Portal:Communism/Selected biography/46
Lin Biao (
Ten Marshals. Zhu De and Peng Dehuai were considered senior to Lin, and Lin ranked directly ahead of He Long and Liu Bocheng
.
Lin abstained from taking an active role in politics after the civil war, but became instrumental in creating the foundations for Mao Zedong's cult of personality in the early 1960s. Lin was rewarded for his service to Mao by being named Mao's designated successor during the Cultural Revolution, from 1966 until his death.
Lin died in September 1971 when his plane crashed in
Communist Party of China. He and Jiang Qing
are still considered to be the two "major Counter-revolutionary cliques" blamed for the excesses of the Cultural Revolution.