Zhou Enlai

Zhou Enlai, who lived from 1898 to 1976, was a Chinese statesman, diplomat and revolutionary who served as the first premier of the People's Republic of China from its founding in October 1949 until his own death in January 1976, ranking among the Chinese Communist Party's earliest leaders while remaining subordinate to Mao Zedong from the 1935 Zunyi Conference onward. As China's chief diplomat, Zhou shaped the country's foreign policy through a stated commitment to peaceful coexistence with Western nations following the Korean War, representing the People's Republic at major international gatherings including the 1954 Geneva Conference and the 1955 Bandung Conference of newly independent Asian and African states, and later playing the central role in arranging President Richard Nixon's landmark 1972 visit to China. Within China, Zhou worked through the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution to maintain government stability and economic functioning, and while he generally deferred publicly to Mao, he is credited by figures including Deng Xiaoping with limiting the damage of that period and shielding some individuals from persecution. Following the political fall of Mao's designated successor, Lin Biao, Zhou was elected the Communist Party's first ranking vice chairman in 1973, and his death in January 1976 provoked an outpouring of public mourning that developed into the Tiananmen Incident of that April, an episode widely seen as marking the beginning of the end of the Cultural Revolution.