Otto Braun (Li De) - in China

In China

In 1932, following his graduation at the Frunze Academy, Soviet Military Intelligence's Fourth Directorate dispatched Braun to Harbin in Manchuria, China. From there he traveled to Shanghai, where joined the local Comintern bureau. There he was in military affairs under the orders of "General Kleber" (nom de guerre of Manfred Stern), who maintained a "military section" in the city, and in political issues under Arthur Ewert, a fellow German Communist.

However, Shanghai was at that time a backwater in Chinese revolutionary affairs – the local Communist movement having been effectively crushed by Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang (KMT) in the Shanghai massacre of 1927. The Chinese Communists had subsequently retreated to the countryside and started to organize in the province of Jiangxi. In the later part of 1933 Braun arrived in Ruijin, at that time capital of the "Chinese Soviet Republic" set up by the surviving Chinese Communists, where he became a military adviser.

The precise circumstances of his getting this appointment and his activities in the following years are still debated with some aspects remaining unclear. As noted by Freddy Litten, who thoroughly researched this part of Otto Braun's career, "'s memoirs are an important, though dubious, source for the events of these years".

At that time the Kuomintang – perceiving the Communists as a dangerous threat to its rule – launched a series of vigorous attacks on the CPC in urban areas. Its forces came near to Ruijin, which was in danger of being surrounded and became untenable. The CPC initiated the Long March to escape this danger. Braun, under his assumed Chinese name "Li De" was nearly the only foreigner to participate in the Long March, and might have even been the original proposer of the idea of embarking on such a march in an effort to reach the safer interior of China.

In the later part of 1934 Braun/Li De assumed a position of command in the early First Front Army, together with Zhou Enlai and Bo Gu – with authority to make all military decisions. Braun advocated that the First Front Army directly attack the far larger and better equipped KMT Army. The First Front Army's suffered great casualties, so that CPC forces fell drastically, from 86,000 to about 25,000, within a year.

In 1935, the CPC met at the Zunyi Conference where Mao Zedong and Peng Dehuai expressed their opposition to Braun, Bo Gu, and their tactics. Mao argued that the direct attacks were costing lives, and suggested that their smaller, poorer equipped forces should run and surround the KMT, using the guerrilla tactics for which Mao was to become famed. (Mao was already distrusting towards European advisors from the Comintern, especially considering that in the 1920s earlier such advisers like the Dutch Henk Sneevliet had given Chinese Communists disastrous advice.) Other military wing leaders agreed with Mao, so Braun and Bo Gu were removed as the military commanders and Mao become the leader of the Long March. After this conference, the Comintern was pushed aside, and "Native Communists" took control of the CPC.

Still, Braun stayed in China until 1939 and participated in the Long March along with the CPC. No longer holding a military command, he was mainly involved in advisory work and some teaching of tactics.

Though never returning to China after leaving in 1939, for the rest of his life he continued to show interest in Chinese affairs.