Peng Dehuai (simplifiedChinese: å½å¾·æ€€; pinyin: Péng Déhuái; ) (October 24,1898 – November 29, 1974) was a prominent Chinese Communist militaryleader, and China's Defense Minister, from 1954 to 1959. Peng was born into apoor peasant family, and received several years of primary education before hisfamily's poverty forced him to suspend his education at the age of ten, and towork for several years as a manual laborer. When he was sixteen, Peng became aprofessional soldier. Over the next ten years Peng served in the armies ofseveral Hunan-based warlord armies, raising himself from the rank of privatesecond class to major. In 1926 Peng's forces joined the Kuomintang, and Pengwas first introduced to communism. Peng participated in the Northern Expedition,and supported Wang Jingwei's attemptto form a left-leaning Kuomintang government based in Wuhan. After Wang wasdefeated, Peng briefly rejoined Chiang Kai-shek's forces before joining the Chinese CommunistParty, allying himself with Mao Zedong and Zhu De.
Peng was one of the most seniorgenerals who defended the Jiangxi Sovietfrom Chiang's attempts to capture it, and his successes were rivaled only by Lin Biao. Peng participated in the Long March, and supported Mao Zedong at the Zunyi Conference, which was critical to Mao'srise to power. During the 1937–1945 Second Sino-JapaneseWar, Peng was one of the strongest supporters of pursuing a ceasefirewith the Kuomintang in order to concentrate China's collective resources onresisting the Japanese Empire.Peng was the senior commander in the combined Kuomintang-Communist efforts toresist the Japanese occupation of Shanxi in 1937; and, by 1938,was in command of 2/3 of the Eighth Route Army. In 1940, Peng conducted the Hundred RegimentsOffensive, a massive Communist effort to disrupt Japanese logisticalnetworks across northern China. The Hundred Regiments Offensive was modestlysuccessful, but political disputes within the Communist Party led to Peng beingrecalled to Yan'an, and he spent the rest of the war withoutan active command. After the Japanese surrendered, in 1945, Peng was givencommand of Communist forces in Northwest China. He was the most senior commanderresponsible for defending the Communist leadership in Shaanxi from Kuomintang forces, saving Mao frombeing captured at least once. Peng eventually defeated the Kuomintang inNorthwest China, captured huge amounts of military supplies, and activelyincorporated the huge area, including Xinjiang, into the People's Republicof China.
Peng was one of the few seniormilitary leaders who supported Mao's suggestions to involve China directly inthe 1950–1953 Korean War, and heserved as the direct commander of the Chinese People's VolunteerArmy for the first half of the war (though Mao and Zhou Enlai were technically more senior). Peng'sexperiences in the Korean War (in which Chinese forces suffered over a millioncasualties, more than any other nation involved in the fighting) convinced himthat the Chinese military had to become more professional, organized, andwell-equipped in order to prepare itself for the conditions of modern technicalwarfare. Because the Soviet Union was theonly communist country then equipped with a fully modern, professional army,Peng attempted to reform China's military on the Soviet model over the nextseveral years, making the army less political and more professional (contraryto the political goals of Mao). Peng resisted Mao's attempts to develop apersonality cult throughout the 1950s; and, when Mao's economic policiesassociated with the Great Leap Forwardcaused a nationwide famine, Peng became critical of Mao's leadership. Therivalry between Peng and Mao culminated in an open confrontation between thetwo at the 1959 Lushan Conference.Mao won this confrontation, labeled Peng as a leader of an "anti-Partyclique", and purged Peng from all influential positions for the rest ofhis life.
Peng lived in virtual obscurityuntil 1965, when the reformers Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping supported Peng's limited return togovernment, developing military industries in Southwest China. In 1966, following the advent ofthe Cultural Revolution,Peng was arrested by Red Guards. From1966–1970, radical factions within the Communist Party, led by Lin Biao andMao's wife, Jiang Qing, singled out Peng for nationalpersecution, and Peng was publicly humiliated in numerous large-scale struggle sessions and subjected to physical and psychologicaltorture in organized efforts to force Peng to confess his "crimes"against Mao Zedong and the Communist Party. In 1970 Peng was formally tried andsentenced to life imprisonment, and he died in prison in 1974. After Mao diedin 1976, Peng's old ally, Deng Xiaoping, emerged as China's paramount leader. Deng led an effort to formallyrehabilitate people who had been unjustly persecuted during the CulturalRevolution, and Peng was one of the first leaders to be posthumouslyrehabilitated, in 1978. In modern China, Peng is considered one of the mostsuccessful and highly respected generals in the history of the early ChineseCommunist Party.
