Chou En-Lai chinese premier Krushchev vintage photo

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A vintage original 8x8 3/8 inch 1961 photo of Soviet Premier Krushchev greeted Red Chinese Premier Chou En-Lai on his arrival in Moscow. Zhou Enlai (Simplified Chinese: 周恩来; Traditional Chinese: 周恩來; Pinyin: Zhōu Ēnlái; Wade-Giles: Chou En-lai) (March 5, 1898 – January 8, 1976), a prominent Communist Party of China leader, was Premier of the People's Republic of China from 1949 until his death in January 1976, and China's foreign minister from 1949 to 1958. Zhou was instrumental in the Communist Party's rise to power, and subsequently in the construction of the Chinese economy and reformation of Chinese society. On the international scene Zhou was a skilled and able diplomat, having advocated for peaceful co-existence and been a participant at the Geneva Conference in 1954. As a result of his moral character, he was very popular with the Chinese public, and Zhou's death brought an outpouring of support which turned out to be crucial in China's transition of power between Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping.Contents Early years and educationZhou Enlai was born in Huaian, Jiangsu Province. His family, although of the educated scholar class, was not well off. His grandfather, a minor civil servant of the Emperor, was poorly paid. His father repeatedly failed the Imperial examinations, and throughout his life would be employed in low-paying minor clerkships.Zhou Enlai was the eldest son and eldest grandson of the Zhou family. When Enlai was still less than one year old, he was adopted by his father's youngest brother who was dying of tuberculosis. This adoption took place so that the younger brother would not die childless, a serious scandal to a traditional Confucian family of high status.Lady Chen, his adoptive mother, began to teach him Chinese characters as soon as he could toddle. By the time he was four years old he could read and write several hundred words.In 1907, Zhou’s birth mother died of Tuberculosis, and in the summer of 1908 Lady Chen also died. Zhou was orphaned at the age of ten, so it was arranged that he leave Huai'an and go to the city of Shenyang in Manchuria to live with his Uncle, Yikang. At the age of twelve, Zhou was enrolled in the Tung Guan model school that taught “new learning,” i.e. mathematics and natural science, as well as Chinese history, geography and literature. The students were also exposed to translations of western books, w Enlai learned about freedom, democracy and the American and French revolutions.In 1913, at the age of fifteen, Zhou graduated from Tung Guan and in September of that year he was enrolled in the Nankai school, located in Tianjin. For the next four years he was a diligent student of this prestigious American funded missionary school. Throughout the period of his schooling China was in great turmoil. In 1911 the Xinhai Revolution of Sun Yat-sen overthrew the Qing dynasty and established the Republic of China. The outbreak of the Great War in Europe relieved the pressure from European intruders, but presented an opportunity for Japan to push its own dominance. Enlai could see that China was being ruined by foreign intervention. He shared in the wrath, the protest, and the indignation at the plight of China.The next step in Zhou’s education was to attend university in Tokyo. His goal was to become a teacher so that he could have influence on the youth of China. But he found he could not concentrate. He could not study and his Japanese language was poor also, which lead to him unable to catch up with any study. In Nankai he had written and spoken against Japan’s military and political pressure upon China, and its inexorable slide into anarchy. He challenged his fellow students on what his generation could do to save China. Their answer was to study, to become educated in the sciences and professions. China needed elite, knowledgeable doctors, engineers, and teachers. “But why?” he asked. “If China is to disappear, what is the use of studying?”. Zhou decision to leave Japan was also partly influrence by his fellow Nankai student also stu... read more

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