On October 24, 1898, one of the most prominent political and military figures in the modern history of China, Marshal Peng Dehuai, was born. The name of this man was associated not only with the victory of the Chinese Communist Party in a long and bloody civil war, but also the formation of a regular People's Liberation Army of China, as well as criticism of the mistakes and excesses of Chairman Mao's course during the Cultural Revolution in China. Despite the front-line and state services, the fate of the marshal was tragic. Which, in principle, was not surprising - Peng Dehuai did not hesitate to openly criticize Mao's course, including sending critical letters to the chairman himself.
Peng Dehuai was a peasant's son. He was born on October 24, 1898 in Shixiang Village, Xiantan County, Hunan Province. By the way, Mao Zedong was born in the same province five years earlier. But if Mao's parents were well-to-do small landowners, then Peng came from a less wealthy family of middle peasants. At the age of six, little Peng was sent to study at a private school, where all education was built on the traditional study of Confucian literature. But two years later, at the age of eight, Peng had to leave school. His mother died, and his father fell ill and could no longer pay for his studies. After dropping out of school, Peng was forced to beg. When he became a little older, he got a job as an assistant to a shepherd, then began to collect and sell brushwood, caught and sold fish, was a peddler of coal.
At the age of thirteen, Peng left to work in the coal mines. Despite his young age, the boy had to work twelve to fourteen hours a day. In old China, the working day of coal miners was not rationed. Although Peng was not happy at the mine, he received only one annual salary in his two years of work. The owner of the mine went bankrupt and went into hiding, leaving his workers behind. Pan had no choice but to go to other hard work. He enlisted for the construction of the dam, where he worked for another two years - from fifteen to seventeen years. But during the construction of the dam, apart from hard exhausting labor, the workers saw nothing. The salary was scanty, the bosses demanded to work more and more, not caring either about increasing salaries, or about improving the living and working conditions of workers. In the end, young Pan got tired of the life of a laborer, and he seriously thought about joining the military. Moreover, the political situation in China has seriously deteriorated and the military profession has become more and more in demand.
In March 1916, Peng Dehuai, who was not yet eighteen years old at that time, joined the Hunan-Guangxi Army as a private. In July 1918, a young soldier was sent to gather information on the location and situation in the Beiyang militarist army stationed in Changshu. However, Pen was captured and held in custody for six months. But even under torture, Peng did not give out any information.
In the end, the young man was released. Peng continued his military service, and in 1922 his friends persuaded him to enroll in an officer's courses in Hunan. They motivated this by the fact that if you seriously associate your life with military service, then it is better to do this after receiving an officer rank. So Peng turned out to be a cadet. A year later, Peng Dehuai returned to the active army as an officer and was appointed company commander. After graduating from the officer courses, Peng Dehuai's career took off more rapidly. In May 1926, he was appointed battalion commander, and in October 1927, he was already a regiment commander.
At the same time, despite the high position of the regiment commander, the twenty-nine-year-old officer never joined the Kuomintang party, although he shared the main provisions of Sun Yat-sen's concept. However, with the further development of his political literacy, Peng Dehuai increasingly doubted the correctness of the political course chosen by the Kuomintang. At that time, most of the Chinese were not yet aware of the communist ideology, and Peng Dehuai, despite his colonel's position, was no exception among them. Nevertheless, over time, his sympathy for the communists began to acquire an increasingly clear character. In 1928, Peng Dehuai joined the Chinese Communist Party. This was a turning point in the life of the thirty-year-old regiment commander, which largely determined his future fate - both an incredible career takeoff and a tragic end.
In July 1928, an uprising began in Pingjiang. The armed forces of the rebels were led by Peng Dehuai. The rebels created Soviets of Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Deputies. To defend the gains of the uprising, the 5th Corps of the Red Army was created, with Peng Dehuai as its commander. So yesterday's Kuomintang regiment commander turned into a high-ranking Red Army commander. At the end of 1928, Peng Dehuai's corps arrived in Jinggangshan, where it united with the forces of the 4th Corps of the Chinese Red Army, commanded by Zhu Te and Mao Zedong. Thus, a closer acquaintance of the future key figures in the formation of communist China took place.
