• 1st Chairman of the Central Politburo of the Communist Party of China Mao Zedong, 1893
• Marshal of the People's Liberation Army Zhu De, 1886
• Marshal of the People's Liberation Army Peng Dehuai, 1898

   

Born the son of a wealthy farmer in Shaoshan, Hunan, Mao adopted a Chinese nationalist and anti - imperialist outlook in early life, particularly influenced by the events of the Xinhai Revolution of 1911 and May Fourth Movement of 1919. Coming to adopt Marxism, he became an early member of the Chinese Communist Party, soon rising to a senior position. Mao rose to power by commanding the Long March, forming a united front with Kuomintang (KMT) during the Second Sino - Japanese War to repel a Japanese invasion, and leading the Communist Party of China (CPC) to victory against Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang (KMT) in the Chinese Civil War. After solidifying the reunification of China through his Campaign to Suppress Counter - revolutionaries, Mao enacted sweeping land reform, by using violence and terror to overthrow the feudal landlords before seizing their large estates and dividing the land into people's communes.

Nationwide political campaigns led by Mao, such as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, are often considered catastrophic failures; while his rule is believed to have caused the deaths of 40 to 70 million people. Severe starvation during the Great Chinese Famine, mass suicide as a result of the Three - anti / five - anti campaigns, and political persecution during both the Anti - Rightist Movement and struggle sessions all resulted from these programs. His campaigns are further blamed for damaging the historical culture and society of China, as relics and religious sites were destroyed in an effort to rapidly modernize the consciousness of the nation.

However, during the years when Mao was China's "Great Helmsman", a range of positive changes also came to China. These included promoting the status of women, improving popular literacy, doubling the school population, providing universal housing, abolishing unemployment and inflation, increasing health care access, and dramatically raising life expectancy. In addition, China's population almost doubled during the period of Mao's leadership (from around 550 to over 900 million). As a result, Mao is still officially held in high regard by many in China as a great political strategist, military mastermind and savior of the nation. Maoists further promote his role as a theorist, statesman, poet and visionary, while anti - revisionists continue to defend most of his policies.

Although Mao's stated goals of combating bureaucracy, encouraging popular participation and stressing China's self - reliance are generally seen as laudable — and the rapid industrialization that began during Mao's reign is credited for laying a foundation for China's development in the late 20th century — the harsh methods he used to pursue them, including torture and executions, have been widely rebuked as being ruthless and self - defeating. Mao is still regarded as one of the most important figures in modern world history, and was named one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century by Time magazine.

Mao was born on December 26, 1893 in a rural village in Shaoshan, Hunan Province. His father, Mao Shun-sheng (1870 – ?), had been born into a poverty stricken peasant family, and had gained two years worth of education before joining the army. Eventually returning to agriculture, he earned a living as both a moneylender and a grain merchant, buying up local grain and then selling it on in the city for a higher price, allowing him to become one of the wealthiest farmers in Shaoshen, with 20 acres of land. Mao Zedong would describe his father as a stern disciplinarian, who would often punish his son and other children – two boys, Tse-min (b. 1896) and Tse-tan (b. 1905), and an adopted girl – for any perceived wrongdoings, sometimes by beating them. His wife, Wen Ch'i-mei, was illiterate but a devout Buddhist who tried to temper her husband's strict attitude towards both his children and other locals. Following his mother's example, Mao also became a practicing Buddhist from an early age, venerating a bronze statue of the Buddha which was in their home, but abandoned this faith in his mid teenage years. His father was largely irreligious, although after surviving an encounter with a tiger, began to give offerings to the gods in thanks.

Aged 8, Mao was sent to the local Shaoshan Primary School by his father, who recognized the financial value of a basic education. Here, Mao was taught the value systems of Confucianism, one of the dominant moral ideologies in China, but he would later admit that he did not enjoy reading the classical Chinese texts which preached Confucian morals, instead favoring popular novels such as Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Water Margin. Reacting against his Confucian upbringing, aged 10 Mao ran away from home, heading for what he believed was a nearby town, but eventually his father found him and brought him home.

Aged 13, Mao finished primary education, and his father had him married to Luo Yixiu (1889 – 1910), a woman eight years his senior, in order to unite their two land owning families. They never lived together and Mao refused to recognize her as his wife, becoming a fierce critic of arranged marriage. He began work on his father's farm, but continued to read voraciously in his spare time. One of the most influential texts that he read was Cheng Kuan-ying's Sheng-shih Wei-yen (Words of Warning to an Affluent Age), a political tract that lamented the deterioration of Chinese power in East Asia, arguing for technological, economic and political reform, modelling China on the representative democracies of the western world. He would later claim that he first developed a "political consciousness" from that booklet. Another influential book which he read at the time was a translation of Great Heroes of the World, becoming inspired by the American revolutionary George Washington and French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, whose military prowess and nationalistic fervor greatly impressed him.

His political views of the time were also shaped by popular protests that had erupted following a famine in Changsha, the capital of Hunan; Mao supported the protester's demands, but the armed forces soon suppressed the dissenters and executed their leaders. The famine soon spread throughout Hunan, reaching Shaoshan; here, starving peasants seized some of his father's grain, and while Mao disapproved of their actions as morally wrong, he also claimed a great deal of sympathy for their situation. Aged 16, Mao moved on to study at a higher primary school in nearby Tungshan. Here, he was taught alongside students of a higher social standing, and was often bullied for his scruffy appearance and peasant background; being much older than the other pupils, he failed to fit in.

In 1911, Mao convinced his father to allow him to attend middle school in the city of Changsha. At the time, the city was "a revolutionary hotbed", with widespread animosity towards the governing Emperor Puyi (1906 – 1967) and the concept of absolute monarchy itself. While some advocated a reformist transition to a constitutional monarchy, most revolutionaries advocated republicanism, hoping to overthrow the Emperor and replace him with a democratically elected President. The primary figurehead behind this republican movement was Dr. Sun Yat-Sen (1867 – 1925), the leader of a secret society known as the Tongmenghui who had spent time in the United States and converted to Christianity. At Changsha, Mao first read a copy of Sun's newspaper, The People's Strength (Min - lin - pao), and was greatly influenced by it. Inspired by Sun's example, Mao penned his first political essay, which he stuck to the school wall; later admitting that it was "somewhat muddled", it involved a plan for overthrowing the monarchy and replacing it with a republic governed by the presidency of Sun, but with concessions made to the moderates by having Kang Youwei as premier and Liang Qichao as minister of foreign affairs. As a symbol of rebellion against the Manchu monarch, he and a friend cut off their queue pigtails – a sign of subservience to the emperor – before forcibly cutting off those of some of their classmates too.

Later that year, the Chinese armed forces, inspired by the republican ideas of Sun, rose up in insurrection against the Emperor across southern China, sparking the Xinhai Revolution. The city of Changsha initially remained under the control of the monarch, with the governor proclaiming martial law on its streets to quell any popular protests. Soon however, the infantry brigade guarding the city proclaimed their support for the revolution, and the governor was forced to flee, leaving the city in republican hands. Eager to support the revolutionary cause, Mao joined the rebel army as a private soldier, but was not involved in the fighting. The northern provinces had remained loyal to the Emperor, and hoping to avoid a civil war, Sun Yat-Sen – already proclaimed "provisional president" by his supporters – had come to a compromise with the Emperor's key ally Yuan Shikai (1859 – 1916); the monarchy would be abolished, and Late Imperial China would be converted into a new Republic of China, but it would be the royalist Yuan and not the revolutionary Sun who would become its first President. The Xinhai Revolution over, Mao resigned from the army in 1912, after six months of being a soldier. It had been during this period that Mao had first learned of the imported western concept of socialism from a newspaper article, and intrigued, he read several pamphlets by Jiang Kanghu (1883 – 1954), a student who had founded the Chinese Socialist Party in November 1911. Nevertheless, while remaining convinced of the need of a republican government, he was not yet convinced by the need for a socialist economy.

Returning his attention to education, Mao enrolled and dropped out of a series of schools in quick succession; a police academy, a soap production school, a law school and an economics school, the latter being the only course which his father approved of. However, the lectures were given in the English language, which Mao could not understand, and so he soon abandoned this and began attendance at the government run Changsha Middle School; he soon dropped out of this too, finding its courses too rooted in old Confucian ideas and traditions. Deciding to undertake his studies independently, he spent much time in the newly opened public library at Changsha, reading the core works of classical liberalism such as Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations and Montesquieu's The Spirit of the Laws, as well as the works of western scientists and philosophers like Charles Darwin, J.S. Mill, Jean - Jacques Rousseau and Herbert Spencer. Seeing no use in his son's purely intellectual pursuits, Mao's father cut off his allowance, forcing Mao to move into a hostel for the destitute.

Deciding that he would like to become a professional teacher, Mao enrolled at a teacher training college, the Fourth Normal School of Changsha, which had high standards yet low fees and cheap accommodation. Several months later, it amalgamated with the prestigious First Normal School of Changsha, widely seen as the best school in Hunan province; Mao biographer Stuart Schram would later note that the environment of the school provided "an ideal training ground for his apprenticeship as a political worker." He was heavily influenced by several teachers at the school, including the professor of ethics, Yang Changji, who urged Mao and his other students to read a radical newspaper, New Youth (Hsien Ch'ing - nien), which was the creation of his friend Chen Duxiu (1879 – 1942), Dean of the Faculty of Letters at Peking University. Although a Chinese nationalist, Chen argued that in order to progress, China must look to the west, adopting "Mr. Democracy and Mr. Science" in order to cleanse itself of superstition and autocracy. Mao would publish his first article, "A Study of Physical Culture", in New Youth in April 1917, in which he instructed all Chinese people to increase their physical strength in order to serve the revolutionary cause. He also joined another revolutionary organization, The Society for the Study of Wang Fuzhi (Chuan - shan Hsüeh - she) which had been founded by a number of Changsha literati who wished to emulate Wang Fuzhi (1619 – 1692), a philosopher who had become a symbol of Han resistance to Manchu invasion.

In his first year at the school, Mao befriended an older student, Siao Yu, and together they went on a walking holiday through the countryside, along the way begging in order to obtain food. Mao also remained active in school politics, in 1915 becoming elected to the position of secretary of the Students Society. He used his position to forge an Association for Student Self - Government, leading protests against various rules then implemented in the school. In spring 1917, he was also elected to command the students' volunteer army, set up to defend the school from potential attack after two warlords began fighting one another in Hunan. With two close friends, Mao began undertaking feats of physical endurance – such as sleeping outdoors and living on a frugal diet – and they began describing themselves as the "Three Heroes" after the rebels that featured in Chinese literature. They attracted other young people with radical political ideas around them, forming a society known as the New People's Study Society who debated Chen Duxiu's ideas. Having passed his exams, Mao graduated from the school in the spring of 1918.

Leaving Changsha, Mao moved to the capital city of Peking, where his school mentor Yang Changji had recently migrated to take up a job at Peking University. Yang was favorable towards Mao, writing in his journal that "it is truly difficult to imagine someone so intelligent and handsome [as him]." Yang secured Mao employment at the university library, where he became assistant to the librarian Li Dazhao (1888 – 1927), an early Chinese communist. Li authored a series of articles in New Youth on the subject of the October Revolution which had just occurred in Russia, during which the communist Bolshevik Party under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin (1870 – 1924) had seized power. Lenin was an advocate of the socio - political theory of Marxism, first developed by the German sociologists Karl Marx (1818 – 1883) and Friedrich Engels (1820 – 1895) in the mid 19th century, and Li's articles helped bring an understanding of Marxism to the Chinese revolutionary movement, even though he failed to fully understand it himself. Mao would claim that although he did not accept Marxism at first, he had come under the influence of anarchism and was becoming "more and more radical" as the months went on. Beginning to read and discuss the work of Marx with Li and other like - minded radicals at a Marxist Study Group, he eventually "developed rapidly toward Marxism" under Li's tutelage during the winter of 1918 – 19, looking for ways to combine it with ancient Chinese philosophies that would be applicable to modern China. Eventually coming to adopt an orthodox Marxist - Leninist position by accepting not only Marx's ideas but also those of Lenin, he came to view Chinese nationalism as a powerful tool in the national liberation struggle against western and Japanese dominance, but unlike orthodox Marxist - Leninists also viewed nationalism as something intrinsically valuable in itself.

Paid a low wage, Mao was forced to live in a cramped room near to the university with seven other Hunanese students, but believed that the beauty of Peking offered "vivid and living compensation." A number of his friends and future colleagues took advantage of the Mouvement Travail - Études to study in France, but Mao, perhaps because of a lack of ability to learn languages and the requirement to learn French, turned down the opportunity. Remaining at the university, he tried to strike up conversations with academics working there, but most snubbed him because of his rural Hunanese accent and lowly position as librarian's assistant. Nonetheless, by joining the university's Philosophy and Journalism Societies, he was able to attend various lectures and seminars by the likes of Chen Duxiu, Hu Shi and Qian Xuantong, but various lecturers still treated him with contempt and refused to answer his questions. Mao's time in Peking came to an end in the spring of 1919, when he traveled to Shanghai with friends departing from the port for France. On the way visiting a number of historic sites such as Qufu, the burial place of Confucius, he traveled much of the journey on foot, at one point losing his shoes.

