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Lin Biao

Chinese Communist military commander and politician

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Lin Biao was a prominent Chinese Communist military commander who rose to become one of the most powerful figures in China during the 1960s-70s, serving as Defense Minister and Vice Chairman of the Communist Party. He matters historically because his sudden fall from power in 1971 marked a dramatic turning point in Chinese politics, though the exact circumstances of his death and alleged coup plot remain controversial and contested.

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Lin Biao (Chinese: 林彪; 5 December 1907 – 13 September 1971) was a Chinese military commander and politician. Pivotal to the Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War, he commanded the Liaoshen and Pingjin campaigns at the head of the Manchurian Field Army, led the People's Liberation Army into Beijing, and swept the Kuomintang from the coastal provinces of Southeast China. He was ranked third among the Ten Marshals of the People's Republic of China, behind Zhu De and Peng Dehuai.

After 1949, Lin initially withdrew from active politics. He served as a Vice Premier from 1954 and as one of the Vice Chairmen of the Chinese Communist Party from 1958, before assuming the additional post of Minister of National Defense in 1959. In the early 1960s he played a key role in cultivating Mao Zedong's cult of personality, and was rewarded during the Cultural Revolution by being designated Mao's sole successor as the Party's only Vice Chairman, a position he held from 1966 until his death.