Zhou Enlai Dies: China's Master Diplomat Mourned by Millions

Zhou Enlai was the only senior Chinese Communist leader who survived every political purge from the 1930s through the Cultural Revolution. He served as China's premier from 1949 until his death, a continuous tenure of 27 years at the head of government. Born on March 5, 1898, in Huai'an, Jiangsu Province, he studied in France and Germany in the early 1920s, where he joined the Chinese Communist Party and organized Chinese student activists. He returned to China and became one of Mao Zedong's closest associates during the Long March and the war against Japan. After the Communist victory in 1949, Zhou ran the day-to-day operations of the Chinese government while Mao set ideological direction. Zhou was the consummate political survivor, a skilled diplomat and administrator who managed to remain useful to Mao through every ideological campaign. During the Cultural Revolution, he protected some intellectuals, scientists, and officials from persecution while sacrificing others to the Red Guards. The moral calculus of his compromises remains debated. His greatest diplomatic achievement was the opening of relations with the United States. He hosted Henry Kissinger's secret visit in 1971 and Nixon's public visit in 1972, negotiating the Shanghai Communiqué that established the framework for Sino-American relations. He was dying of bladder cancer during most of the negotiation process, managing his illness while conducting some of the most consequential diplomacy of the Cold War. He died on January 8, 1976. The public mourning was so massive and spontaneous that it frightened the Gang of Four, who tried to suppress it. The April 5, 1976, Tiananmen Incident, in which hundreds of thousands gathered to mourn Zhou, was a prelude to the political upheaval that followed Mao's death later that year.