At the time, China had fallen victim to the expansionist policies of the Empire of Japan, who had conquered large areas of Chinese controlled territory, namely Taiwan, Korea and South Manchuria. The Japanese claim to these lands had been supported by the western powers of France, the U.K. and the U.S. at the Treaty of Versailles, who also agreed that Japan could take control of all the territories in China that had formerly been under the dominion of the defeated German Empire. The Chinese government, under the control of the warlord Duan Qirui (1865 – 1936), had accepted Japanese dominance, agreeing to their Twenty - One Demands, despite popular opposition among the Chinese populace. In May 1919, the May Fourth Movement had erupted in Peking, with Chinese patriots rallying against the Japanese occupation and Duan's collaborative government. Chinese troops were sent in to crush the protests, but the mass unrest spread throughout much of China. In Changsha, Mao took advantage of the unrest to help organize protests against the Governor of Hunan Province, Zhang Jinghui, a supporter of Duan's. Mao was a founding member of the United Student Association and in July 1919 began production of a weekly radical magazine, Hsiang River Review (Hsiang - chiang P'ing - lun). Using vernacular language that would be understandable to the majority of China's populace, he put forward his socialist political views, calling for revolution against the government; in one notable article, he proclaimed the need for a "Great Union of the Popular Masses", but failed to put forward an expressly Marxist analysis of how that revolution should proceed.

Governor Zhang soon ordered the United Student Association and its associated weekly shut down, but Mao continued publishing his views after assuming editorship of the student magazine New Hunan (Hsin Hunan). When this in turn was also shut down by Zhang's provincial administration, he then began publishing his articles in the popular local newspaper Ta Kung Po. Several of these articles advocated his staunchly feminist views, calling for the liberation of women in Chinese society; alongside his early experiences with forced arranged marriage, this was possibly influenced by the recent death of his mother and his increasing romantic involvement with Yang Kaihui (1901 – 1930), the daughter of Mao's recently deceased mentor Yang Changji. In November 1919, Mao took a leading role in the re-organization of the banned United Student Association, and in December helped to organize a student strike in Changsha's schools, designed to cripple Zhang's control. The strike did secure some concessions, but Mao and other student leaders felt that they were now under threat from the furious Zhang, and were sent as representatives to China's provincial centers; thus, Mao once again traveled to Peking.

In Peking, Mao found that he had achieved a level of fame among the revolutionary movement for his fervent article writing, and he set about soliciting support in overthrowing Zhang's rule in Hunan. It was in the city that he also came across newly translated Marxist literature, further committing him to the revolutionary socialist cause: these included Thomas Kirkup's A History of Socialism, Karl Kautsky's Karl Marx's Ökonomische Lehren and most importantly, Marx and Engels' political pamphlet, The Communist Manifesto. From Peking, Mao moved along to Shanghai, working as a laundryman and meeting with Chen Duxiu, who had been recently freed from prison; together, they discussed Marxism, which Chen was also beginning to accept. Mao later noted that Chen's adoption of Marxism "deeply impressed me at what was probably a critical period in my life." In Shanghai, Mao also met with one of his old teachers, Yi Peiji, a revolutionary and member of the Kuomintang, or Chinese Nationalist Party, which at the time was gaining increasing support and influence across China. Yi Peiji introduced Mao to General Tan Yankai, a senior Kuomintang member who held the loyalty of the troops stationed along the border between Hunan and Kwantung. Tan was plotting to overthrow Governor Zhang and his pro - Japanese administration, and Mao aided him by organizing the students of Changsha. In June 1920, Tan led his troops into Changsha, while Zhang fled. In the subsequent reorganization of the provincial administration, Mao was appointed as the headmaster of the junior section of the First Normal School. Now receiving a large income, he was able to marry Yang Kaihui in the winter of 1920.

The Communist Party of China was founded by Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao in the French concession of Shanghai in 1921 as a study society and an informal network. Mao soon set up his own branch in Changsha, also establishing a branch of the Socialist Youth Corps. He also opened a bookstore under the control of his new Cultural Book Society, whose purpose was to propagate revolutionary literature throughout Hunan. He also became a labor organizer, helping to set up workers' strikes in the winter of 1920 – 1921. Mao was also involved in the movement advocating autonomy for the province, a viewpoint shared by figures from a variety of different political persuasions. Mao's hope was that the creation of a Hunanese constitution would increase civil liberties in the province and thereby make his revolutionary activity easier; although it proved successful, in later life, he would subsequently deny any involvement in the movement. By 1921, small groups of Marxists existed in six Chinese cities: Shanghai, Peking, Changsha, Wuhan, Canton and Tsinan, with a further group having been founded by Chinese students in Paris. It was decided that they should send delegates for a central meeting, which began in Shanghai on July 23, 1921. The first session of the National Congress of the Communist Party of China was attended by 13 delegates, Mao included, and initially met in a girls' school that had been closed for the summer. After the authorities learned of this meeting and sent a police spy to report on their subversive activities, the delegates instead moved their activities to a boat on South Lake near to Chiahsing, where they escaped detection by claiming to be on a holiday excursion. Although delegates from the Soviet Union and Comintern had attended, the first congress ignored Lenin's advice by refusing to accept a temporary alliance between the communists and the "bourgeois democrats" who also advocated national revolution; instead they stuck to the orthodox Marxist belief that only the urban proletariat could lead a socialist revolution.

Now the party secretary for Hunan, Mao stationed himself in Changsha, from where he went on a recruitment drive to gain support for the Communist Party. In August 1921, Mao founded the Self - Study University, through which readers could gain access to Marxist and other revolutionary literature, and which was housed in the premises of the Society for the Study of Wang Fuzhi (Chuan - shan Hsüeh - she). He also took part in the mass education movement to fight illiteracy, founded in 1921 by members of the Chinese Young Men's Christian Association with U.S. backing. Opening a Changsha branch, Mao replaced the usual textbooks with revolutionary tracts in order to spread Marxist ideas among the illiterate peasantry. He also continued with his work in organizing the labor movement to strike in an attempt to damage the administration of Hunanese Governor Chao Heng-t'i, particularly after the latter executed two anarchist activists. In July 1922, the Second Congress of the Communist Party took place in Shanghai; while Mao lost the address and was unable to attend, the delegates decided to finally adopt the Leninist advice by agreeing to an alliance with the "bourgeois democrats" of the Kuomintang for the good of the "national revolution" to unite China and free it of foreign imperialist influence. As a result, members of the Communist Party began to join the Kuomintang, hoping to influence its politics in a leftward direction. Mao agreed with this decision, vocally arguing for an anti - imperialist alliance which constituted all of China's socio - economic classes, and not merely the urban proletariat. In his writings, he lambasted the governments of Japan, Great Britain and the United States, describing the latter as "the most murderous of hangmen."

At the Third Congress of the Communist Party, held in Shanghai in June 1923, the delegates reaffirmed their commitment to working with the Kuomintang, accepting that they should become the driving force leading the labor movement in China. A staunch supporter of this position, at the Congress Mao was elected to the Communist Party Committee, taking up residence in Shanghai. He became involved with the Kuomintang, attending their First Congress, held in Canton in January and February 1924. His enthusiastic support for the nationalist party earned him the suspicion of some of the communists; he was even elected an alternate member of the Kuomintang Central Executive Committee, and in February 1924 put forward four resolutions that argued that power in the party was too centralized among a few cadres in Canton, and that power should instead he decentralized to urban and rural bureaus. Biographer Stuart Schram would later comment that during the period between 1925 and 1927, Mao was closer to the Kuomintang than he was to the Communist Party, something he attributed to Mao's belief that the good of China was more important than the cause of socialism.

In late 1924, Mao returned to his home village of Shaoshan for the first time in 15 years to recuperate from an illness. Here, he discovered that the peasantry were becoming increasingly restless as a result of the social and political upheaval of the past decade, with some seizing land from wealthy landowners and founding their own communes. These actions convinced him of the revolutionary potential of the peasants, an idea advocated by the Kuomintang but not the Communist Party. As a result, he was subsequently appointed to the leadership of the Kuomintang's Peasant Training Institute, also becoming the Director of the Party's Propaganda Department. Mao and the communists came to comprise most of the left wing of the Kuomintang, who were opposed by the party's right wing. When party leader Sun Yat-Sen died in May 1925, he was succeeded by a rightist, Chiang Kai-shek (1887 – 1977), who was opposed to Mao's involvement. On May 30, 1925, police from the International Settlement in Shanghai followed the orders of a British policeman and opened fire on a group of protesters, killing 10 and wounding 50. The Chinese Chamber of Commerce agreed on a strike in solidarity with the protesters, which in turn led to increasingly repressive measures by the authorities.

For a while, Mao remained in Shanghai, an important city that the CPC emphasized for the Revolution. However, the Party encountered major difficulties organizing labor union movements and building a relationship with its nationalist ally, the KMT. The Party had become poor, and Mao was disillusioned with the revolution and moved back to Shaoshan. During his stay at home, Mao's interest in the revolution was rekindled after hearing of the 1925 uprisings in Shanghai and Guangzhou. His political ambitions returned, and he then went to Guangdong, the base of the Kuomintang, to take part in the preparations for the second session of the National Congress of Kuomintang. In October 1925, Mao became acting Propaganda Director of the Kuomintang.

In early 1927, Mao returned to Hunan where, in an urgent meeting held by the Communist Party, he made a report based on his investigations of the peasant uprisings in the wake of the Northern Expedition. His "Report on the Peasant Movement in Hunan" is considered the initial and decisive step towards the successful application of Mao's revolutionary theories.

His two 1937 essays, On Practice and On Contradiction, are concerned with the practical strategies of a revolutionary movement and stress the importance of practical, grass roots knowledge obtained through experience. Both essays reflect the guerrilla roots of Maoism in the need to build up support in the countryside against a Japanese occupying force and emphasize the need to win over hearts and minds through 'education'. The essays, excerpts of which appear in the 'Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong', warn against the behavior of the blindfolded man trying to catch sparrows, and the 'Imperial envoy' descending from his carriage to 'spout opinions'.

"Revolution is not a dinner party, nor an essay, nor a painting, nor a piece of embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another."

— Mao Zedong

In 1927, after a large scale purge of Communists from the Kuomintang in Shanghai that ended their alliance during the Northern Expedition, Mao conducted the Autumn Harvest Uprising in Changsha as commander - in - chief. Mao led an army, called the "Revolutionary Army of Workers and Peasants", which was defeated by the KMT forces and scattered after fierce battles. Afterwards, the exhausted troops were forced to leave Hunan for Sanwan, Jiangxi, where Mao re-organized the scattered soldiers, rearranging the military division into smaller regiments. Mao also ordered that each company must have a party branch office with a commissar as its leader who would give political instructions based upon superior mandates. This military rearrangement in Sanwan, Jiangxi initiated the CPC's absolute control over its military force and is considered to have had a fundamental and profound impact upon the Chinese revolution. Later, the army moved to the Jinggang Mountains, Jiangxi. In the Jinggang Mountains, Mao persuaded two local insurgent leaders to pledge their allegiance to him. There, Mao joined his army with that of Zhu De, creating the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army of China, Red Army in short. Mao's tactics were based on that of the Spanish Guerrillas during the Napoleonic Wars.

From 1931 to 1934, Mao helped establish the Soviet Republic of China and was elected Chairman of this small republic in the mountainous areas in Jiangxi. Here, Mao was married to He Zizhen. His previous wife, Yang Kaihui, had been arrested and executed in 1930, just three years after their departure. In Jiangxi, Mao's authoritative domination, especially that of the military force, was challenged by the Jiangxi branch of the CPC and military officers. Mao's opponents, among whom the most prominent was Li Wenlin, the founder of the CPC's branch and Red Army in Jiangxi, were against Mao's land policies and proposals to reform the local party branch and army leadership. Mao reacted first by accusing the opponents of opportunism and kulakism and then set off a series of systematic suppressions of them.

It is reported that horrible methods of torture were employed under Mao's direction, and given names such as 'sitting in a sedan chair', 'airplane ride', 'toad - drinking water', and 'monkey pulling reins.' The wives of several suspects that defied him had their breasts cut open and their genitals burned. It estimated that tens of thousands of suspected enemies, perhaps as many as 186,000, were killed during this purge. Critics accuse Mao's authority in Jiangxi of being secured and reassured through the revolutionary terrorism, or red terrorism.

Mao's first appearance in The Times was in August 1929:

"The name of Chu Mao has been infamous on the borders of Fukien and Kwangtung for two years past. Twice he has been driven to refuge in the mountains, being too mobile to catch, but at the first sign of relaxed authority [...], he comes down again to ravage the plains. Chu Mao calls himself a Communist [...]; and wherever Chu Mao goes he begins by calling on the farmers to rise and destroy the capitalists and bourgeois. But he is really the worst kind of brigand."

— The Times: Brigandage in China. In the name of Communism. August 3, 1929

Mao, with the help of Zhu De, built a modest but effective army, undertook experiments in rural reform and government, and provided refuge for Communists fleeing the KMT purges in the cities. Mao's methods are normally referred to as guerrilla warfare; but he himself made a distinction between guerrilla warfare (youji zhan) and mobile warfare (yundong zhan). Mao's doctrines of guerrilla warfare and mobile warfare were based upon the fact of the poor armament and military training of the Red Army which consisted mainly of impoverished peasants, who, however, were fired by revolutionary passions and the aspiration for a communist utopia.

Around 1930, there had been more than ten regions, usually entitled "soviet areas", under control of the CPC. The relative prosperity of "soviet areas" startled and worried Chiang Kai-shek, chairman of the Kuomintang government, who waged five waves of besieging campaigns against the "central soviet area." More than one million Kuomintang soldiers were involved in these five campaigns, four of which were defeated by the Red Army led by Mao. By June 1932 (the height of its power), the Red Army had no less than 45,000 soldiers, with a further 200,000 local militia acting as a subsidiary force.

