, and East Germany.^[10]

Having led troops for a long time and understanding the sense of inferiority among Chinese athletes on the world stage, He Long placed great emphasis on ensuring that sports teams excelled in three areas: ideology, technique, and conduct. Therefore, in the training of athletes, He Long advocated that the difficulty level of training should significantly exceed that of the competition, so that athletes could maximize their technical abilities and compete with the world's best.^[26] In developing professional sports, he not only handled major events but also meticulous details. He would watch tennis players at the training facility and then tell the coaches to identify their weaknesses by applying statistical methods.^[27] Facing a shortage of sports venues and technical personnel, he embarked on constructing new ones, launching campaigns and creating principles for development, inducing overseas talents to return, and establishing newspapers and magazines to focus on reporting sporting events.^[28] He implemented radio calisthenics, resulting in a general improvement in students' physical fitness, and took the lead in the popularization of sports in rural areas.^[25]

On January 5, 1960, the CCP Central Committee approved the establishment of the National Defense Industry Commission, appointing He Long as its director. Because the defense industry was full of top national secrets, He Long, upon assuming office, stipulated a strict secrecy rule for all staff members: anything involving defense industry secrets, whether from the perspective of the unit or individual, including himself, was strictly forbidden from being publicized in newspapers. Therefore, He Long's period of leadership in the defense industry has remained largely unknown. Upon assuming this post, he began to rectify the quality control of China's armaments production.^[29][30] During the Third Front construction movement, He Long, as a member of the Politburo, Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission and Vice Premier, went on inspection tours to China’s interior.^[31][32]

After Mao Zedong purged Peng Dehuai in 1959, Mao appointed He to the head of an office to investigate Peng's past and find reasons to criticize Peng. He accepted the position but was sympathetic to Peng, and stalled for over a year before submitting his report. Mao's prestige weakened when it became widely known that Mao's Great Leap Forward had been a disaster, and He eventually presented a report that was positive, and which attempted to vindicate Peng.^[33] Peng was partially rehabilitated in 1965, but then purged again at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution in 1966.^[34] The Soviets were unhappy with China's direction, and in a meeting, Marshal Rodion Malinovsky, the Soviet Defense Minister, had reportedly suggested to Marshal He Long that China remove Mao from leadership.^[35]

Fall and death

As the Cultural Revolution began, Jiang Qing denounced He in December 1966 of being a "rightist" and of intra-CCP factionalism. Following Jiang's accusations He and his supporters were branded an anti-CCP element and quickly purged.^[36] He Long, then the leading figure among active members of the Central Military Commission, was accused of fermenting a "February Mutiny", which supposedly took place in 1966, with other military and political leaders in China. It was also believed that he had been opposing Lin Biao's military appointments.^[37] He's persecutors singled him out by labeling him the "biggest bandit".^[15] He was the second highest-ranking member of the Central Military Commission at the time that he was purged, and the method in which he and those close to him were purged set the pattern for multiple later purges of the PLA leadership throughout the Cultural Revolution.^[36] The Sports Commission was not spared, with several leading athletes and personnel being mentally and physically abused before and after his purge. In June 1968, He Long was denounced as the fourth-highest ranking counter-revolution revisionist.^[38]

After being purged, He was placed under indefinite house arrest for the last two and a half years of his life. He described the conditions of his imprisonment as a period of slow torture, in which his captors "intended to destroy my health so that they can murder me without spilling my blood". During the years that he was imprisoned, his captors restricted his access to water, cut off his house's heat during the winter, and refused him access to medicine to treat his diabetes from January 1969.^[39] He Long had suffered from diabetes mellitus for many years. Poor medical treatment manifested his conditions into diabetic acidosis soon after.^[38] He died in June 1969 after being hospitalized for the severe malnutrition that he developed while under house arrest. He died soon after being admitted to hospital, after a glucose injection complicated his chronic diabetes.^[40]

He was posthumously partially rehabilitated by Mao in 1974, then fully rehabilitated after Deng Xiaoping came to power in the late 1970s.^[41] A stadium in Changsha was named after him in 1987.^[28]