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Zhū Dé (朱德, Wade-Giles: Chu
Teh, Chinese_courtesy_name#Zi|zi: Yùjiē
玉阶) (December 1, 1886 - July 6,
1976) was a Communist Party of China|Chinese
Communist military leader and statesman. He is
regarded as a founder of the Chinese Red Army (the
forerunner of the People's Liberation Army) and
the tactician who engineered the revolution from
which emerged the People's Republic of China.

He was born into a large farming family in Yilong
county, a hilly and isolated section of northern
Sichuan province. After a secondary education
funded by his clan, Zhu De travelled to Chengdu to
study physical education before joining the army.
In 1908 he entered the Yunnan Military Academy in
Kunming and went on to teach in the academy after
his graduation. Zhu joined the rebellion that
overthrew the Qing dynasty in 1911. He
participated in military campaigns with armies of
the Yunnan warlords and commanded units along the
Laos and Vietnam borders during the early years of
the Chinese Republic. During this time, Zhu De
developed a strong opium habit but managed to
recover from the addiction in 1922 at a Shanghai
hospital. 

Zhu De began to read Marxism and Leninism in
Shanghai. In the mid-1920s he went overseas to
Europe, studying at Georg August University of
Göttingen|Göttingen University in Germany from
1922 to 1925. Around this time he joined the
Communist Party with Zhou Enlai and others as his
sponsors. After he returned to China, Zhu served
in a training regiment of Sun Yat-sen's Kuomintang
army and Chief of Public Security in Nanchang. He
was arrested twice for his revolutionary
activities in China and eventually exiled. In July
1925, he travelled to the Soviet Union to study
military affairs before returning to China in
1926. 

Zhu's close affiliation with Mao Zedong began
after the Nanchang Uprising|failed revolutionary
uprisings in 1927, when both men fled to the
Ching-kang Mountains to avoid the total
annihilation of their forces. From these humble
beginnings Mao and Zhu built the People's
Liberation Army|Red Army into a skilled guerilla
force that consolidated and expanded the base
areas under Communist control. Zhu's bravery and
skill in leading these men made him a figure of
immense prestige, and the locals credited him with
supernatural abilities. 


During the Long March Zhu De and Zhang Guotao
commanded the "western column" of the Red Army
which barely survived the retreat through Sichuan
Province. In Yenan, Zhu directed the
reconstruction of the Red Army under the political
guidance of Mao and during the Sino-Japanese War
(1937-1945) and the Chinese Civil War he held the
position of Commander-in-Chief of the Red Army.
After 1949 Zhu was named Commander-in-Chief of the
People's Liberation Army (PLA) and was
vice-Chairman of the Communist Party. He was made
a marshal in 1955. He continued to be a prominent
and much respected elder statesman until his death
in July 1976, at which time he was Chairman of the
Standing Committee of the National People's
Congress (since 1975).

==See also==
* Eighth Route Army
* History of the PRC (1949-1976)

==External links==
* http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/COLDzhu.htm
Zhu De Biography From Spartacus Educational