Under increasing pressure from the KMT Encirclement Campaigns, there was a struggle for power within the Communist leadership. Mao was removed from his important positions and replaced by individuals (including Zhou Enlai) who appeared loyal to the orthodox line advocated by Moscow and represented within the CPC by a group known as the 28 Bolsheviks. Chiang, who had earlier assumed nominal control of China due in part to the Northern Expedition, was determined to eliminate the Communists. By October 1934, he had them surrounded, prompting them to engage in the "Long March", a retreat from Jiangxi in the southeast to Shaanxi in the north west of China. It was during this 9,600 kilometer (6,000 mi), year long journey that Mao emerged as the top Communist leader, aided by the Zunyi Conference and the defection of Zhou Enlai to Mao's side. At this Conference, Mao entered the Standing Committee of the Politburo of the Communist Party of China.

In 1936 Manchurian warlord and Chiang's former ally Zhang Xueliang decided to conspire with the CPC and kidnapped Chiang Kai-shek in Xi'an to force an end to the conflict between KMT and CPC. To secure the release of Chiang, the KMT was forced to agree to a temporary end to the Chinese Civil War and the forming of a United Front between the CPC and KMT against Japan. The alliance took place with salutary effects for the beleaguered CPC after relentless attacks by Chiang's forces. CPC agreed to form the New Fourth Army and the 8th Route Army which were nominally under the command of the National Revolutionary Army.

During the Sino - Japanese War, Mao advocated a strategy of avoiding open confrontations with the Japanese army and concentrating on guerrilla warfare from his base in Yan'an, while leaving the KMT to take on the brunt of the fighting and suffer tremendous casualties. Instead Mao directed the CPC forces to concentrate on absorbing, and eliminating if necessary, Chinese militia behind enemy lines. This led to intensified conflicts between KMT and CPC forces, and the fragile alliance broke down after the New Fourth Army incident in January 1941. Mao further consolidated power over the Communist Party in 1942 by launching the Shu Fan movement, or "Rectification" campaign against rival CPC members such as Wang Ming, Wang Shiwei and Ding Ling. Also while in Yan'an, Mao divorced He Zizhen and married the actress Lan Ping, who would become known as Jiang Qing.

Mao also greatly expanded CPC's sphere of influence in areas outside of Japanese control, mainly through rural mass organizations, administrative, land and tax reform measures favoring poor peasants; while the Nationalists attempted to neutralize the spread of Communist influence by military blockade of areas controlled by CPC and fighting the Japanese at the same time.

In 1944, the Americans sent a special diplomatic envoy, called the Dixie Mission, to the Communist Party of China. According to Edwin Moise, in Modern China: A History 2nd Edition:

Most of the Americans were favorably impressed. The CPC seemed less corrupt, more unified, and more vigorous in its resistance to Japan than the KMT. United States fliers shot down over North China... confirmed to their superiors that the CPC was both strong and popular over a broad area. In the end, the contacts with the USA developed with the CPC led to very little.

After the end of World War II, the U.S. continued their military assistance to Chiang Kai-shek and his KMT government forces against the People's Liberation Army (PLA) led by Mao Zedong in the civil war for control of China. Likewise, the Soviet Union gave quasi - covert support to Mao by their occupation of north east China, which allowed the PLA to move in en masse and took large supplies of arms left by the Japanese's Kwantung Army.

In 1948, under direct orders from Mao, the People's Liberation Army starved out the Kuomintang forces occupying the city of Changchun. At least 160,000 civilians are believed to have perished during the siege, which lasted from June until October. PLA lieutenant colonel Zhang Zhenglu, who documented the siege in his book White Snow, Red Blood, compared it to Hiroshima: "The casualties were about the same. Hiroshima took nine seconds; Changchun took five months." On January 21, 1949, Kuomintang forces suffered great losses in battles against Mao's forces. In the early morning of December 10, 1949, PLA troops laid siege to Chengdu, the last KMT held city in mainland China, and Chiang Kai-shek evacuated from the mainland to Taiwan.

The People's Republic of China was established on October 1, 1949. It was the culmination of over two decades of civil and international wars. From 1943 to 1976, Mao was the Chairman of the Communist Party of China. During this period, Mao was called Chairman Mao (毛主席, Máo Zhǔxí) or the Great Leader Chairman Mao (伟大领袖毛主席, Wěidà Lǐngxiù Máo Zhǔxí). Mao famously announced: "The Chinese people have stood up."

Mao took up residence in Zhongnanhai, a compound next to the Forbidden City in Beijing, and there he ordered the construction of an indoor swimming pool and other buildings. Mao often did his work either in bed or by the side of the pool, preferring not to wear formal clothes unless absolutely necessary, according to Dr. Li Zhisui, his personal physician. (Li's book, The Private Life of Chairman Mao, is regarded as controversial, especially by those sympathetic to Mao.)

In October 1950, Mao made the decision to send the People's Volunteer Army into Korea and fight against the United Nations forces led by the U.S. Historical records showed that Mao directed the PVA campaigns in the Korean War to the minute details.

Along with land reform, during which significant numbers of landlords and well - to - do peasants were beaten to death at mass meetings organized by the Communist Party as land was taken from them and given to poorer peasants, there was also the Campaign to Suppress Counter - revolutionaries, which involved public executions targeting mainly former Kuomintang officials, businessmen accused of "disturbing" the market, former employees of Western companies and intellectuals whose loyalty was suspect. The U.S. State department in 1976 estimated that there may have been a million killed in the land reform, and 800,000 killed in the counterrevolutionary campaign.

Mao himself claimed that a total of 700,000 people were executed during the years 1949 – 53. However, because there was a policy to select "at least one landlord, and usually several, in virtually every village for public execution", the number of deaths range between 2 million and 5 million. In addition, at least 1.5 million people, perhaps as many as 4 to 6 million, were sent to "reform through labor" camps where many perished. Mao played a personal role in organizing the mass repressions and established a system of execution quotas, which were often exceeded. He defended these killings as necessary for the securing of power.

Starting in 1951, Mao initiated two successive movements in an effort to rid urban areas of corruption by targeting wealthy capitalists and political opponents, known as the three - anti / five - anti campaigns. A climate of raw terror developed as workers denounced their bosses, spouses turned on their spouses, and children informed on their parents; the victims often were humiliated at struggle sessions, a method designed to intimidate and terrify people to the maximum. Mao insisted that minor offenders be criticized and reformed or sent to labor camps, "while the worst among them should be shot." These campaigns took several hundred thousand additional lives, the vast majority via suicide.

In Shanghai, suicide by jumping from tall buildings became so commonplace that residents avoided walking on the pavement near skyscrapers for fear that suicides might land on them. Some biographers have pointed out that driving those perceived as enemies to suicide was a common tactic during the Mao era. For example, in his biography of Mao, Philip Short notes that in the Yan'an Rectification Movement, Mao gave explicit instructions that "no cadre is to be killed," but in practice allowed security chief Kang Sheng to drive opponents to suicide and that "this pattern was repeated throughout his leadership of the People's Republic."

Following the consolidation of power, Mao launched the First Five - Year Plan (1953 – 58). The plan aimed to end Chinese dependence upon agriculture in order to become a world power. With the Soviet Union's assistance, new industrial plants were built and agricultural production eventually fell to a point where industry was beginning to produce enough capital that China no longer needed the USSR's support. The success of the First - Five Year Plan was to encourage Mao to instigate the Second Five - Year Plan, the Great Leap Forward, in 1958. Mao also launched a phase of rapid collectivization. The CPC introduced price controls as well as a Chinese character simplification aimed at increasing literacy. Large scale industrialization projects were also undertaken.

Programs pursued during this time include the Hundred Flowers Campaign, in which Mao indicated his supposed willingness to consider different opinions about how China should be governed. Given the freedom to express themselves, liberal and intellectual Chinese began opposing the Communist Party and questioning its leadership. This was initially tolerated and encouraged. After a few months, Mao's government reversed its policy and persecuted those, totaling perhaps 500,000, who criticized, as well as those who were merely alleged to have criticized, the party in what is called the Anti - Rightist Movement. Authors such as Jung Chang have alleged that the Hundred Flowers Campaign was merely a ruse to root out "dangerous" thinking.

Others such as Dr Li Zhisui have suggested that Mao had initially seen the policy as a way of weakening those within his party who opposed him, but was surprised by the extent of criticism and the fact that it began to be directed at his own leadership. It was only then that he used it as a method of identifying and subsequently persecuting those critical of his government. The Hundred Flowers movement led to the condemnation, silencing and death of many citizens, also linked to Mao's Anti - Rightist Movement, with death tolls possibly in the millions.

In January 1958, Mao Zedong launched the second Five - Year Plan, known as the Great Leap Forward, a plan intended as an alternative model for economic growth to the Soviet model focusing on heavy industry that was advocated by others in the party. Under this economic program, the relatively small agricultural collectives which had been formed to date were rapidly merged into far larger people's communes, and many of the peasants were ordered to work on massive infrastructure projects and on the production of iron and steel. Some private food production was banned; livestock and farm implements were brought under collective ownership.

Under the Great Leap Forward, Mao and other party leaders ordered the implementation of a variety of unproven and unscientific new agricultural techniques by the new communes. Combined with the diversion of labor to steel production and infrastructure projects, these projects combined with cyclical natural disasters led to an approximately 15% drop in grain production in 1959 followed by a further 10% reduction in 1960 and no recovery in 1961.

In an effort to win favor with their superiors and avoid being purged, each layer in the party hierarchy exaggerated the amount of grain produced under them. Based on the fabricated success, party cadres were ordered to requisition a disproportionately high amount of the true harvest for state use, primarily in the cities and urban areas but also for export. The net result, which was compounded in some areas by drought and in others by floods, left rural peasants with little food for themselves and many millions starved to death in the largest famine known as the Great Chinese Famine. This famine was a direct cause of the death of some 30 million Chinese peasants between 1959 and 1962 and about the same number of births were lost or postponed. Further, many children who became emaciated and malnourished during years of hardship and struggle for survival died shortly after the Great Leap Forward came to an end in 1962.

The extent of Mao's knowledge of the severity of the situation has been disputed. According to some, most notably Dr. Li Zhisui, Mao was not aware that the situation amounted to more than a slight shortage of food and general supplies until late 1959.

Hong Kong-based historian Frank Dikötter, who conducted extensive archival research on the Great Leap Forward in local and regional Chinese government archives, challenged the notion that Mao did not know about the famine until it was too late:

"The idea that the state mistakenly took too much grain from the countryside because it assumed that the harvest was much larger than it was is largely a myth – at most partially true for the autumn of 1958 only. In most cases the party knew very well that it was starving its own people to death. At a secret meeting in the Jinjiang Hotel in Shanghai dated March 25, 1959, Mao specifically ordered the party to procure up to one third of all the grain, much more than had ever been the case. At the meeting he announced that 'When there is not enough to eat, people starve to death. It is better to let half of the people die so that the other half can eat their fill.'"

In Hungry Ghosts, Jasper Becker notes that Mao was dismissive of reports he received of food shortages in the countryside and refused to change course, believing that peasants were lying and that rightists and kulaks were hoarding grain. He refused to open state granaries, and instead launched a series of "anti - grain concealment" drives that resulted in numerous purges and suicides. Other violent campaigns followed in which party leaders went from village to village in search of hidden food reserves, and not only grain, as Mao issued quotas for pigs, chickens, ducks and eggs. Many peasants accused of hiding food were tortured and beaten to death.

In contrast, journals such as the Monthly Review have disputed the reliability of the figures commonly cited, the qualitative evidence of a "massive death toll", and Mao's complicity in those deaths which occurred.

Whatever the case, the Great Leap Forward caused Mao to lose esteem among many of the top party cadres and was eventually forced to abandon the policy in 1962, while losing some political power to moderate leaders, notably Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping in the process. However, Mao, supported by national propaganda, claimed that he was only partly to blame. As a result, he was able to remain Chairman of the Communist Party, with the Presidency transferred to Liu Shaoqi.

The Great Leap Forward was a disaster for China. Although the steel quotas were officially reached, almost all of the supposed steel made in the countryside was iron, as it had been made from assorted scrap metal in home made furnaces with no reliable source of fuel such as coal. This meant that proper smelting conditions could not be achieved. According to Zhang Rongmei, a geometry teacher in rural Shanghai during the Great Leap Forward:

"We took all the furniture, pots and pans we had in our house, and all our neighbors did likewise. We put everything in a big fire and melted down all the metal."

The worst of the famine was steered towards enemies of the state. As Jasper Becker explains:

"The most vulnerable section of China's population, around five per cent, were those whom Mao called 'enemies of the people'. Anyone who had in previous campaigns of repression been labeled a 'black element' was given the lowest priority in the allocation of food. Landlords, rich peasants, former members of the nationalist regime, religious leaders, rightists, counter - revolutionaries and the families of such individuals died in the greatest numbers."

At the Lushan Conference in July / August 1959, several leaders expressed concern that the Great Leap Forward had not proved as successful as planned. The most direct of these was Minister of Defense and Korean War General Peng Dehuai. Mao, fearing loss of his position, orchestrated a purge of Peng and his supporters, stifling criticism of the Great Leap policies. Senior officials who reported the truth of the famine to Mao were branded as "right opportunists." A campaign against right opportunism was launched and resulted in party members and ordinary peasants being sent to camps where many would subsequently die in the famine. Years later the CPC would conclude that 6 million people were wrongly punished in the campaign.

