Zuo Quan, also named Zuo Shuren, born in Liling, Hunan, was a general in the Red Army during the Chinese revolution and the war against Japan, and a senior staff officer of the Eighth Route Army.
Education
Zuo graduated in the first class of Whampoa Military Academy, joined the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1925, and helped to found a secret organization amongst Whampoa"s pro-communist students, the Huoxingshe, and later another called Young Soldiers United (Qingnian Junren Lianhehui).
Career
He died in combat in 1942. Zuo was appointed a company commander in the Nationalist Army after graduation. Zuo travelled back to China, arriving in Shanghai with Liu Bocheng, and was sent to the Soviet area in Jiangxi.
Zuo became an instructor and then commandant of the First Branch, Red Army Military Academy, and later assumed command of the New 12th Army.
From August to December 1940, Zuo participated in the leadership of the Hundred Regiments Campaign. In 1941, when the Social Affairs Department (Shehuibu) sent an intelligence detachment to the Eighth Route Army to support it, that group was at first sponsored by Zuo Quan who subordinated it to his own staff within a year and subsequently controlled its tasking, personnel, and operations.
While under Zuo the detachment successfully established intelligence stations behind enemy lines throughout the Taihang-Shandong area, and set up an agent network in Peiping. In May–June 1942 Zuo engaged in battles to cover the retreat of the Eighth Route Army, and was fatally wounded by a Japanese artillery shell on 2 June 1942 while leading a breakout.
After his death the CCP renamed Liao County in Shanxi Province Zuoquan County, in his honor.
Politics
After the CCP"s split with the Kuomintang, Zuo travelled to Moscow where he studied at Sun Yatsen University and then the Soviet Military Academy, graduating in 1930.