International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest

Extract

Peng Dehuai or P'eng Teh-huai was, along with Zhu De and Lin Biao , one of the foremost military leaders in the Chinese communist movement in the 1930s and 1940s. A prominent figure in the People's Republic of China after the revolutionary victory, he was also one of the first Chinese communist leaders to openly challenge the authority of Mao Zedong , in 1959. Born in humble conditions, as a child Peng rebelled openly against oppressive, opium-ridden realities in his own home of well-to-do peasants, from which he was consequently banished at the age of 9. He worked variously, for six years, as a cowherd, a coal miner, and a shoemaker's apprentice, finally being taken into the home of a rich uncle. Soon he had to flee once more when – in the midst of a terrible famine – he led hungry crowds in the invasion of the home of a wealthy merchant who was hoarding rice. Finding refuge in the army, he was swept up in the nationalist revolution of 1911 and became active in the radical wing of Sun Yat-sen's Nationalist Party (the Guomindang). As he rose in the ranks of the Nationalist military, becoming a battalion commander, he wrestled with the question of “what could we do to give purpose to our struggles and bring about permanent change.” After a flirtation with anarchism, he turned to Marxism – reading such works as Marx and Engels's Communist Manifesto , Kautsky's The Class ... log in or subscribe to read full text