The number of deaths by starvation during the Great Leap Forward is deeply controversial. Until the mid 1980s, when official census figures were finally published by the Chinese Government, little was known about the scale of the disaster in the Chinese countryside, as the handful of Western observers allowed access during this time had been restricted to model villages where they were deceived into believing that the Great Leap Forward had been a great success. There was also an assumption that the flow of individual reports of starvation that had been reaching the West, primarily through Hong Kong and Taiwan, must be localized or exaggerated as China was continuing to claim record harvests and was a net exporter of grain through the period. Because Mao wanted to pay back early to the Soviets debts totaling 1.973 billion yuan from 1960 to 1962, exports increased by 50%, and fellow Communist regimes in North Korea, North Vietnam and Albania were provided grain free of charge.

Censuses were carried out in China in 1953, 1964 and 1982. The first attempt to analyze this data in order to estimate the number of famine deaths was carried out by American demographer Dr. Judith Banister and published in 1984. Given the lengthy gaps between the censuses and doubts over the reliability of the data, an accurate figure is difficult to ascertain. Nevertheless, Banister concluded that the official data implied that around 15 million excess deaths incurred in China during 1958 – 61, and that based on her modelling of Chinese demographics during the period and taking account of assumed under - reporting during the famine years, the figure was around 30 million. The official statistic is 20 million deaths, as given by Hu Yaobang. Yang Jisheng, a former Xinhua News Agency reporter who had privileged access and connections available to no other scholars, estimates a death toll of 36 million. Frank Dikötter estimates that there were at least 45 million premature deaths attributable to the Great Leap Forward from 1958 to 1962. Various other sources have put the figure at between 20 and 46 million.

On the international front, the period was dominated by the further isolation of China. The Sino - Soviet split resulted in Nikita Khrushchev's withdrawal of all Soviet technical experts and aid from the country. The split was triggered by arguments over the control and direction of world communism and other disputes pertaining to foreign policy. Most of the problems regarding communist unity resulted from the death of Joseph Stalin in March 1953 and his replacement by Khrushchev. Only Albania under the leadership of Enver Hoxha openly sided with China against the Soviets, which began an alliance between the two countries which would last until the Sino - Albanian split after Mao's death in 1976.

Stalin had established himself as the successor of "correct" Marxist thought well before Mao controlled the Communist Party of China, and therefore Mao never challenged the suitability of any Stalinist doctrine (at least while Stalin was alive). Upon the death of Stalin, Mao believed (perhaps because of seniority) that the leadership of the "correct" Marxist doctrine would fall to him. The resulting tension between Khrushchev (at the head of a politically and militarily superior government), and Mao (believing he had a superior understanding of Marxist ideology) eroded the previous patron - client relationship between the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the CPC. In China, the formerly favorable Soviets were now denounced as "revisionists" and listed alongside "American imperialism" as movements to oppose.

Partly surrounded by hostile American military bases (in South Korea, Japan and Taiwan), China was now confronted with a new Soviet threat from the north and west. Both the internal crisis and the external threat called for extraordinary statesmanship from Mao, but as China entered the new decade the statesmen of the People's Republic were in hostile confrontation with each other.

At a large Communist Party conference in Beijing in January 1962, called the "Conference of the Seven Thousand," State Chairman Liu Shaoqi denounced the Great Leap Forward as responsible for widespread famine. The overwhelming majority of delegates expressed agreement, but Defense Minister Lin Biao staunchly defended Mao. A brief period of liberalization followed while Mao and Lin plotted a comeback. Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping rescued the economy by disbanding the people's communes, introducing elements of private control of peasant smallholdings and importing grain from Canada and Australia to mitigate the worst effects of famine.

Mao was concerned with the nature of post 1959 China. He saw that the revolution had replaced an old elite with a new one. He was concerned that those in power were becoming estranged from the people they were supposed to serve.

Mao believed that a revolution of culture would unseat and unsettle the "ruling class" and keep China in a state of "perpetual revolution" that served the interests of the majority, not a tiny elite. Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping, then the State Chairman and General Secretary, respectively, had favored the idea that Mao should be removed from actual power but maintain his ceremonial and symbolic role, with the party upholding all of his positive contributions to the revolution. They attempted to marginalize Mao by taking control of economic policy and asserting themselves politically as well. Many claim that Mao responded to Liu and Deng's movements by launching the Cultural Revolution in 1966. Some scholars, such as Mobo Gao, claim the case for this is perhaps overstated. Others, such as Frank Dikötter, hold that Mao launched the Cultural Revolution to wreak revenge on those who had dared to challenge him over the Great Leap Forward.

Believing that certain liberal bourgeois elements of society continued to threaten the socialist framework, groups of young people known as the Red Guards struggled against authorities at all levels of society and even set up their own tribunals. Chaos reigned in many parts of the country, and millions were persecuted, including a famous philosopher, Chen Yuen. During the Cultural Revolution, the schools in China were closed and the young intellectuals living in cities were ordered to the countryside to be "re-educated" by the peasants, where they performed hard manual labor and other work.

The Revolution led to the destruction of much of China's traditional cultural heritage and the imprisonment of a huge number of Chinese citizens, as well as creating general economic and social chaos in the country. Millions of lives were ruined during this period, as the Cultural Revolution pierced into every part of Chinese life, depicted by such Chinese films as To Live, The Blue Kite and Farewell My Concubine. It is estimated that hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, perished in the violence of the Cultural Revolution.

When Mao was informed of such losses, particularly that people had been driven to suicide, he is alleged to have commented: "People who try to commit suicide - don't attempt to save them! . . . China is such a populous nation, it is not as if we cannot do without a few people." The authorities allowed the Red Guards to abuse and kill opponents of the regime. Said Xie Fuzhi, national police chief: "Don't say it is wrong of them to beat up bad persons: if in anger they beat someone to death, then so be it." As a result, in August and September 1966, there were 1,772 people murdered in Beijing alone.

It was during this period that Mao chose Lin Biao, who seemed to echo all of Mao's ideas, to become his successor. Lin was later officially named as Mao's successor. By 1971, however, a divide between the two men became apparent. Official history in China states that Lin was planning a military coup or an assassination attempt on Mao. Lin Biao died in a plane crash over the air space of Mongolia, presumably on his way to flee China, probably anticipating his arrest. The CPC declared that Lin was planning to depose Mao, and posthumously expelled Lin from the party. At this time, Mao lost trust in many of the top CPC figures. The highest ranking Soviet Bloc intelligence defector, Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa described his conversation with Nicolae Ceauşescu who told him about a plot to kill Mao Zedong with the help of Lin Biao organized by the KGB.

In 1969, Mao declared the Cultural Revolution to be over, although the official history of the People's Republic of China marks the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976 with Mao's death. In the last years of his life, Mao was faced with declining health due to either Parkinson's disease or, according to Li Zhisui, motor neuron disease, as well as lung ailments due to smoking and heart trouble. Some also attributed Mao's decline in health to the betrayal of Lin Biao. Mao remained passive as various factions within the Communist Party mobilized for the power struggle anticipated after his death.

This period is often looked at in official circles in China and in the West as a great stagnation or even of reversal for China. While many — an estimated 100 million — did suffer, some scholars, such as Lee Feigon and Mobo Gao, claim there were many great advances, and in some sectors the Chinese economy continued to outperform the west. They conclude that the Cultural Revolution period laid the foundation for the spectacular growth that continues in China. During the Cultural Revolution, China exploded its first H-Bomb (1967), launched the Dong Fang Hong satellite (January 30, 1970), commissioned its first nuclear submarines and made various advances in science and technology. Healthcare was free and living standards in the countryside continued to improve.

Mao had been in poorer health for several years and had declined visibly for at least six months prior to his death and there are unconfirmed reports that he possibly had ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease. Mao's last public appearance was on May 27, 1976, where he met the visiting Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto during the latter's one - day visit to Beijing.

At around 5:00 pm on September 2, 1976, Mao suffered a heart attack, far more severe than his previous two and affecting a much larger area of his heart. X-rays indicated that his current lung infection had worsened, and his urine output dropped to less than 300 cc a day. Mao was awake and alert throughout the crisis and asked his team of doctors, several times, whether he was in danger. His condition continued to fluctuate and his life hung in the balance. Three days later, on September 5, Mao's condition was still critical, and Hua Guofeng called Jiang Qing back from her trip. She spent only a few minutes visiting him in Building 202 (where Mao was staying) before returning to her own residence in the Spring Lotus Chamber. On the afternoon of September 7, Mao's condition took a turn for the worse. Jiang Qing went to Building 202 where she learned the news. Mao had just fallen asleep and needed the rest, but she insisted on rubbing his back and moving his limbs, and she sprinkled powder on his body. The medical team protested that the dust from the powder was not good for his lungs, but she instructed the nurses on duty to follow her example later. The next morning, September 8, she went again. She demanded the medical staff to change Mao's sleeping position, claiming that he had been lying too long on his left side. The doctor on duty objected, knowing that he could breathe only on his left side, but she had him moved nonetheless. Mao's breathing stopped and his face turned blue. Jiang Qing left the room while the medical staff put him on a respirator and performed emergency cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Mao barely revived and Hua Guofeng urged Jiang Qing not to interfere further with the doctors' work, as her actions were detrimental to Mao's health and helped cause his death faster. Mao's organs failed quickly and he fell into a coma shortly before noon where he was put on life support machines. He was taken off life support over 12 hours later quarter to midnight and was pronounced dead at 12:10 am on September 9, 1976. September 9 was chosen to let Mao die on because it was an easy day to remember, being the ninth day of the ninth month of the calendar.

His body lay in state at the Great Hall of the People. A memorial service was held in Tiananmen Square on September 18, 1976. There was a three minute silence observed during this service. His body was later placed into the Mausoleum of Mao Zedong, even though he had wished to be cremated and had been one of the first high ranking officials to sign the "Proposal that all Central Leaders be Cremated after Death" in November 1956.

As anticipated after Mao's death, there was a power struggle for control of China. On one side was the left wing led by the Gang of Four, who wanted to continue the policy of revolutionary mass mobilization. On the other side was the right wing opposing these policies. Among the latter group, the right wing restorationists, led by Chairman Hua Guofeng, advocated a return to central planning along the Soviet model, whereas the right wing reformers, led by Deng Xiaoping, wanted to overhaul the Chinese economy based on market oriented policies and to de-emphasize the role of Maoist ideology in determining economic and political policy. Eventually, the reformers won control of the government. Deng Xiaoping, with clear seniority over Hua Guofeng, defeated Hua in a bloodless power struggle a few years later.

"[Mao] turned China from a feudal backwater into one of the most powerful countries in the World ... The Chinese system he overthrew was backward and corrupt; few would argue the fact that he dragged China into the 20th century. But at a cost in human lives that is staggering."

— Mao Tse Tung: China's Peasant Emperor, A&E Biography, 2005

Mao remains a controversial figure and there is little agreement over his legacy both in China and abroad. He is generally credited and praised with having unified China and ending the previous decades of civil war. He is also credited with having improved the status of women in China and improving literacy and education. His policies caused the deaths of tens of millions of people during his 27 year reign, more than any other Twentieth Century leader, however supporters point out that in spite of this, life expectancy improved during his reign. Supporters claim that he rapidly industrialized China, but detractors claim that his policies, particularly the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, were impediments to industrialization and modernization. Supporters claim that his policies laid the groundwork for China's later rise to become an economic superpower, while detractors claim that his policies delayed economic development and that China's economy only underwent its rapid growth after Mao's policies had been widely abandoned. Mao's revolutionary tactics continue to be used by insurgents, and his political ideology continues to be embraced by many communist organizations around the world.

In mainland China, Mao is still revered by many supporters of the Communist Party and respected by a majority of the general population as the "Founding Father of modern China", credited for giving "the Chinese people dignity and self - respect." Mobo Gao in his 2008 book The Battle for China's Past: Mao and the Cultural Revolution, credits Mao for raising the average life expectancy from 35 in 1949 to 63 by 1975, bringing "unity and stability to a country that had been plagued by civil wars and foreign invasions", and laying the foundation for China to "become the equal of the great global powers". Gao also lauds Mao for carrying out massive land reform, promoting the status of women, improving popular literacy, and positively "transform(ing) Chinese society beyond recognition."

However, Mao has many Chinese critics, both those who live inside and outside China. Opposition to Mao is subject to restriction in mainland China, but is especially strong elsewhere, where he is often reviled as a brutish ideologue. In the West, his name is generally associated with tyranny and his economic theories widely discredited – though to some political activists he remains a symbol against capitalism, imperialism and western influence. Even in China, key pillars of his economic theory have been largely dismantled by market reformers like Deng Xiaoping and Zhao Ziyang, who succeeded him as leaders of the Communist Party.

Though the Chinese Communist Party, which Mao led to power, has rejected in practice the economic fundamentals of much of Mao's ideology, it retains for itself many of the powers established under Mao's reign: it controls the Chinese army, police, courts and media and does not permit multi - party elections at the national or local level, except in Hong Kong. Thus it is difficult to gauge the true extent of support for the Chinese Communist Party and Mao's legacy within mainland China. For their part, the Chinese government continues to officially regard Mao as a national hero. In 2008, China opened the Mao Zedong Square to visitors in his hometown of central Hunan Province to mark the 115th anniversary of his birth.

