Zhang Guotao (1897-1979)

Courtesy name Zhang Guotao, also known as Zhang Teli, native of Pingxiang, Jiangxi Province. In 1916, he was admitted to the Peking University, in 1919, he successively served as deputy director and general director of the Student Affairs Council of Peking University, and chairman of the Beijing Student Federation. He actively participated in and led the May Fourth Patriotic Movement. In 1920, he participated in the establishment of the Beijing Communist Group and the Beijing Socialist Youth League, devoted himself to the Beijing-Hankou Railway Workers' Movement, and participated in the establishment of the Changxindian Labor Remedial School and the Changxindian Workers' Club. In July 1921, he attended the First National Congress of the CPC and was elected member of the Central Bureau. Later, he served as director of the Secretariat of the China Labour Union. In February 1923, he led and organized the Beijing-Hankou Railway Workers' Strike.

In January 1924, he attended the First National Congress of the KMT and was elected alternate member of the Central Executive Committee. At the end of 1926, he served as secretary of the Hubei District Committee of the CPC. In July 1927, he served as commissioner of the Provisional Central Committee of the CPC. In 1931, he served as secretary of the CPC Central Bureau of Hubei, Henan and Anhui Soviet Area and Chairman of the Military Committee. He actively pursued Wang Ming's “Left” deviation dogmatic policy and presided over launching the wrong “suppression of counterrevolutionaries” campaign, which resulted in the killing of early Red Army generals in many base areas. In June 1935, he joined forces with the Central Red Army who conducted the Long March and served as General Political Commissar of the Red Army. In October of the same year, he led the Fourth Front Army of the Red Army to retreat to Sichuan-Shaanxi border area without authorization, and set up another "Central Committee" to oppose the decision of the CPC Central Committee to march northward, and openly split the Party and the Red Army.

In June 1936, under the opposition of Ren Bishi and others, he was forced to abolish the puppet Central Committee and accompanied the Second and Fourth Front Armies of the Red Army to the north of Shaanxi. In March 1937, the CPC Central Committee held an enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau in Yan'an, at which it adopted the “Decision Concerning Zhang Guotao's Mistakes”, calling on the whole Party to fight firmly against Zhang Guotao's mistake. On April 4, 1938, he fled to the KMT-ruled area and joined the KMT secret service group. On April 18, he was expelled from the CPC Central Committee. Soon after joining KMT secret service organization, he engaged in anti-Communist secret service activities. In June 1948, he founded the weekly Chuangjin in Shanghai and continued conducting anti-communist publicity . In November of the same year, he went to Taiwan. He moved to Hong Kong in 1949, to the United States in 1968, and then to Canada. On December 3, 1979, he died of illness at a nursing home in Toronto, Canada, aged 82. He wrote the long memoir My Memories.