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Hi All,
Day two of our tour of Communist Party heroes. Peng DeHuai. Peng DeHuai was a a professional soldier who came from a poor farming family near Xiangtan in Hunan. He started a s a soldier for the local warlord and later joined the Red Army and aligned himself with Mao Zedong and Zhu De. General Peng, as he was to become, was a very good commander, being a straight talker and nort taking fools lightly. He would always w\make sure his soldiers had food in theoir bellyd and this made him very popular. He was involved in the Long March and defended the soviet set up in Shanxi province from the nationalist and save Mao's life on at least 2 occasions. He was also leader of the Volunteer Force in North Korea holding back the US Army. It was Peng who wrote personally to Mao when his son was killed in the war.
On the formation of The People's Republic of China in 1949 he became the defence minster and was a member of the politburo. When the Great Leap Forward was launched in the late 50s, which started collectivization land reforms and the strange notion of
having backyard steel smelting plants to try and beat Great Britain, the largest producer of steel at that time. It was all a complete disaster with the backyard plants producing worthless pig iron from the pots, pans, bicycles, farming tools. The weather played a part in 2 years of bad harvest. The local political Cadres not wanted to lose face began lying about the amount of rice they were producing. A great famine took hold. It is estimated that around 30 million people died in this period.
Peng went back to Hunan in 1958 to visit his home town and was horrified at the conditions the peasants were having to endure. Peng began to criticize Mao at meetings of the politburo. In 1959 a conference was held in Lushan to discuss the Great Leap. At the beginning of the conference Mao told the delegates that they were free to criticize if they felt it was fair and they would not be accused of being rightist or reactionary. In small meeting Peng began to gain support form party members and he was encouraged to go and see Mao and see if the policies of the Great Leap could be reversed.
On visiting Mao he found him occupied so he wrote him a personal letter. Mao read the letter 3 days later and then had it circulated to all the delegates. Peng Said the problems with the Great Leap were "problems in our way of thinking and style of work” and blamed exaggerated yield reports on "petty bourgeoisie fanaticism" . Peng criticized Mao's policy of "putting politics in command" .
Once the letter had been circulated it became an official conference document. It began to gain support. Mao then began to defend himself. He threatened to go into the countryside and form a peasant army and overthrow the government thus splitting the party. Fearing what this might lead to the delegates began to back down and began to support Mao.
The conference then began to debate was to be the punishment for Peng. Two resolutions were passed. One was that Peng was the leader of an "anti party clique and called for his dismissal from government but not form the party. He remained a politburo member but was barred from of their meetings. The second resolution called for a quiet end to the Great Leap Forward. Peng considered the
unity of the party and agreed to make a self-criticism. He said he had made "Severe mistakes" because of his "rightist viewpoint". He later told Zhou EnLai, Prime Minister, in private "for the first time in my life, I have spoken against my heart".
Peng was purged and replaced by Li Biao who reversed all Peng's USSR style military and turned the PLA into a peasant army, with them working part time in factories and as labourers and indoctrinating them with Mao ZeDong thought.
Peng was rehabilitated in 1965 with Mao giving him a position managing industrial development in southern China. This was shortly lived as Peng was one of the fist to be arrested by the Red guards as the Cultural Revolution broke out in 1966. Peng suffered terribly at the hands of his captives with them beating him and subjecting him to many public struggling sessions. Peng refused to confess to any crimes and stuck to his communist ideals until his death in prison in 1974. He may have lived longer but Mao personally stopped the doctors from visiting him.
When Deng XiaoPing became Chairman Peng DeHuai was rehabilitated and elevated to status
of Chinese Hero.
I have been wanting to visit this museum for a while. There are three topics which Chinese people do not like talking about, The Great Leap Forward, The Cultural Revolution and The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. With two of these topics being unavoidable because of Peng's involvement I was curious as to how it would be handled.
I really enjoyed the museum very much. Although not much was in English the photos and possessions in the museum told a story of a poor man who wanted to help his people but was prevented to do so.
The grounds around the statue are also very beautiful as are his birthplace and tomb. Well worth a visit.
Enjoy the photos
Jah Bless
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Prince Roy
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Great trip
Hey, this looked liked an awesome experience. Can you provide the name of the company you booked the tour with? I'd like to try this in March. Thanks!