There continue to be disagreements on Mao's legacy. Former Party official Su Shachi, has opined that "he was a great historical criminal, but he was also a great force for good." In a similar vein, journalist Liu Bin Yan has described Mao as "both monster and a genius." Some historians claim that Mao Zedong was "one of the great tyrants of the twentieth century", and a dictator comparable to Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin, with a death toll surpassing both. In The Black Book of Communism, Jean Louis Margolin writes that "Mao Zedong was so powerful that he was often known as the Red Emperor... the violence he erected into a whole system far exceeds any national tradition of violence that we might find in China." Mao was also frequently compared to China's First Emperor Qin Shi Huang, notorious for burying alive hundreds of scholars, and liked the comparison. During a speech to party cadre in 1958, Mao said he had far outdone Qin Shi Huang in his policy against intellectuals: "He buried 460 scholars alive; we have buried forty - six thousand scholars alive.... You [intellectuals] revile us for being Qin Shi Huangs. You are wrong. We have surpassed Qin Shi Huang a hundredfold." As a result of such tactics, critics have pointed out that:

The People's Republic of China under Mao exhibited the oppressive tendencies that were discernible in all the major absolutist regimes of the twentieth century. There are obvious parallels between Mao's China, Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. Each of these regimes witnessed deliberately ordered mass 'cleansing' and extermination.

Mao's English interpreter Sidney Rittenberg wrote in his memoir The Man Who Stayed Behind that whilst Mao "was a great leader in history", he was also "a great criminal because, not that he wanted to, not that he intended to, but in fact, his wild fantasies led to the deaths of tens of millions of people." Li Rui, Mao's personal secretary, goes further and claims he was dismissive of the suffering and death caused by his policies: "Mao's way of thinking and governing was terrifying. He put no value on human life. The deaths of others meant nothing to him." Biographer Jung Chang goes further still and argues that Mao was well aware that his policies would be responsible for the deaths of millions. While discussing labor intensive projects such as waterworks and making steel, Chang claims Mao said to his inner circle in November 1958: "Working like this, with all these projects, half of China may well have to die. If not half, one - third, or one - tenth – 50 million – die." Thomas Bernstein of Columbia University argues that this quotation is taken out of context, claiming:

The Chinese original, however, is not quite as shocking. In the speech, Mao talks about massive earth moving irrigation projects and numerous big industrial ones, all requiring huge numbers of people. If the projects, he said, are all undertaken simultaneously "half of China's population unquestionably will die; and if it's not half, it'll be a third or ten percent, a death toll of 50 million people." Mao then pointed to the example of Guangxi provincial Party secretary, Chén Mànyuǎn (陈漫远) who had been dismissed in 1957 for failing to prevent famine in the previous year, adding: "If with a death toll of 50 million you didn't lose your jobs, I at least should lose mine; whether I should lose my head would also be in question. Anhui wants to do so much, which is quite all right, but make it a principle to have no deaths."

Chang and Halliday take literally Mao's penchant for talking about mass death in highly irresponsible, provocative, callous and reckless ways, exemplified by his famous remark that in a nuclear war, half of China's population would perish but the rest would survive and rebuild. In 1958, when ruminating about the dialectics of life and death, he thought that deaths were beneficial, for without them, there could be no renewal. Imagine, he asked, what a disaster it would be if Confucius were still alive. "When people die there ought to be celebrations." In December 1958 he remarked that "destruction (mièwáng 灭亡, also extinction) [of people] has advantages. One can make fertilizer. You say you can't, but actually you can, but you must be spiritually prepared." The authors note that these kinds of remarks could well have justified the indifference of lower level cadres to peasant deaths.

Jasper Becker and Frank Dikötter reach a similar conclusion. Becker notes that "archive material gathered by Dikötter... confirms that far from being ignorant or misled about the famine, the Chinese leadership were kept informed about it all the time. And he exposes the extent of the violence used against the peasants":

Mass killings are not usually associated with Mao and the Great Leap Forward, and China continues to benefit from a more favorable comparison with Cambodia or the Soviet Union. But as fresh and abundant archival evidence shows, coercion, terror and systematic violence were the foundation of the Great Leap, and between 1958 to 1962, by a rough approximation, some 6 to 8 per cent of those who died were tortured to death or summarily killed – amounting to at least 3 million victims. Countless others were deliberately deprived of food and starved to death. Many more vanished because they were too old, weak or sick to work – and hence unable to earn their keep. People were killed selectively because they had the wrong class background, because they dragged their feet, because they spoke out or simply because they were not liked, for whatever reason, by the man who wielded the ladle in the canteen.

Dikötter argues that CPC leaders "glorified violence and were inured to massive loss of life. And all of them shared an ideology in which the end justified the means. In 1962, having lost millions of people in his province, Li Jingquan compared the Great Leap Forward to the Long March in which only one in ten had made it to the end: 'We are not weak, we are stronger, we have kept the backbone.'"

Regarding the large scale irrigation projects, Dikötter stresses that, in spite of Mao being in a good position to see the human cost, they continued unabated for several years, and ultimately claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of exhausted villagers. He also notes that "In a chilling precursor of Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, villagers in Qingshui and Gansu called these projects the 'killing fields'."

The United States placed a trade embargo on the People's Republic as a result of its involvement in the Korean War, lasting until Richard Nixon decided that developing relations with the PRC would be useful in dealing with the Soviet Union.

Roderick MacFarquhar has stated: "What Mao accomplished between 1949 and 1956 was in fact the fastest, most extensive, and least damaging socialist revolution carried out in any communist state."

Mao's military writings continue to have a large amount of influence both among those who seek to create an insurgency and those who seek to crush one, especially in manners of guerrilla warfare, at which Mao is popularly regarded as a genius. As an example, the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) followed Mao's examples of guerrilla warfare to considerable political and military success even in the 21st century. Mao's major contribution to the military science is his theory of People's War, with not only guerrilla warfare but more importantly, Mobile Warfare methodologies. Mao had successfully applied Mobile Warfare in the Korean War, and was able to encircle, push back and then halt the UN forces in Korea, despite the clear superiority of UN firepower. Mao also gave the impression that he might even welcome a nuclear war. Soviet historians have written that Mao believed his country could survive a nuclear war, even if it lost 300 million people.

"Let us imagine how many people would die if war breaks out. There are 2.7 billion people in the world, and a third could be lost. If it is a little higher it could be half ... I say that if the worst came to the worst and one - half dies, there will still be one - half left, but imperialism would be razed to the ground and the whole world would become socialist. After a few years there would be 2.7 billion people again"

But historians dispute the sincerity of Mao's words. Robert Service says that Mao "was deadly serious," while Frank Dikötter claims that "He was bluffing... the sabre - rattling was to show that he, not Khrushchev, was the more determined revolutionary."

Mao's poems and writings are frequently cited by both Chinese and non - Chinese. The official Chinese translation of President Barack Obama's inauguration speech used a famous line from one of Mao's poems. John McCain misattributed a campaign quote to Mao several times during his 2008 presidential election bid, saying "Remember the words of Chairman Mao: 'It's always darkest before it's totally black.'"

The ideology of Maoism has influenced many communists, mainly in the Third World, including revolutionary movements such as Cambodia's Khmer Rouge, Peru's Shining Path, and the Nepalese revolutionary movement. Under the influence of Mao's agrarian socialism and Cultural Revolution, Cambodia's Pol Pot conceived of his disastrous Year Zero policies which purged the nation of its teachers, artists and intellectuals and emptied its cities, resulting in the Cambodian Genocide.

The Revolutionary Communist Party, U.S.A. also claims Marxism - Leninism - Maoism as its ideology, as do other Communist Parties around the world which are part of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement. China itself has moved sharply away from Maoism since Mao's death, and most people outside of China who describe themselves as Maoist regard the Deng Xiaoping reforms to be a betrayal of Maoism, in line with Mao's view of "Capitalist roaders" within the Communist Party.

As the Chinese government instituted free market economic reforms starting in the late 1970s and as later Chinese leaders took power, less recognition was given to the status of Mao. This accompanied a decline in state recognition of Mao in later years in contrast to previous years when the state organized numerous events and seminars commemorating Mao's 100th birthday. Nevertheless, the Chinese government has never officially repudiated the tactics of Mao. Deng Xiaoping, who was opposed to the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, has to a certain extent rejected Mao's legacy, famously saying that Mao was "70% right and 30% wrong".

In the mid 1990s, Mao Zedong's picture began to appear on all new renminbi (人民幣) currency from the People's Republic of China. This was officially instituted as an anti - counterfeiting measure as Mao's face is widely recognized in contrast to the generic figures that appear in older currency. On March 13, 2006, a story in the People's Daily reported that a proposal had been made to print the portraits of Sun Yat-sen and Deng Xiaoping.

In 2006, the government in Shanghai issued a new set of high school history textbooks which omit Mao, with the exception of a single mention in a section on etiquette. Students in Shanghai now only learn about Mao in junior high school.

Mao gave contradicting statements on the subject of personality cults. In 1955, as a response to the Khrushchev Report that criticized Joseph Stalin, Mao stated that personality cults are "poisonous ideological survivals of the old society", and reaffirmed China's commitment to collective leadership. But at the 1958 Party congress in Chengdu, Mao expressed support for the personality cults of genuinely worthy figures; not those that expressed "blind worship".

In 1962, Mao proposed the Socialist Education Movement (SEM) in an attempt to educate the peasants to resist the "temptations" of feudalism and the sprouts of capitalism that he saw re-emerging in the countryside from Liu's economic reforms. Large quantities of politicized art were produced and circulated — with Mao at the center. Numerous posters, badges and musical compositions referenced Mao in the phrase "Chairman Mao is the red sun in our hearts" (毛主席是我们心中的红太阳, Máo Zhǔxí Shì Wǒmen Xīnzhōng De Hóng Tàiyáng) and a "Savior of the people" (人民的大救星, Rénmín De Dà Jiùxīng).

In October 1966, Mao's Quotations From Chairman Mao Tse-Tung, which was known as the Little Red Book was published. Party members were encouraged to carry a copy with them and possession was almost mandatory as a criterion for membership. Over the years, Mao's image became displayed almost everywhere, present in homes, offices and shops. His quotations were typographically emphasized by putting them in boldface or red type in even the most obscure writings. Music from the period emphasized Mao's stature, as did children's rhymes. The phrase "Long Live Chairman Mao for ten thousand years" was commonly heard during the era.

Mao also has a presence in China and around the world in popular culture, where his face adorns everything from t-shirts to coffee cups. Mao's granddaughter, Kong Dongmei, defended the phenomenon, stating that "it shows his influence, that he exists in people's consciousness and has influenced several generations of Chinese people's way of life. Just like Che Guevara's image, his has become a symbol of revolutionary culture." Since 1950, over 40 million people have visited Mao's birthplace in Shaoshan, Hunan.

At the Yunnan Military Academy Zhu met Cai E (Tsai Ao). He continued to teach at the Academy after his graduation in July 1911. Siding with the revolutionary forces after the Chinese Revolution, he joined Brigadier Cai E in the October 1911 expeditionary force that marched on Qing forces in Sichuan, and served as a regimental commander in the campaign to unseat Yuan Shikai in 1915 - 16. When Cai became governor of Sichuan after Yuan's death in June 1916, Zhu was made a brigade commander.

Following the death of his mentor Cai E and his own wife, Zhu developed a strong opium habit and fell into a life of decadence. His troops continued to support him and he became a warlord. In 1920, after his troops were driven from Sichuan toward the Tibet border, he returned to Yunnan as a public security commissioner of the provincial government. Around this time, his second wife and child were murdered by rival warlords, which may have contributed to his decision to leave China for study in Europe. He first traveled to Shanghai where he broke his opium habit and apparently met Dr Sun Yat-sen. He attempted to join the Chinese Communist Party in early 1922, but was rejected due to his former warlord ties.

In late 1922, Zhu went to Europe, studying at Göttingen University in Germany until 1925. Here he met Zhou Enlai and was expelled from Germany for his role in a number of student protests. Around this time he joined the Communist Party. Zhou Enlai was one of his sponsors. In July 1925 he traveled to the Soviet Union to study military affairs, returning to China in July 1926 to persuade Sichuan warlord Yang Sen to support the Northern Expedition. His failure to do this did not affect his standing in the Communist Party however, as he was soon named head of a new First United Front military institute in Nanchang.

In 1927, following the collapse of the First United Front, KMT authorities ordered Zhu to lead a force against Zhou Enlai and Liu Bocheng's Nanchang Uprising. However, having helped orchestrate the uprising, Zhu and his army defected from the Guomindang. The uprising failed to gather support, however, and Zhu was forced to flee Nanchang with his army. Under the false name of Wang Kai, Zhu managed to find shelter for his remaining forces by joining the warlord Fan Shisheng.

Zhu's close affiliation with Mao Zedong began in 1928 when under the assistance of Chen Yi and Lin Biao, Zhu defected from Fan Shisheng's protection and marched his army of 10,000 men to the Jinggang Mountains. Here Mao had formed a soviet in 1927, and Zhu began building up his army into the Red Army, consolidating and expanding the Soviet areas of control.

Zhu's leadership made him a figure of immense prestige. Locals credited him with supernatural abilities. During this time Mao and Zhu became so closely connected that to the local peasant farmers they were known collectively as "Zhu Mao" (homophonic to 猪毛, or pig's pelage).

In 1929 Zhu and Mao were forced to flee Jinggangshan to Ruijin following Guomindang military pressure. Here they formed the Jiangxi Soviet which would eventually grow to cover some 30,000 square kilometers and include some three million people. In 1931 Zhu was appointed leader of the Red Army in Ruijin by the CPC leadership. Zhu successfully led a conventional military force against the Guomindang in the lead up to the Fourth Counter Encirclement Campaign; however he was not able to do the same during the Fifth Counter Encirclement Campaign and the CPC fled. Zhu helped form the 1934 break out that began the Long March.

