stylistic:style_transfer, information:classification, stylistic:tone, linguistic:voice_change
Early activities in Chongqing

Zhou Enlai reached Chongqing in December 1938, and resumed the official and unofficial operations that he had been conducting in Wuhan in January 1938. Zhou's activities included those required by his formal positions within the Nationalist government, his running of two pro-Communist newspapers, and his covert efforts to form reliable intelligence networks and increase the popularity and organization of CCP organizations in southern China. At its peak, the staff working under him in both official and covert roles totaled several hundred people. After finding that his father, Zhou Shaogang, was unable to support himself, Zhou looked after his father in Chongqing until his father's death in 1942.

Soon after arriving in Chongqing, Zhou successfully lobbied the Nationalist government to release Communist political prisoners. After their release, Zhou often assigned these former prisoners as agents to organize and lead Party organizations throughout southern China. The efforts of Zhou's covert activities were extremely successful, increasing CCP membership across southern China tenfold within months. Chiang was somewhat aware of these activities and introduced efforts to suppress them but was generally unsuccessful.

In July 1939, while in Yan'an to attend a series of Politburo meetings, Zhou had an accident horseback riding in which he fell and fractured his right elbow. Because there was little medical care available in Yan'an, Zhou traveled to Moscow for medical treatment, using the occasion to brief the Comintern on the status of the united front. Zhou arrived in Moscow too late to mend the fracture, and his right arm remained bent for the rest of his life. Joseph Stalin was so displeased with the CCP's refusal to work more closely with the Nationalists that he refused to see Zhou during his stay. Zhou's adopted daughter, Sun Weishi, accompanied Zhou to Moscow. She remained in Moscow after Zhou left in order to study for a career in theater.