The mystery of Li De's command of the Red Army
Although for many years, people have questioned Li De's true identity, but now his true situation is basically clear. At that time, the chairman of ** also proposed to find out his identity, but unfortunately, before *** died, the problem was still not resolved.
Leed, a communist from Munich, Germany, managed to enter the Soviet forces thanks to his ties to the Comintern and served as chief of staff of a cavalry division. He was sent to Shanghai by the General Staff of the Soviet Army, where he served as an ordinary staff member under Fred, a military adviser to the Far Eastern Bureau of the Eastern Department of the Comintern in Shanghai.
These three fundamental philosophical questions – Who is he? From **? How can you command the Red Army? It is still a concern to this day.
Li De's Russian name is Litlov, and he took the character "德" as his Chinese name, just like Zhang Wentian's Russian name is Ismailov, taking the character "Luofu" as his Chinese name.
Some people interpret Li De as a "German with the surname Lee", which is a misunderstanding. At that time, both Bogu and Li De were studying in the Soviet Union, and they met in Moscow, and later became more familiar with each other in the common revolutionary cause.
Li De is good at words, talks extraordinarily, and talks about military issues at the head of the way. Bogu was deeply interested in Marxism-Leninism and was eloquent, and he hoped to join forces with Li De to jointly advise the Chinese revolution.
As a result, Bogu, as the temporary head of the Communist Party of China, applied to the Comintern, hoping to hire Li De as a military adviser. What, then, was the Comintern's response to this?
The Comintern agreed, but stressed that the official adviser was Fred in Shanghai, and that Li De was only a liaison between the Chinese Communist Party and Fred, not a formal appointment by the Comintern.
It can be said that Li De's status as a consultant is not officially recognized, but recommended by Bogu. In addition, Lidder's German name is "Otto Braun", and he is not the founder of the Audi brand, which is different from another German, Fred.
Li De's power is completely ** Bogu.
Li De's true identity, except for Bogu and Wang Ming, no one seems to know. Bogu, as Wang Ming's top person in China, knows the ins and outs of Li De as a consultant well, and is also an important promoter of this decision.
Wang Jiaxiang once said that Li De's matter was planned by Wang Ming and Bogu. For their own reasons, the two of them have always been tight-lipped about Li De's true identity. Bogu was killed in the 1946 "April 8" air crash, and Wang Ming never returned in 1956 in the name of seeing a doctor, making Li De's true identity a mystery.
Bogu hired Li De with his special considerations. As a young leader, Bogu feared that he had little qualifications and did not understand military affairs, and that he might not be able to control the Red Army in the Soviet zone.
Therefore, he deliberately packaged Li De as the "minister of the Imperial Mission" of the Comintern, creating an aura of mystery for him, and Li De's identity label as an international adviser was also deliberately shaped by Bogu.
Bogu's command power in the **Soviet zone benefited from the support of military adviser Li De. Li De arrived in the Soviet zone in September 1933, just as Chiang Kai-shek had also hired a German adviser, Seckert.
Bogu emphasized that Li De was an outstanding military strategist, and his arrival was like a timely rain, able to compete with Chiang Kai-shek's German advisers. There were three reasons why Bogu and Li De were able to exist in the Soviet area: first, the Chinese Communist Party respected the Comintern, second, the Red Army had blind trust in foreign advisers at that time, and third, the left-leaning leaders organizationally attached importance to the students who had returned from the Soviet Union, and Bogu was one of them.
Relying on the prestige of the Comintern and the trust of Bogu, Li De regarded himself very highly, and not only self-styled celebrities, but also often showed an arrogant attitude. Although he was already a well-known general of the Comintern when he studied at the Frunze Military Academy in Moscow, Li De claimed that his command level in the Soviet area was inferior to that of an ordinary staff officer, and even transferred Liu to the Red Fifth Army as chief of staff.
According to the Soviet experts in China, the proposal that the experts should only be involved in professional matters so as not to get involved in other affairs is the result of drawing lessons from history. Li De was surrounded by two translators, Wu Xiuquan, better known as China's deputy chief of general staff and speaking at the United Nations; Wang Zhitao was young and senior, he was a soldier in Feng Yuxiang's army, and was later sent to the Soviet Union by Zhang Zizhong to study, and also served as a military instructor at the Moscow Higher Infantry School, and later became the vice president of the Academy of Military Sciences.
Wang Zhitao once recalled Li De: he is 1.9 meters tall, he is the best in the crowd, and in Li De's own words, he is "standing out from the crowd". Li De lived in a specially built independent house in the Soviet District, and when he traveled, he was surrounded by nine tall horses and four blue mules, and the guards surrounded him, making him a unique scenery in the Soviet District.
From the very beginning, the decision-making power for the fifth anti-"encirclement and suppression" military operation in the Soviet zone was completely in the hands of Bogu, Li De, Xiang Ying, and Fred, an international adviser in Shanghai.
Bogu and Xiang Ying lack practical experience and have no opinions. Two arrogant advisers from Germain, often due to tactical issues, exchanged frequent telegrams, and even called to Moscow, satirizing them as "telegraph revolutions".
During the Long March, the Red Army suffered from command errors and adopted tactics that ran counter to Chiang Kai-shek's ideas, as a result of which led to serious losses. At the Zunyi Conference, the military leadership was replaced, and Li De was marginalized, but *** still valued Li De's contribution.
Although he had clashed with Li De, he still emphasized that Li De's spirit was commendable and asked Deng Yingchao to take care of his life. During the long march across the grassland, ** was seriously ill, but he still gave the beef to Li De.
This shows ***'s personal respect and revolutionary friendship for Li De.
Because of his mistakes in China, the Supervisory Committee of the Executive Committee of the Comintern censored Li de in 1939. At that time, ** was in the Soviet Union because he fell off his horse and injured his arm**, and he participated in the review of Li De on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party.
Ren Bishi, Mao **, Liu Yalou and others also testified. Liu Yalou served as the political commissar of the Second Division of the Red First Army during the Long March, and his troops had participated in the bloody battle of the Xiangjiang River and suffered heavy losses, and they had long been dissatisfied with Li De's command.
Coupled with Liu Yalou's own fiery temper, he fiercely criticized Li De at the top of his throat, accusing Li De's blind command of bringing huge losses to the Red Army, and also criticizing him for being domineering and domineering.
Subsequently, several Chinese comrades also spoke one after another criticizing Li De.
At the reasonable suggestion of the Chinese comrades such as ***, the Supervisory Committee of the Comintern made a decision to deal with Li De, holding that although Li De was wrong, considering that he was an adviser, the Communist Party of China was independent and therefore exempted from punishment.
In the "China Chronicle", Li De recalled his experience in China, although Bogu once gave him absolute command, but he emphasized in the tone of "Versailles" that he was only an adviser, and the responsibility for the failure of the anti-"encirclement and suppression" was not him.
He seems to want to make people think that he is innocent, that the fault is on others, and completely ignores his role in it. However, he ignored the fact that his experience in China was indelible, and his actions and decisions had a significant impact on the Chinese revolution.
** When dealing with Li De's mistakes, he adopted an attitude of tolerance and understanding, believing that we should not focus only on the individual, but should learn from our own mistakes, and take them as a warning and keep moving forward.
That's the *** sensible way to deal with it.