During the Long March, Zhu and Zhang Guotao commanded the "western column" of the Red Army, which barely survived the retreat through Sichuan Province. Arriving in Yan'an, Zhu directed the reconstruction of the Red Army under the political guidance of Mao.

During the Second Sino - Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War, he held the position of Commander - in - Chief of the Red Army and in 1940 Zhu devised and organized the Hundred Regiments Offensive without Mao's support. While a successful campaign, it has since been attributed as the main provocation for the devastating Japanese Three Alls Policy.

After 1949 Zhu was named Commander - in - Chief of the People's Liberation Army (PLA). He was also the Vice Chairman of the Communist Party (1956 – 1966) and Vice Chairman of the People's Republic of China (1954 – 1959). In 1950 Zhu oversaw the PLA during the Korean War. In 1955, he was made a marshal.

In 1966, during the onset of the Cultural Revolution, Zhu was dismissed from his position on the Politburo Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China, and the activity of the National People's Congress was halted. However, due to the support of Zhou Enlai, he was not harmed or imprisoned. In 1973 Zhu was reinstated in the Standing Committee.

He continued to be a prominent elder statesman until his death in July 1976. His death came six months after the death of Chinese prime minister Zhou Enlai, and just two months before the death of Mao Zedong. Zhu was cremated three days after his death. He would have turned 90 years old in December 1976.

Peng was one of the most senior generals who defended the Jiangxi Soviet from 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's rise to power. During the 1937 – 1945 Second Sino - Japanese War, Peng was one of the strongest supporters of pursuing a ceasefire with the Kuomintang in order to concentrate China's collective resources on resisting the Japanese Empire. Peng was the senior commander in the combined Kuomintang - Communist efforts to resist 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 Regiments Offensive, a massive Communist effort to disrupt Japanese logistical networks across northern China. The Hundred Regiments Offensive was modestly successful, but political disputes within the Communist Party led to Peng being recalled to Yan'an, and he spent the rest of the war without an active command. After the Japanese surrendered, in 1945, Peng was given command of Communist forces in Northwest China. He was the most senior commander responsible for defending the Communist leadership in Shaanxi from Kuomintang forces, saving Mao from being captured at least once. Peng eventually defeated the Kuomintang in Northwest China, captured huge amounts of military supplies, and actively incorporated the huge area, including Xinjiang, into the People's Republic of China.

Peng was one of the few senior military leaders who supported Mao's suggestions to involve China directly in the 1950 - 1953 Korean War, and he served as the direct commander of the Chinese People's Volunteer Army for the first half of the war (though Mao and Zhou Enlai were technically more senior). Peng's experiences in the Korean War (in which Chinese forces suffered over a million casualties, more than any other nation involved in the fighting) convinced him that the Chinese military had to become more professional, organized, and well equipped in order to prepare itself for the conditions of modern technical warfare. Because the Soviet Union was the only communist country then equipped with a fully modern, professional army, Peng attempted to reform China's military on the Soviet model over the next several years, making the army less political and more professional (contrary to the political goals of Mao). Peng resisted Mao's attempts to develop a personality cult throughout the 1950s; and, when Mao's economic policies associated with the Great Leap Forward caused a nationwide famine, Peng became critical of Mao's leadership. The rivalry between Peng and Mao culminated in an open confrontation between the two at the 1959 Lushan Conference. Mao won this confrontation, labeled Peng as a leader of an "anti - Party clique", and purged Peng from all influential positions for the rest of his life.

Peng lived in virtual obscurity until 1965, when the reformers Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping supported Peng's limited return to government, developing military industries in Southwest China. In 1966, following the advent of the Cultural Revolution, Peng was arrested by Red Guards. From 1966 – 1970, radical factions within the Communist Party, led by Lin Biao and Mao's wife, Jiang Qing, singled out Peng for national persecution, and Peng was publicly humiliated in numerous large scale struggle sessions and subjected to physical and psychological torture in organized efforts to force Peng to confess his "crimes" against Mao Zedong and the Communist Party. In 1970 Peng was formally tried and sentenced to life imprisonment, and he died in prison in 1974. After Mao died in 1976, Peng's old ally, Deng Xiaoping, emerged as China's paramount leader. Deng led an effort to formally rehabilitate people who had been unjustly persecuted during the Cultural Revolution, and Peng was one of the first leaders to be posthumously rehabilitated, in 1978. In modern China, Peng is considered one of the most successful and highly respected generals in the history of the early Chinese Communist Party.

Peng was born in 1898 in the village of Shixiang, Xiangtan County, Hunan. His personal name at birth was "Dehua". Peng's family lived in a thatched straw hut and owned approximately 1.5 acres of irrigated land, on which the family grew bamboo, sweet potatoes, tea, cotton and various vegetables. His father also operated a bean curd shop. The income from the land and shop supported an extended family of eight people, including Peng, his three brothers, his parents, his grandmother and a grand - uncle. Peng's grand - uncle had joined and fought for the Taiping rebellion, and used to tell Peng about the old Taiping ideals: that everyone should have enough food to eat, that women should not bind their feet, and that land should be redistributed equally. Peng later described his own class background as "lower - middle peasant".

From 1905 – 1907, Peng was enrolled in a traditional Confucian primary school. 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 deteriorating financial situation. In 1905 – 1906, there was a severe drought in Hunan. Peng's mother died in 1905, and Peng's six month old brother died of hunger. Peng's father was forced to sell most of his family possessions for food, and to pawn most of his family's land. When Peng was withdrawn from school in 1908, he and his brothers were sent to beg for food in their village. From 1908 – 1910, Peng took a job looking after a pair of water buffaloes.

When Peng's grand-uncle died in 1911, Peng left home and worked at a coalmine in Xiangtan, where he pushed carts of coal for thirteen hours a day for a wage of nine yuan a month. In 1912, shortly after the founding of the Republic of China, the mine went bankrupt and the owners fled, cheating Peng out of half his annual wages. Peng returned home in 1912 and took a number of odd jobs. In 1913 Hunan suffered another drought, and Peng participated in a public demonstration that escalated into the seizure of a grain merchant's storehouse, and the redistribution of grain among the peasants. Village police issued a warrant for Peng's arrest, and he fled to northern Hunan, where he worked for two years as a construction laborer for the construction of a dam near Dongting Lake. When the dam was completed, in 1916, Peng assumed that he was no longer in danger of being arrested and returned home, joining the army of a local Kuomintang aligned warlord, Tang Xiangming.

Peng enlisted as a private second class, with a monthly wage of 5.5 yuan, 2 yuan of which he sent back to support his family. Within seven months he was promoted to private first class, with a monthly wage of 6 yuan, 3 yuan of which he sent to his family. One of Peng's commanding officers was an idealistic Nationalist who had participated in the 1911 Xinhai Revolution, who influenced Peng to sympathize with the Kuomintang goals of social reform and national reunification. When another civil war broke out in 1917, Peng's regiment split from the rest of its army and joined the forces of Tang Shengzhi, who was aligned with Tan Yankai and Sun Yat-sen, against those aligned with the northern warlord Wu Peifu. During this period Peng received training in formal tactics from an officer in his brigade. In July 1918 Peng was captured while on a reconnaissance mission behind enemy lines, but was released after two weeks. In April 1919 Peng was promoted to master sergeant and acting platoon commander. Tang Shengzhi's forces drove enemy troops out of Hunan in July 1920, capturing the provincial capital of Changsha.

Peng participated in a failed mutiny over pay, but was pardoned. In August 1921 Peng was promoted to the rank of second lieutenant, and became acting company commander several weeks later. While stationed in a village in Nanxian, Peng noticed that the poor were being mistreated 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 was reprimanded for his actions, but not demoted or reassigned. After the incident, Peng began to think seriously about leaving the service of his provincial warlord army. On February 1922, after applying for extended unpaid leave, Peng and several other officers traveled to Guangdong to seek employment in the army of the Kuomintang.

Peng's impression of the Kuomintang in 1922 was not favorable, and he left Guangzhou with the intention of settling back in Hunan as a farmer. Peng returned to his home village by sea via Shanghai (then the farthest he had ever been from his home village), and farmed with his father for three months on land which his father had bought with money that Peng had sent home, but Peng did not find this occupation satisfying. When one of Peng's old comrades suggested that Peng apply to the local Hunan Military Academy to seek employment as a formally trained professional officer, Peng accepted. Peng successfully gained admission in August 1922, using the personal name "Dehuai" for the first time. In August 1923, after nine months of training, Peng graduated from the academy and rejoined his old regiment with the rank of captain. He was promoted to acting battalion commander in April 1924.

In 1924 Tang Shengzhi aligned himself with northern warlords against the warlord controlling Guangdong, who was aligned with the Kuomintang. Peng conducted skirmishes along the Hunan - Guangdong border for nine months, but reorganized his battalion along pro - Kuomintang political lines in 1925. In late 1925 Chiang Kai-shek established the National Revolutionary Army (NRA) and led the Kuomintang to take control of Guangdong. 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 army was reorganized, and Peng was promoted to the rank of major. When Wu Peifu invaded Hunan and occupied Changsha, Chiang sent the NRA to Hunan, beginning the Northern Expedition. Peng's forces then joined the Kuomintang, though Peng never joined the party as a formal member. It wasn't until after Peng joined the Kuomintang, in 1925, that he first heard of the Communist Party.

Between July 1926 and March 1927 Peng campaigned in Hunan, participating in the capture of Changsha and Wuhan. Under general Ho Chien, Peng participated in the Battle of Fengtai, in which Kuomintang forces decisively defeated the warlord Wu Peifu. In 1927, Wang Jingwei attempted to establish a left leaning Kuomintang government in Wuhan that threatened Chiang Kai-shek's leadership. Tang Shengzhi, who Peng served under, aligned himself with Wang, and Peng was promoted to lieutenant colonel and regimental commander. After Tang's forces were decisively defeated by Chiang, Peng commanded the rear guard, protecting the retreat of Tang's forces back into Hunan.

In 1927 Peng was approached several times by Communist Party members, some of which were old friends, who attempted to recruit him into the Communist Party. In August 1927 Peng was approached by an old military comrade, Huang Gonglue: Peng was sympathetic, but could not decide to join the Party. On October 12, Peng was approached by Duan Dechang, a Communist Party representative: Peng again expressed sympathy and interest, but at that time considered himself a member of the "Kuomintang left wing", and could not yet bring himself to break with the party. Peng considered joining the Communist Party for some time, met Duan again later that October, and began to study basic communist theory. Peng secretly joined the Chinese Communist Party in mid February 1928.

In February 1928 Peng joined general Ho Chien when Ho defected back to Chiang's forces, and gained a promotion to full colonel after rejoining Chiang. After rejoining Chiang's Nanjing government, Peng was stationed in the mountainous Pingjiang County, northwest of Changsha. His orders were to eliminate local groups of communist guerrillas who had fled to the area following the Shanghai massacre of 1927. Because Peng had secretly joined the Chinese Communist Party, he instead kept his unit passive and began to organize local Communist Party branches. Peng made contact with local communist guerillas, nominally attached to the forces of Mao Zedong and Zhu De, and decided to issue a pronouncement in favor of the Communists on July 18, 1928.

In July 22, 1928 Peng's forces, approximately 2000 men, occupied Pingjiang County, arresting and executing the county magistrate and over 100 landlords and local militia commanders. On July 23 Peng declared the establishment of the "Hunan Provincial Soviet Government", formally aligning himself with Mao and Zhu. On July 29 Peng's former superior, general Ho Chien, attacked Peng's forces, inflicting heavy casualties. By September, Peng's forces were driven into the mountains, and by October only several hundred men remained. Peng then abandoned his bases and left to join Mao and Zhu at their base in Jinggangshan. Peng's forces successfully joined Mao and Zhu in November 1928. Some of Peng's subordinates in the rebellion survived and became important military figures themselves, including generals Huang Kecheng and Peng Shaohui.

After joining forces with communist guerrillas, one of Peng's first actions was to save Mao, whose forces were being encircled by Kuomintang units: Peng broke the encirclement and drove the enemy off. Peng then met with Zhu and Mao, and they reorganized their forces and decided to form a base area around the southern Jiangxi city of Ruijin, an agricultural city that was only defended by weak warlord units. Zhu and Mao occupied the area, informally beginning the Jiangxi Soviet in January 1929.

Peng remained behind to guard Jinggangshan with a force of 800 soldiers, but withdrew from the area when it was attacked by a Hunanese Kuomintang force of 25,000 soldiers, joining Zhu and Mao in Ruijin in March. Although he had saved his force from destruction, he was criticized by Mao for withdrawing. Peng returned to Jinggangshan with a force of 1,000 men later that year, occupying the area after the Kuomintang withdrew. In mid 1929 Peng's forces merged with the forces of two local bandit groups, but conflicts arose over supplies and the command structure, and the two groups rebelled against Peng in July 1929. One of the bandit leaders was captured and executed by Peng, and the other committed suicide. The remaining forces were incorporated into Peng's unit, bringing its strength up to 2,000 men. Peng then organized a series of increasingly ambitious raids into southern Hunan throughout 1929 and 1930, capturing an increasing amount of supplies and attracting more recruits.

