27 Facts About Zhang Guotao

Zhang Guotao, or Chang Kuo-tao, was a founding member of the Chinese Communist Party and rival to Mao Zedong.

When his depleted forces finally arrived to join Mao in Yan'an, Zhang Guotao continued his losing challenge to Mao, and left the party in 1938.

Zhang Guotao became a Christian shortly before his death in Scarborough, Ontario, in 1979.

Zhang Guotao's memoirs provide valuable and vivid information on his life and party history.

Zhang Guotao studied Marxist thought under Li Dazhao while attending Peking University in 1916.

Zhang Guotao acted as the CCP's top party official at the first National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in 1921 and was elected a member of the Central Bureau of the CCP in charge of organizing the work of Professional revolutionaries.

Zhang Guotao led several major strikes of railway and textile workers, which made him a pioneer of the labor movement in China along with such figures as Liu Shaoqi and Li Lisan.

In 1924 Zhang Guotao attended the First National Congress of the Kuomintang during the policy of alliance between the Communists and the Kuomintang and was elected as Substitute Commissioner of Central Executive Committee.

In 1926 Zhang Guotao was the General Secretary of Hubei Division of CCP, and in 1927 he was Commissioner of Interim Central Committee of the CCP after the failure of the CCP uprising.

In 1928 Zhang Guotao was elected as a member of the politburo of the CCP in the Sixth National Congress held in Soviet Union, and then as a delegate of the CCP in Comintern.

In 1931 Zhang Guotao expressed his repentance and was sent back to China by the Comintern to clean up the mess left by the power struggle between the 28 Bolsheviks, Li Lisan, and other old CCP members.

Zhang Guotao used his fame and popularity to correct their extremism and appeased the old CCP members.

Zhang Guotao was assigned to lead the daily operation of E-Yu-Wan Revolutionary Base at the border of Hubei, Henan, and Anhui provinces as General Secretary and chairman of the military committee, and then Vice Chairman of the Interim Central Government of the Chinese Soviet Republic when Mao was the chairman.

Possibly influenced by life in Stalin's Soviet Union, Zhang Guotao carried out strict purges to persecute dissidents.

In 1932 Zhang Guotao led the 4th Red Army into Sichuan and set up another base.

However, once the prosperity was in reach, Zhang Guotao repeated the Stalinist style purges again, as a result, he and the Red Army lost the popular support, and was driven from the Red base.

Zhang Guotao tried to have Mao and his followers arrested and killed if needed, but his plan was foiled by his own staff members Ye Jianying and Yang Shangkun, who fled to Mao's headquarters to inform Mao about Zhang Guotao's plot, taking the all of the codebooks and maps with them.

Zhang Guotao was forced to admit defeat and retreat to the communist base in Shaanxi.

Zhang Guotao's remaining troops of 21,800 were later annihilated in 1936 by the superior force of more than 100,000 combined troops of warlords Ma Bufang, Ma Hongbin and Ma Zhongying during efforts to cross the Yellow River and conquer Ma's territory.

Zhang Guotao lost the power and influence to be able to challenge Mao and had to accept his failure as a result of the disaster which only left him 427 surviving troops from the original 21,800.

When Zhang Guotao reached the new CCP base at Yan'an, he had fallen from power and became an easy target for Mao.

Zhang Guotao kept the now figurehead position of Chairman of Yan'an Frontier Area and was frequently subjected to humiliation by Mao and his allies.

Zhang Guotao was too proud to ally with Wang Ming, who had recently come back from Moscow and was acting as the Comintern's representative in China.

Zhang Guotao emigrated to Canada with his wife Tzi Li Young in 1968 to join their two sons who were already living in Toronto.

Zhang Guotao gave his only interview in 1974, when he told a Canadian Press reporter, "I have washed my hands of politics".

Zhang Guotao is buried in the Pine Hills Cemetery in Scarborough.

Zhang Guotao was highly critical of the proceedings of the first PRC Police leader Luo Ruiqing during the Chinese Civil War.