Until the victory of the Chinese Communist Party, Peng Dehuai played one of the most important roles in commanding the revolutionary armed forces. He directly organized and planned operations against the Kuomintang troops, participated in the legendary Great Campaign. It was Peng Dehuai, who had a military education and extensive experience in military service, who was the developer of most of the key operations of the Chinese Red Army. Until now, Peng Dehuai's decisions are actively used in their practice by rebel groups waging a guerrilla war in different regions of Asia, Africa and Latin America.
During the war with Japan, Peng Dehuai was appointed deputy commander of the 8th Army, and at the same time served as secretary of the North China Bureau of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. Thanks to his talent as a warlord, Peng Dehuai quickly gained prestige in the leadership of the CCP. When the People's Republic of China was formed in 1949, 51-year-old Peng Dehuai became a member of the Central People's Government. He served as Deputy Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council, and was also First Secretary of the Northwest Bureau of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, Chairman of the Military Administrative Council of Northwest China and Deputy Chairman of the Military Council of the CPA Central Committee.
- Peng Dehuai and Kim Il Sung
Peng Dehuai played an important role in the outbreak of the Korean War. It was he who was entrusted to form and lead the formations of Chinese people's volunteers who went to help North Korea in the fight against American aggression. For this Peng Dehuai was awarded the title of Hero of the DPRK and received the Order of the National Flag, 1st degree. The successful actions of the Chinese volunteers during the Korean War also contributed to the advancement of Peng Dehuai in the leadership of the PRC. On September 26, 1954, he was appointed to the post of Minister of Defense of the People's Republic of China. So in the area of responsibility of Peng Dehuai turned out to be a very serious direction - the modernization of the Chinese army and its transformation into a powerful regular armed forces. In principle, it was Peng Dehuai who laid the foundations for the construction of the modern People's Liberation Army of China. In particular, he insisted on the introduction of compulsory military service, a centralized military education system for PLA commanders and the establishment of a fixed salary for professional military personnel. In addition, at the initiative of Peng Dehuai, a system of military ranks was established in the People's Liberation Army of China, which greatly facilitated the process of command and control. Peng Dehuai himself received the military rank of Marshal of the PRC in 1955.
Taking the post of Minister of Defense of the PRC, Peng Dehuai was not afraid to express his views on the country's political structure. In particular, he was one of the few top Chinese politicians who allowed himself to criticize Mao Zedong. At the VIII Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, held back in 1956, Peng Dehuai sharply and thoroughly criticized the personality cult of Mao Zedong that was developing in the country. In particular, he supported the proposal to exclude from the Charter of the Chinese Communist Party the provision on the ideas of Mao Zedong as the theoretical basis of the party. In addition, Peng Dehuai spoke out against mentioning the name of Mao Zedong in the oath of the PLA soldiers. Apparently, the battle marshal, distinguished by his directness and honesty, could not restrain his emotions when he saw that the praise of Mao went beyond all limits of decency and began to resemble the order of old imperial China.