On July 13, 1930, the de facto leader of the Chinese Communist Party, Li Lisan, issued a general order for communist units around China to "conquer one provincial capital" as a signal for a "nationwide revolutionary storm". Peng took these general orders seriously, and launched an attack on Hunan's capital, Changsha, on July 25, with 17,000 soldiers under his command, and with the support of another 10,000 guerillas. Changsha was then defended by general Ho Chien, Peng's former superior. Peng's forces broke through the Kuomintang lines on July 28, and occupied Changsha proper on July 30, which Ho hastily evacuated. On August 1 Peng declared the establishment of a "Hunan Provincial Soviet Government", with Li Lisan (who was living in the French concession area in Shanghai) named chairman, and Peng himself as vice chairman. On August 5, Ho counterattacked with a force of 35,000 men. Peng suffered 7,500 casualties, and was forced to withdraw back to Jinggangshan. On September 1, Peng again attempted to capture Changsha, but this attack was halted on the outskirts of the city with heavy casualties. Mao and Zhu kept their own forces from assisting Peng during his attempts to take Changsha, and Peng withdrew his forces into the Jiangxi Soviet in late 1930.

Peng was one of the most important generals active in defending the Jiangxi Soviet, taking a leading role in defeating Chiang Kai-shek's first three Encirclement Campaigns, from December 1930 – May 1931. His successes were outmatched only by Lin Biao. On November 7, Peng was named to the Central Military Commission and to the Central Executive Committee of the Jiangxi Soviet, the first time that he had been named to a position of political leadership within the communist movement. After the consolidation of the Jiangxi Soviet, a number of USSR - trained Communist Party leaders arrived and took power in the Soviet: Peng, like most communist military leaders, supported their leadership until the Jiangxi Soviet was eventually overrun. In August 1933, Peng was named Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission; and, in January 1934, Peng was appointed as an alternate member to the Sixth CCP Central Committee. Peng continued the defense of the Jiangxi Soviet throughout the early 1930s. In August 1933, after the indecisive Fourth Encirclement Campaign, Peng broke through Kuomintang defenses and conquered a large area of western Fujian, capturing great quantities of arms and ammunition.

In October 1933 Chiang Kai-shek took command of nearly 800,000 soldiers, leading the Fifth Encirclement Campaign against the Red Army's force of 150,000 men. By September 1934 the Fifth Encirclement Campaign was largely successful, and Peng's own units suffered heavy casualties defending the Soviet, shrinking from 35,000 to around 20,000 men. On October 20, 1934 the communists broke out of Chiang's encirclement and began the Long March. Of the 18,000 men under Peng's command when the March began, only about 3,000 remained when Peng's forces reached their eventual destination in Shaanxi on October 20, 1935.

Peng was a strong supporter of Mao's rise to power during the January 1935 Zunyi Conference. Peng continued to consolidate the communists' base area after arriving in Shaanxi, campaigning in neighboring Shanxi and Gansu. In April 1937, Peng was named vice commander - in - chief of all Chinese communist forces, outranked only by Zhu De, who was named commander - in - chief. Peng's promotion was supported by Lin Biao, who had been actively supporting Peng for promotions to senior leadership as early as May 1934. In early 1935 Lin responded to widespread discontent within the Red Army over Mao's evasive tactics (which were perceived inside the Red Army as unnecessarily exhausting) by publicly proposing that Peng take overall command of the Red Army; but Mao, who had recently been promoted to the position, attacked Peng and Lin for challenging him and successfully retained his position.

In October 1935, following the last major battle between the KMT and the Red Army, Mao wrote and dedicated a poem to Peng. (The poem was not published until 1947).

"The mountains are high, the road is long and full of potholes,

Many soldiers are moving to and fro,

Who is the courageous one, striking from his horse in all directions?

None other than our great General Peng!"

山高路远坑深

大军纵横驰奔

谁敢横刀立马

唯我彭大将军

In 1936 the American journalist, Edgar Snow, stayed for several days at Peng's compound in Yuwang while Peng was campaigning in Ningxia, and had long conversations with him. Snow wrote two whole chapters about Peng in his book, Red Star Over China. He wrote more about Peng than any other individual, except for Mao Zedong.

After the 1937 Marco Polo Bridge Incident, China and Japan formally went to war. When the Kuomintang and Communist Party declared a united front to fight the Japanese, Peng was confirmed as a general in the unified command structure of the NRA. At the August 20, 1937 Lochuan Conference, Mao believed that the united front should be used as a feint, giving token resistance to the Japanese while saving the strength of the Red Army for the eventual confrontation with the Kuomintang, but Peng, along with most other senior military and political leaders at the time, disagreed, and believed that the Red Army should genuinely focus on fighting the Japanese. Mao was not able to force his position, and the communists cooperated with the Kuomintang and fought the Japanese.

When the Japanese invaded Shanxi, the Red Army (renamed the Eighth Route Army) assisted the Kuomintang warlord, Yan Xishan, in resisting the Japanese, and Peng travelled to the provincial capital of Taiyuan with Zhou Enlai to coordinate tactics. After the Japanese advanced towards Taiyuan on September 13, 1937, Peng directed overall operations from a base in Wutaishan, but was called from duty to attend a Politburo meeting on December 13. At the meeting, Peng advocated a greater material commitment to the defense of Shanxi, but Mao disagreed and wanted the Red Army to reduce its commitment to fighting the Japanese. In 1938, after Mao's rival, Zhang Guotao, defected to the Kuomintang, Peng moved closer to Mao's position. In late 1938, Peng set up a base in Taihangshan, on the borders of Shanxi and Hebei, and directed guerrilla operations in both provinces. From Taihangshan, Peng commanded 2/3 of the Eighth Route Army, approximately 100,000 soldiers.

In July 1940 Peng was given overall command of the largest communist operation of the anti - Japanese war, the Hundred Regiments Offensive. 200,000 regular troops from the Eighth Route Army participated in this operation, supported by 200,000 irregular communist guerrillas. From August 20 – October 5, 1940, communist forces destroyed large numbers of bridges, tunnels and railroad tracks in Japanese occupied China, and inflicted relatively heavy Japanese casualties. From October 6 – December 5, the Japanese counterattacked, and the communists mostly repelled the counterattack successfully. Peng's operation was successful in disrupting Japanese communication lines and logistics networks, which were not fully restored until 1942, but the communists suffered heavy losses, suffering 22,000 casualties to 4,000 – 6,000 Japanese casualties. In early 1941, the Japanese began a large scale effort to drive Peng from his base in Taihangshan, and Peng relocated closer to the communist base in Yan'an in late 1941. After being recalled to Yan'an, Peng was subjected to a political indoctrination campaign in which he was criticized as an "empiricist" for his good relations with the Comintern, and only survived professionally through an unconditional conversion to Mao's leadership. Mao ordered Peng to be criticized for forty days for the "failings" of the Hundred Regiments Campaign (even though Mao had supported it, and afterwards praised its successes). Peng was not allowed to reply, and was forced to make a self - criticism. From 1942 – 1945, Peng's role in the war was mostly political, and he supported Mao very closely. In June 1944 Peng was part of a team that conferenced with American military personnel that visited Yan'an as part of the Dixie Mission, briefing the Americans about the military situation in Japanese occupied China.

The Japanese surrendered on September 3, 1945, ending China's war with Japan and beginning the final stage of the Chinese Civil War. In October Peng took command of troops in northern China, occupied Inner Mongolia, and accepted the surrender of Japanese soldiers there. In March 1946, Communist forces (1.1 million soldiers) were renamed the "People's Liberation Army". Peng himself was placed in command of 175,000 soldiers, organized as the "Northwest Field Army", most of which had been under the command of He Long during the war against Japan. He then became Peng's second - in - command. Peng's notable subordinates in the Northwest Field Army included Zhang Zongxun and Wang Zhen.

Peng's forces were the most poorly armed of the newly reorganized army, but were responsible for the area around the communist capital, Yan'an. In March 1947, the Kuomintang general, Hu Zongnan, invaded this area with 260,000 soldiers. Hu's forces were among the best trained and best supplied Nationalist units, but one of Zhou Enlai's spies was able to provide Peng with information about Hu's strategic plans, his forces' troop distributions, strength and positions, and details about the air cover available to Hu. Peng was forced to abandon Yan'an, but resisted Hu's forces long enough for Mao and other senior Party leaders to evacuate safely. On May 4 Peng's forces attacked an isolated supply depot in northeastern Shaanxi, arrested its commander, and captured food reserves, 40,000 army uniforms, and a collection of arms that included over a million pieces of artillery. Peng's forces were pushed back to the border of Inner Mongolia, but finally managed to decisively defeat Hu's forces in August, in the Battle of Shachiatien, saving Mao and other members from the Central committee from being taken prisoner. Peng eventually pushed Kuomintang forces out of Shaanxi in February 1948.

Between 1947 and September 22, 1949, Peng's forces occupied Gansu, Ningxia, and Qinghai. His forces repeatedly defeated, but were not able to destroy, the forces of Hu Zongnan and Ma Bufang, which retreated into Sichuan and were airlifted to Taiwan when the Kuomintang lost the Civil War in December 1949. In October Peng's forces, led directly by Wang Zhen, invaded Xinjiang. Most of Xinjiang's defenders surrendered peacefully, and were incorporated as a new unit in Peng's army, but some ethnic guerrilla bands resisted Chinese control for several years. After the People's Republic of China was declared on October 1, 1949, Peng was appointed Chairman of the Northwest China Military and Administrative Commission and Commander - in - Chief and Political Commissar of Xinjiang, with Wang Zhen as his deputy. This appointment gave Peng responsibility over Shaanxi, Gansu, Ningxia, Qinghai, and Xinjiang, an area of over five million square kilometers but under thirty million people. Peng's forces continued their gradual occupation of Xinjiang, which they completed in September 1951.

North Korea invaded South Korea on June 25, 1950. After receiving its endorsement from the United Nations, the United States landed its first troops in Korea on September 15. On October 1, the first anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic, U.N. forces crossed the 38th parallel into North Korea. There was some disagreement within China's leadership about how to react to the American push to the Chinese border: Mao and Zhou wanted direct military intervention, while most Chinese leaders believed that China should not enter the war unless China was directly attacked. Lin Biao was Mao's first choice to lead the Chinese People's Volunteer Army (PVA) into Korea, but Lin refused, citing his bad health.

Mao then sought the support of Peng, who had not yet taken a strong position, to lead the PVA. Peng flew to Beijing from Xi'an (where he was still administering northwest China and directing the incorporation of Xinjiang into the PRC), and arrived on October 4. Peng listened to both sides of the debate, and on October 5 decided to support Mao. Peng's support for Mao's position changed the atmosphere of the meeting, and most leaders changed their positions to support a direct Chinese intervention in the Korean War. On October 5 Peng was named the Commander and the Commissar of the People's Volunteer Army and held both titles until the Korean Armistice Agreement in 1953. Mao directed China's general strategy, and Zhou was appointed general commander, coordinating Peng's forces with the Soviet and North Korean governments, and the rest of the Chinese government. Over the next week, Peng established a headquarters in Shenyang, and prepared his invasion strategy with his officers.

After Zhou and Lin negotiated Stalin's approval, Peng attended a conference in Beijing with Mao, Zhou and Gao Gang on October 18, and they ordered the first wave of Chinese soldiers — in total more than 260,000 men — to cross into Korea on the night of October 19. On October 25 the PVA had its first confrontation with U.N. troops at Onjong and Unsan, and pushed the UN forces south of the Chongchon River by November 4 in the aftermath of First Phase Campaign. From November 24 to December 24, Peng directed 380,000 PVA troops to confront UN forces in the Second Phase Campaign, and he successfully recovered the area north of the thirty - eighth parallel. Despite his personal reservations, Peng then began an ambitious campaign to take the area south of the 38th parallel in order to fulfill Mao's political objectives for the war. About 230,000 Chinese soldiers crossed into South Korean territory on December 31 and captured Seoul as part of the Third Phase Campaign, but were forced to evacuate it with heavy losses on March 14, 1951 as the U.N. forces counter attacked during the course of Fourth Phase Campaign. Peng launched a final Fifth Phase Campaign from April 22 – June 10 to retake Seoul with 548,000 Chinese troops, but it failed, and the Korean War came to a standstill just above the 38th parallel. In the evaluation of Korean War historian Roy Edger Appleman, Peng's performances in the war were unremarkable in terms of military talents despite his aggressiveness and leadership skills. During the Cultural Revolution, Red Guards claimed that Peng's successful campaigns, from October – December 1950, were fought under Mao's direction, but that his unsuccessful campaigns, from January – May 1951, were organized by Peng against Mao's instructions. Modern scholars reject this interpretation, and credit Peng with both the successes and failures of the war.

PVA casualties during the first 12 months of the Korean War, from October 1950 to October 1951, were heavy. Soviet material support was slight; and, because the only available means to transport supplies into Korea for the first year of the war was a force of 700,000 laborers, all available supplies were light and limited. The U.N. forces also had complete air superiority. These logistic constraints later caused 45,000 Chinese soldiers to freeze to death between November 27 and December 12, 1950, due to inadequate winter clothing. China's insufficient artillery, armor and air support meant that Peng was forced to rely heavily on human wave tactics until the summer of 1951: stealthy fireteams attacked in column against weak points in enemy defenses, hoping that surprise, attrition and perseverance would break the enemy lines. Participants even drank large quantities of Kaoliang in order to improve their courage. Some of the worst Chinese battle losses occurred during the Second and the Fifth Phase Campaign: up to 40 percent of all Chinese forces in Korea were rendered combat ineffective between November 25 and December 24, 1950, and about 12 Chinese divisions were lost in during April 22 – June 10, 1951. All in all, over a million Chinese soldiers became casualties during the course of the war. Peng justified the PVA's high casualty rate by his almost religions belief in the cause of communism and the Communist Party, and his belief that the ends of the conflict justified the means. Some accounts even claimed that Peng invented the human wave tactic under the name "short attack" in order to exploit his manpower advantage.