Peng was born in 1898 in the villageof Shixiang, Xiangtan County, Hunan.His personal name at birth was "Dehua". Peng's family lived in athatched-straw hut and owned approximately 1.5 acres of irrigated land, onwhich the family grew bamboo, sweet potatoes, tea, cotton, and variousvegetables. His father also operated a bean curd shop. The income from the landand shop supported an extended family of eight people, including Peng, histhree brothers, his parents, his grandmother, and a grand-uncle. Peng'sgrand-uncle had joined and fought for the Taiping rebellion, and used to tell Peng aboutthe old Taiping ideals: that everyone should have enough food to eat, thatwomen should not bind their feet, andthat land should be redistributed equally. Peng later described his own classbackground as "lower-middle peasant".[1]From 1905–1907, Peng was enrolled ina traditional Confucian primaryschool. In 1908 Peng attended a modern primary school; but, at the age of ten,was forced to withdraw from this school due to his family's deterioratingfinancial situation. In 1905–1906, there was a severe drought in Hunan. Peng'smother died in 1905, and Peng's six-month old brother died of hunger. Peng'sfather was forced to sell most of his family possessions for food, and to pawnmost of his family's land. When Peng was withdrawn from school in 1908, he andhis brothers were sent to beg for food in their village. From 1908–1910, Pengtook a job looking after a pair of water buffaloes.[1]When Peng's grand-uncle died in1911, Peng left home and worked at a coalmine in Xiangtan, where he pushed carts of coal forthirteen hours a day for a wage of nine yuan a month. In 1912, shortly after the foundingof the Republic ofChina, the mine went bankrupt and the owners fled, cheating Peng outof half his annual wages. Peng returned home in 1912 and took a number of oddjobs. In 1913 Hunan suffered another drought, and Peng participated in a publicdemonstration that escalated into the seizure of a grain merchant's storehouse,and the redistribution of grain among the peasants. Village police issued awarrant for Peng's arrest, and he fled to northern Hunan, where he worked fortwo years as a construction laborer for the construction of a dam near Dongting Lake. When the dam was completed, in1916, Peng assumed that he was no longer in danger of being arrested andreturned home, joining the army of a local Kuomintang-aligned warlord, TangXiangming.[2]
Servicein warlord armies
Peng enlisted as a private secondclass, with a monthly wage of 5.5 yuan, 2 yuan of which he sent back to supporthis family. Within seven months he was promoted to private first class, with amonthly wage of 6 yuan, 3 yuan of which he sent to his family. One of Peng'scommanding officers was an idealistic Nationalist who had participated in the1911 Xinhai Revolution,who influenced Peng to sympathize with the Kuomintang goals of social reformand national reunification. When anothercivil war broke out in 1917, Peng's regiment split from the rest ofits army and joined the forces of Tang Shengzhi, who was aligned with Tan Yankai and Sun Yat-sen, against those aligned with thenorthern warlord Wu Peifu. During thisperiod Peng received training in formal tactics from an officer in his brigade.In July 1918 Peng was captured while on a reconnaissance mission behind enemylines, but was released after two weeks. In April 1919 Peng was promoted tomaster sergeant and acting platoon commander. Tang Shengzhi's forces droveenemy troops out of Hunan in July 1920, capturing the provincial capital of Changsha.[3]
Peng participated in a failed mutinyover pay, but was pardoned. In August 1921 Peng was promoted to the rank ofsecond lieutenant, and became acting company commander several weeks later.While stationed in a village in Nanxian, Peng noticed that the poor were beingmistreated by a local landlord, and encouraged them to establish an"association to help the poor". When the local villagers hesitated,Peng ordered his soldiers to arrest the landlord and execute him. Peng wasreprimanded for his actions, but not demoted or reassigned. After the incident,Peng began to think seriously about leaving the service of his provincialwarlord army. On February 1922, after applying for extended unpaid leave, Pengand several other officers traveled to Guangdong to seek employment in the army of theKuomintang.[4]
