Time back to September 1933, the fifth encirclement and suppression, lao Chiang gathered more than 1 million troops to carry out a brutal encirclement and suppression of our army, our army at that time failed to counter-encirclement and suppression. After more than a year of resistance, it finally ended in failure. Under such circumstances, in order to preserve the strength of our army, we can only choose the Long March.
If the fifth anti-encirclement and suppression campaign of that year failed, there is one person who must be mentioned, that is, Li De. Why is this person's name specifically mentioned? You may not know that there may be many reasons for failure, but the most important reason is that it is directly related to Li De's wrong command at that time.
Originally, our army and the enemy were already in a state of equal strength, but due to Li De's intervention, our army could only abandon the base area in the end, causing huge losses to our army. So where did this gentleman named Li De go after that famous Zunyi conference?
First, where it came from
Li De, from Germany, was born in Munich. At a young age, he was influenced by the ideas of the International Communist Revolution and joined the Communist Party of Germany. At that time, the German government became aware of his reactionary remarks and arrested him. Li De, who spent two years in prison, came to the Soviet Union after his release in 1928.
After coming here, Li De entered the famous Frunze Military Academy. In the second week after graduation, he was sent by the Comintern to China on a mission. Why was it sent here temporarily? It turned out that in 1931, Niu Lan and his wife, who had been living in seclusion in Shanghai and were in charge of contact with the Comintern, were arrested.
The couple had a lot of important intelligence in their hands, and after their arrest, the situation was very grim. In this particular case, the Comintern reacted immediately, sending an experienced agent, Sorge, to take charge of the rescue. But agents said the cost of asking for rescue was $20,000.
Even if it is not a small number, but considering the special identity of the arrested persons, they agreed. Because the amount is too large, I am afraid of any mistakes in the process of transferring money, and I need to send someone to personally deliver it. After the organization's research, Reed became the one chosen.
According to the task arrangement, Li De completed the transportation of funds, and ended up meeting his good friend in Shanghai, Mr. Bogu. At that time, Mr. Bogu was the head of the central government and had great power. However, he was not familiar with military command, and learned that Li De came from a famous military academy, so he thought of letting him stay.
So it was such an experience, and by chance, Li De stayed in China and soon became a military adviser to our army. Why is everyone optimistic about him? The reason is that he successfully completed this transport mission, the two sides have a very high evaluation of him, and he graduated from the military academy, and everyone has high hopes for him. So in the end the command of our army's major battles fell into his hands.
At that time, the conditions in the Central Soviet Area were very difficult, and Li De, as a foreign consultant, enjoyed the highest treatment, stayed in a high-end villa, had protection in and out, and had a professional translator. Most importantly, there is Bogu behind him, and the so-called leaning on the big tree to cool off is this truth.
Second, the command is defeated
When the fifth anti-encirclement and suppression campaign began, Li De, who was then a military commander, commanded our army in battle, but there were many wrong decisions, which led to successive defeats of our army and finally forced to move. At that time, our army had high hopes for him, but it did not expect such a result, and our army was seriously damaged.
It turned out that although Li De graduated from the military academy, he only studied for three years, had no actual combat experience, and became a commander as soon as he came out, and theory and practice could not be combined, which eventually caused such consequences. Moreover, when he was in combat command, Li De basically commanded in the rear and did not go deep into the front line to observe and understand the situation.
At that time, our army was mainly engaged in guerrilla warfare, but Li De changed this strategy and directly chose the method of attack. Without estimating that the difference in strength between our army and the enemy is too great, the result of a hard encounter is that it is impossible to win, and it is definitely himself who is injured in the end, and Li De does not seem to realize this.
Through Li De's several command operations, party insiders have seen the problem. Externally, this person was passive in responding to the battle, and internally he did not adjust his strategy in time and did not transfer in time, resulting in our army not withdrawing in time and suffering heavy losses.
3. Zunyi Conference
In 1935, the Zunyi Conference was convened. At the meeting, everyone conducted an in-depth analysis of Li De's command and directly pointed out his mistakes. Li De did not admit this, and turned the reason for the failure to other issues, without mentioning his responsibility at all.
Even if Li De tries his best to justify it, our army believes that Li De is no longer suitable for the position of supreme military commander and can no longer trust him. At the meeting, it was unanimously agreed to revoke his command. Although he no longer held the leadership position, he still insisted on completing the Long March with our army.
In July 1935, the Red Army University was established, and according to the organizational arrangement, Li De was sent to teach military theory to comrades. In October 1935, he followed the Red Army to northern Shaanxi. Four years later, in 1939, Li De left Yan'an and returned to moscow.
For the Long March, Li De, as a witness, gave a positive evaluation. He believes that although the Long March sacrificed many people, from a political point of view, it was a great victory. The Red Army was not afraid of the enemy army, which had a strong advantage, and broke through the enemy's heavy encirclement many times, which was a great achievement.
After returning to the Soviet Union, Li De was still censored, and after the review, Li De was not punished much, but was transferred out of the Comintern and assigned to work in the local foreign language publishing house, the main task was to compile Marxist-Leninist works. After the outbreak of World War II, he also participated in the Great Patriotic War in the Soviet Union.
After the end of World War II, Li De returned to his original unit, a foreign literature publishing house, and in the 1950s, he also worked as a teacher. In 1954, Li De left the Soviet Union and returned to his hometown in Germany, where he had been away for 26 years. He continued to work as a translator, mainly translating Lenin's articles into German. In 1974, at the age of 74, Li De died in Germany.
4. Summary
The fifth anti-encirclement and suppression campaign in the Central Soviet Region failed, and Li De bore a heavy responsibility. It was his command that caused the Chinese revolution great harm. However, we must also analyze objectively that although the mistake is great, it is not a contradiction of the enemy. Mainly the result of his promotion to too high a position at that time, and the lack of a moral fit. In this case, it is important to learn a lesson.
The mistake made by Li De was obviously incompetent, but fortunately the Zunyi Conference was convened in time to revoke his command. But in terms of teaching, he did a decent job. In this way, if you put him in the right position, it may be better. But I did not expect that sitting in the position of commanding the Central Red Army, I would make such a big mistake, which made people sigh endlessly.