In addition to verbal criticism in speeches, Peng Dehuai took many actions that could not please Mao Zedong and his inner circle. In particular, by order of Marshal Peng Dehuai, the planned erection of a bronze statue of Chairman Mao was prohibited in the Beijing War Museum. Peng Dehuai's sharp discontent was also caused by numerous mistakes of the Chinese leadership during the implementation of the Great Leap Forward course. In 1958, Peng Dehuai even made a special trip to China, after which he was finally convinced of the need for a critical rethinking of the course of the Great Leap Forward. In June 1959, Peng Dehuai sent a letter to Mao Zedong explaining the reasons for his critical position. Although the letter was not of a public nature, Mao Zedong presented it on June 17, 1959, at the Lushan Plenum of the Chinese Communist Party. Chairman Mao sharply criticized Peng Dehuai's position, accusing the marshal of a non-constructive approach. Since that time, relations between Mao Zedong and Peng Dehuai have deteriorated further. Another interesting nuance contributed to this. The fact is that shortly before the letter, Peng Dehuai had visited the Soviet Union and other socialist countries of Eastern Europe. Just before the letter was sent to Mao Zedong, Nikita Khrushchev publicly condemned the Chinese course of the Great Leap Forward. Chairman Mao might have thought that the Soviet leaders whom the Minister of Defense met during his visit to the Soviet Union could have been sent to criticize Marshal Peng Dehuai's position.
Peng Dehuai began to be suspected of a pro-Soviet position and even of preparing a military conspiracy to change the general line of the Chinese Communist Party. In September 1959, Marshal Peng Dehuai was dismissed from the post of Minister of Defense of the PRC. His place was taken by Marshal Lin Biao (1907-1971), who was considered one of the closest confidants of Mao Zedong (in the photo - Marshal Lin Biao).
Since Peng Dehuai had very great front-line services and, by and large, was one of the direct founders of the PRC, they did not exclude him from the Politburo of the CPC Central Committee. But the removal from the post of the Minister of Defense of the PRC deprived the marshal of the opportunity to directly influence the situation in the armed forces. Peng Dehuai was forced to move to a small house on the outskirts of Beijing, where he lived for another six years under practically house arrest. In principle, he could have lived out his days there, had it not been for the Cultural Revolution that began in China. In September 1965, Peng Zhen, First Secretary of the Beijing City Committee of the CPC, invited Peng Dehuai to lead the construction of fortifications and military installations in southwestern China. The elderly marshal, not wanting to further the course of the authorities, tried to refuse - he said that he had already lost the habit of the army and forgot military science, so he would not be able to lead the construction of military facilities. The Marshal even wrote a letter to Mao Zedong, in which he asked to be sent to the village - to work as a simple peasant. However, Chairman Mao summoned Marshal Peng Dehuai to his place, where, during the conversation, he was able to convince him to head the military construction in the south-west of the country.
When the Cultural Revolution began in China the following year, 1966, it targeted anyone who might be suspected of disagreeing with Chairman Mao's line. One of the first suspects was, of course, Peng Dehuai himself. The Red Guards broke into the house of the Marshal, a hero of the People's Liberation War, and seized Peng Dehuai and took him to Beijing. The famous military leader was imprisoned. The authority of the marshal could not save him, an elderly sixty-eight-year-old man, from torture and abuse in dungeons. However, on January 1, 1967, Peng Dehuai wrote his last letter to Mao Zedong. Soon, in April 1967, the marshal was transferred to the military prison of the People's Liberation Army of China, where interrogation and torture continued. Peng Dehuai was forced to attend "anti-Peng Dehuai rallies" during which he was harassed. Marshal Pu Anxiu's wife was sent to a forced labor camp, where she spent almost ten years - until 1975. Experiences and beatings were fatal for the elderly person.
In 1973, the marshal, who was in prison, was diagnosed with cancer. He was transferred to a prison hospital, but the level of medical services provided there was appropriate. Marshal Peng Dehuai passed away on November 29, 1974. His body was cremated, and the ashes were secretly sent to Sichuan - with altered personal data. Apparently, the authorities feared that the burial place of the illustrious military leader could become the object of a visit by opponents of the existing course.
The rehabilitation of Marshal Peng Dehuai took place only in 1978, after the death of Mao Zedong and the beginning of gradual changes in the internal political life of the PRC. Peng Dehuai's legacy, the People's Liberation Army of China, is currently one of the strongest armies on the planet. And the late Marshal, despite the tragic ending of his life, made the most direct contribution to this state of affairs.