Peng's impression of the Kuomintangin 1922 was not favorable, and he left Guangzhou with the intention of settling back inHunan as a farmer. Peng returned to his home village by sea via Shanghai (then the farthest he had ever been fromhis home village), and farmed with his father for three months on land whichhis father had bought with money that Peng had sent home, but Peng did not findthis occupation satisfying. When one of Peng's old comrades suggested that Pengapply to the local Hunan Military Academy to seek employment as a formallytrained professional officer, Peng accepted. Peng successfully gained admissionin August 1922, using the personal name "Dehuai" for the first time.In August 1923, after nine months of training, Peng graduated from the academyand rejoined his old regiment with the rank of captain. He was promoted toacting battalion commander in April 1924.[5]
In 1924 Tang Shengzhi alignedhimself with northern warlords against the warlord controlling Guangdong, whowas aligned with the Kuomintang. Peng conducted skirmishes along theHunan-Guangdong border for nine months, but reorganized his battalion alongpro-Kuomintang political lines in 1925. In late 1925 Chiang Kai-shek established the NationalRevolutionary Army (NRA) and led the Kuomintang to take control ofGuangdong. Tang then aligned himself with Chiang and joined him in the Northern Expedition,an effort to unify China by defeating the northern warlords. The Hunanese armywas reorganized, and Peng was promoted to the rank of major. When Wu Peifuinvaded Hunan and occupied Changsha, Chiang sent the NRA to Hunan, beginning theNorthern Expedition. Peng's forces then joined the Kuomintang, though Pengnever joined the party as a formal member. It wasn't until after Peng joinedthe Kuomintang, in 1925, that he first heard of the Communist Party.
Kuomintangofficer
Between July 1926 and March 1927Peng campaigned in Hunan, participating in the capture of Changsha and Wuhan.Under general Ho Chien,Peng participated in the Battleof Fengtai, in which Kuomintang forces decisively defeated thewarlord Wu Peifu. In 1927, Wang Jingwei attempted to establish aleft-leaning Kuomintang government in Wuhan that threatened Chiang Kai-shek'sleadership. Tang Shengzhi, who Peng served under, aligned himself with Wang,and Peng was promoted to lieutenant-colonel and regimental commander. AfterTang's forces were decisively defeated by Chiang, Peng commanded the rearguard, protecting the retreat of Tang's forces back into Hunan.[7]
In 1927 Peng was approached severaltimes by Communist Party members, some of which were old friends, who attemptedto recruit him into the Communist Party. In August 1927 Peng was approached byan old military comrade, HuangGonglue: Peng was sympathetic, but could not decide to join theParty. On October 12, Peng was approached by DuanDechang, a Communist Party representative: Peng again expressedsympathy and interest, but at that time considered himself a member of the"Kuomintang left wing", and could not yet bring himself to break withthe party. Peng considered joining the Communist Party for some time, met Duanagain later that October, and began to study basic communist theory. Pengsecretly joined the Chinese CommunistParty in mid-February 1928.[8]
In February 1928 Peng joined generalHo Chien when Ho defected back to Chiang's forces, and gained a promotion tofull colonel after rejoining Chiang. After rejoining Chiang's Nanjinggovernment, Peng was stationed in the mountainous Pingjiang County, northwest of Changsha. Hisorders were to eliminate local groups of communist guerrillas who had fled tothe area following the Shanghai massacre of1927. Because Peng had secretly joined the Chinese Communist Party,he instead kept his unit passive and began to organize local Communist Partybranches. Peng made contact with local communist guerillas, nominally attachedto the forces of Mao Zedong and Zhu De, and decided to issue a pronouncement infavor of the Communists on July 18, 1928.[9]
In July 22, 1928 Peng's forces,approximately 2000 men, occupied Pingjiang County, arresting and executing thecounty magistrate and over 100 landlords and local militia commanders. On July23 Peng declared the establishment of the "Hunan Provincial SovietGovernment", formally aligning himself with Mao and Zhu. On July 29 Peng'sformer superior, general Ho Chien, attacked Peng's forces, inflicting heavycasualties. By September, Peng's forces were driven into the mountains, and byOctober only several hundred men remained. Peng then abandoned his bases andleft to join Mao and Zhu at their base in Jinggangshan. Peng'sforces successfully joined Mao and Zhu in November 1928. Some of Peng'ssubordinates in the rebellion survived and became important military figuresthemselves, including generals Huang Kecheng and PengShaohui.[10]
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