The Great Road: The Life and Times of Chu Teh

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The Great Road: The Life and Times of Chu Teh is an unfinished biography of Chinese Communist leader Zhu De. Written by Agnes Smedley, she died in 1950 before finishing it. It was eventually published in English in 1956 by Monthly Review Press, with introductions by Leo Huberman and Paul Sweezy, after a Japanese edition appeared in 1955. The book is one of the few substantial English-language biographies of a major Chinese military figure. In China, it is regarded as a classic, and a Chinese translation has sold millions.

The biography traces Zhu De from his early radical involvement in the 1911 Revolution to his participation in the chaotic warlord era and the corruption of that period, then shows how he reinvented himself as a Leninist Communist. The account has gaps, but it includes Zhu’s own tale of the Battle of Luding Bridge. That version differs slightly from the account in Edgar Snow’s Red Star Over China. Zhu’s recollection uses different river names (the Tatu River in one version and the Dadu River in another) and refers to the bridge by the name “Lutinchiao” rather than Luding Bridge. He also mentions the leader of the attack who died first, though the sources here do not fully present that detail.