More favored by Moscow than either Mao, Chu or Chou, is Li Li San,
whose name is pronounced “Lee Lee Sahn.” Long ago, he and Mao
quarrelled bitterly, and Li Li San fled to Russia, there to become
close to the heart of the Comintern. Fifteen years later, this lean
and hungry-looking agitator returned as Moscow’s appointee to the
head political role in Manchuria. A rumored cause of the rift with
Mao was that Li Li was caught heading an anti-Mao secret society,
with Russian connivance. The angle of their Communism differs. Mao,
a peasant, supports the farmers, while Li Li San, with his Moscow
training, favors the city workers.
Probably few men in history have been reported dying or dead over a
long period of their lives more often than has Li Li San. Nicknamed
the “Tito of Red China,” when Tito was still dominated by Moscow, his
career followed closely that of his namesake. After quarreling with
Mao, he vanished and was presumed dead by his friends. Some years
later he reappeared, with full Russian support, as a power to be
reckoned with in the Far Eastern picture.
While in Moscow, Li Li had married a Russian woman and, in the Far
Eastern University had trained Communist agents and sent them back
to their homelands as agitators. He maintained a close liaison with
the Kremlin. As Russia’s war with Japan was nearing an end, Stalin,
ignoring Li Li’s petty dispute with Mao, sent him, with Marshal
Malinovsky’s Russian Army of Mongols, into Manchuria six days before
the Japanese surrendered. His job was to take over this “Prize of
Asia,” rich in everything the Russians or anybody else needed and
which no contester for world power could do without.
Another important military personality in the Communist picture
is Lin Piao, pronounced “Lin Bow.” A great guerilla fighter and a
natural leader of men, he is a tactical genius who served on Chiang
Kai-shek’s staff and rose to become President of the Military
Academy. A little later he left the Nationalists and threw in his lot
with the Red Army. At twenty-eight he was given command of the First
Red Army Corps, a unit that is said never to have been defeated. Lin
Piao was to the Chinese Communist Army what Zukov was to the Russian
Army, Chief of Staff and a military wizard.
Today, Lin, in his forties, has never gotten over his youthful
tendency to blush. His agreeable face has slanting eyes that trail
off into little mice tail wrinkles. He is a sloppy dresser and is
over-casual in appearance. He has a good singing voice and he and
Mao, who also fancies himself a singer, often join in duets. After a
hearty meal when all are feeling warm and rosy from the choicest wine
of the Communist vineyards, Lin likes to tune up his vocal chords and
suggest that they sing Mao’s special song, “The Hot Red Pepper.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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