In November 19, 1951, Zhou called a conference in Shenyang to discuss improvements to China's logistical network, but these did little to directly resolve China's supply problems. Peng visited Beijing several times over the next several months to brief Mao and Zhou about the heavy casualties suffered by Chinese troops and the increasing difficulty of keeping the front lines supplied with basic necessities. By the winter of 1951 – 52, Peng became convinced that the war would be protracted, and that neither side would be able to achieve victory in the foreseeable future. On February 24, 1952, the Central Military Commission, presided over by Zhou, discussed the PVA's logistical problems with members of various government agencies involved in the war effort. After the government representatives emphasized their inability to meet the demands of the war, Peng, in an angry outburst, shouted: "You have this and that problem... You should go to the front and see with your own eyes what food and clothing the soldiers have! Not to speak of the casualties! For what are they giving their lives? We have no aircraft. We have only a few guns. Transports are not protected. More and more soldiers are dying of starvation. Can't you overcome some of your difficulties?" The atmosphere became so tense that Zhou was forced to adjourn the conference. Zhou subsequently called a series of meetings, where it was agreed that the PVA would be divided into three groups, to be dispatched to Korea in shifts; to accelerate the training of Chinese pilots; to provide more anti - aircraft guns to the front lines; to purchase more military equipment and ammunition from the Soviet Union; to provide the army with more food and clothing; and, to transfer the responsibility of logistics to the central government. Peng also became a zealous supporter of the Three - anti Campaign due to his belief that corruption and waste were the main causes of the PVA's hardship.

Truce talks began on July 10, 1951, but proceeded slowly. Peng was recalled back to China in April 1952 due to a head tumor, and Chen Geng and Deng Hua later assumed Peng's responsibilities in the PVA. On July 27, 1953, Peng personally signed the Armistice agreement in Panmunjom, ending the Korean War. At a mass rally in Pyongyang on July 31, Kim Il Sung awarded Peng his second North Korean "National Flag" Order of Merit, First Class (the first had been awarded to Peng in 1951), and awarded Peng the title of "Hero of the Korean Democratic People's Republic". Peng also received a hero's welcome in Tiananmen Square on August 11. Chinese troops remained in North Korea until 1958.

Peng's experiences in the Korean War strongly affected his outlook over the next decade. The heavy losses sustained during the first year of the war convinced him that the Chinese army needed to change by introducing modern equipment and standards of professionalism, and by developing new tactics more suited to modern conventional warfare. He came to believed strongly that military training should never be reduced in favor of political indoctrination, and that military commanders should enjoy seniority over commissars. Because the only communist country fully prepared for modern technical warfare was the Soviet Union, Peng grew to see the Soviet Red Army as a model for the development of China's PLA. These perspectives, and Peng's long held conviction that the primary role of the Communist Party was to improve the welfare of the common people, were contrary to Mao's political goals, contributing to their eventual conflict in the late 1950s.

After being recalled back to China in April 1952, Peng succeeded Zhou in managing the day - to - day affairs of the Central Military Commission in July 1952; and, in the spring of 1954, Peng was confirmed as the vice chairman of the Commission (Mao was its chairman), becoming effectively the most senior military leader in China. On September 24, 1954, the First National People's Congress confirmed Peng's position, and appointed him Defense Minister and one of the ten vice ministers of the State Council. Lin Biao was senior to Peng on the State Council. Soon after accepting these appointments, on October 1, 1954, Peng produced an ambitious plan for the modernization of the PLA on the model of the Soviet military.

Peng had been an alternate member of the Central Committee since 1934, a full member since 1938, and a member of the Politburo since 1945, but it was not until he became the leader of the PLA and moved permanently to Beijing, in November 1953, that Peng was able to attend regular political meetings and became active in domestic politics. Peng had been loyal to Mao's leadership since the 1935 Zunyi Conference, and continued to support Mao for several years after moving to Beijing. Peng (like Lin Biao) was implicated in passively supporting Gao Gang's effort to replace Liu Shaoqi as the second most powerful person in China in 1953, but then opposed Gao in 1954, once Mao made his own opposition clear. Mao did not take any action against Peng (or Lin), but Peng's involvement alienated Peng from Liu and Liu's supporters. In 1955 Peng supported Mao's efforts to collectivize agriculture. Along with Liu Shaoqi, Zhu De, Lin Biao, Lin Boqu and Luo Ronghuan, Peng opposed Mao's attempt to liberalize China's culture and politics in the first stages of the 1957 Hundred Flowers Campaign, but then supported Mao's efforts to arrest and persecute Chinese citizens who had criticized the CCP later that year.

During the late 1950s, Peng developed a personal dislike for Mao's efforts to promote his own image in Chinese popular culture as a perfect, infallible hero singularly responsible for the Communist victories of his time. In 1955 – 56 Peng was involved in a large number of efforts to moderate Mao's popular image, developing into a personal campaign. Peng's preference for modesty and simplicity led Peng to oppose Mao's efforts to develop his personality cult. In 1955 a draft copy of a book, The Military History of the PVA, was submitted to Peng so that he could edit and authorize it. In the preface of the book it was stated that "the military victories of the PVA" were won "under the correct leadership of the CCP and of Comrade Mao Zedong": Peng authorized the text after removing the phrase "and of Comrade Mao Zedong". In 1956 an anonymous Chinese citizen wrote a letter to Peng condemning the practices of hanging portraits of Mao in public places and singing songs in praise of Mao: Peng sent this letter to Huang Kecheng, his chief of staff, to be widely distributed. Peng successfully opposed efforts to place a bronze statue of Mao in the Beijing Military Museum, saying: "why take the trouble to put it up? What is put up now will be removed in the future." When greeted by a group of soldiers who shouted "Long Live Chairman Mao!" (literally "10,000 years for Chairman Mao"), Peng addressed the soldiers, saying: "You shout '10,000 years for Chairman Mao!' – does he, then, live for 10,000 years? He will not even live for 100 years! This is a personality cult!" When one of Peng's political commissars suggested to him that the song The East is Red (a song that idealizes Mao, which Mao later had sung in place of the Chinese national anthem during the Cultural Revolution) be widely taught throughout the PLA, Peng angrily rejected the suggestion, saying "That is a personality cult! That is idealism!" Later in 1956 a group of soldiers visited Peng in order to request an audience with the Chairman, but Peng rejected them, saying: "He is an old man, what is so beautiful about him?"

In preparation for the Eighth National Congress, held in September 1956, Peng attended a Politburo committee to redraft the new Party Constitution. At this meeting, Peng suggested that a section in the Constitution's preamble referring to Mao Zedong Thought be removed. Liu Shaoqi, Deng Xiaoping, Peng Zhen and most other senior CCP members present quickly agreed, and it was removed from the final version of the 1956 Party Constitution. At the Congress, Peng was re-appointed to the Politburo and as a full member of the Central Committee.

Peng resented Mao's personal lifestyle, which Peng considered decadent and luxurious. By the late 1950s Mao had developed a lifestyle that was out of touch with Peng's preference for modesty and simplicity. Mao enjoyed a private pool in Zhongnanhai, and had many villas around China built for him, which he would travel to on a private train. Mao enjoyed the companionship of an ever changing succession of enthusiastic young women whom he met either on weekly dances in Zhongnanhai or on his journeys by train. Mao had a costly office suite built for him in Beijing, including a private, book - lined study. When Peng's wife suggested the couple spend more free time visiting Mao's quarters, Peng was reluctant, stating that Mao's surroundings were "too luxuriously furnished" for him to tolerate. Throughout the 1950s, Peng continued to refer to the Chairman as "Old Mao", an egalitarian title that was used among senior CCP leaders in the 1930s and 1940s.

Peng staged his first offensive after becoming Defense Minister in January 1955, when he attacked and occupied a chain of islands, part of Zhejiang, which were still held by the Kuomintang, from which the Nationalists occasionally staged guerrilla raids as far as Shanghai. This operation led the United States to form a defense agreement with Taiwan, effectively preventing the communists from completely defeating the Kuomintang.

Peng participated in a number of foreign trips throughout the communist world after becoming Defense Minister, the first time that he had traveled outside of China and North Korea. In May 1955 Peng visited East Germany, Poland and the Soviet Union, meeting with Wilhelm Pieck, Józef Cyrankiewicz, Nikita Krushchev and the Soviet marshals Konstantin Rokossovsky and Georgy Zhukov. In September 1955 Peng traveled to Poland and the Soviet Union to attend the signing of the Warsaw Pact as an observer. In November 2 – December 3, 1957 Peng accompanied Mao on his second visit to the Soviet Union. From April 24 – June 13, 1959 Peng went on a "military goodwill tour" across the communist world, visiting Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, the Soviet Union and Mongolia.

After Peng returned from his first tour abroad, in September 1955, he began to seriously implement his "Four Great Systems": the implementation of standardized military ranks, salaries, awards and rules of conscription. On September 23, 1955 the State Council named Peng one of the ten marshals of the PLA, China's highest military rank. (Before 1955, Chinese soldiers were assigned "functions" instead of ranks, such as "company commander", or "division commander"). PLA leaders were promoted into Peng's newly founded system of military ranks, and were awarded newly created orders of merit. Peng himself was awarded the First Class Medal of the Order of August 1 (for his achievements in the Chinese Civil war from 1927 – 1937), the First Class Medal of the Order of Independence and Freedom (for his achievements in the Sino - Japanese War), and the First Class Medal of the Order of Liberation (for his achievements in the Chinese Civil war from 1945 – 1949). Peng introduced military insignia for the first time, and issued military uniforms modeled on those worn by Soviet soldiers. From January 1, 1956 Peng replaced conscription with voluntary service, and standardized career soldiers' salaries on eighteen grades, from private second class to marshal. In May 1956 Peng introduced a clear prioritization of rank favoring commanders over political commissars. By September 1956 Peng's doctrines of professionalism, strict training, discipline, and the mastery of modern equipment were entrenched within the structure of the PLA.

Mao Zedong opposed all of these initiatives, but first focused his dissatisfaction on other marshals, Liu Bocheng and Luo Ronghuan, who Mao accused of "dogmatism" (uncritically assimilating methods borrowed from the Soviet Union). In 1958 Mao convinced Peng of the need to maintain a balance between military professionalism and political indoctrination, and Peng cooperated in removing Liu and Luo from high positions. Peng's removal of Liu especially cost Peng the support of many other military leaders, and Mao used Liu's resulting criticism of Peng to criticize Peng before other senior Chinese leaders the next year, when Mao then sought to remove Peng.

Peng was still in command of China's armed forces when Mao ordered the shelling of Jinmen (Quemoy) and Matsu, islands off the coast of Fujian that were still held by the Kuomintang, in the late summer and autumn of 1958. Peng developed a strategy with his Chief of Staff, Su Yu, to bombard the islands so intensely that the morale of their defenders would collapse, eventually leading to the islands' surrender. After the islands' surrender, the PLA would then use the islands to launch attacks against Taiwan. The saturated shelling of the islands included over half the artillery in China, and began on August 28. The attack included a coordinated effort to cut off the islands' air and sea supply lines.

The campaign ran into unexpected difficulties, and did not achieve its objectives. The Soviet Union did not give explicit support to the operation, and the United States provided air and sea cover to Kuomintang supply ships up to within three miles of the Chinese coast. Kuomintang fighter jets shot down thirty - seven PRC fighters (while only losing three themselves), and Nationalist artillery and naval bombardments destroyed fourteen PRC ships. Peng had quietly opposed the operation since its beginning, and began to gradually end hostilities after the PLA encountered serious difficulties, announcing a series of intermittent ceasefires before eventually halting the campaign in late October. Su Yu was blamed for the disaster and replaced with another ally of Peng's, General Huang Kecheng. Peng's position was not directly affected, but his personal prestige suffered, and the practical effects of his efforts to modernize China's armed forces were called into question within the PLA.

In the autumn of 1957 Mao suggested a nationwide program of mass collectivization, in which China's farmers would be forcibly relocated to large agricultural communes and all private property would be eliminated. Mao's theories on mass collectivization became the basis of the Great Leap Forward, a national economic plan that began in 1958 which caused a man - made famine across the country that lasted for several years. By 1959, tens of millions of people had starved to death. From October – December 1958, the economic system in the countryside broke down as farmers refused to go to work in the fields, raided government granaries for food, and in Guangdong, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Sichuan and Qinghai, rebelled. In December 1958 China's leaders quietly decided to reverse the policies of the Great Leap.

Peng did not oppose Mao's collectivizations in the first phase of the Great Leap, from late 1957– early 1958, but he increasingly opposed it from spring - winter 1958, as the problems which Mao's policies had caused became more evident. In February 1958 Peng gave a speech for the fortieth anniversary of the Soviet Red Army, in which he suggested increased military cooperation between China and the Soviet Union. Mao opposed this suggestion, and began grooming Lin Biao as a viable successor to Peng for the position of Defense Minister. As part of the Great Leap Forward, Mao ordered the formation of a national militia that was controlled by Party members and independent of the PLA, eventually training and arming tens of millions of civilians.

Peng made regular inspection tours of the Chinese provinces after becoming Defense Minister in 1953. In a tour on Guangzhou in April 1958, he openly criticized Mao, saying "The Chairman talks all the time about more, faster, better and more economical results. That is annoying. What does he want with chanting these liturgies all the time?" On an inspection tour through Gansu in October 1958, Peng observed many of the problems associated with the Great Leap Forward. Mature crops were left to die in the field because all of the young men had been drafted to operate primitive backyard furnaces. When Peng asked an old peasant why no one was collecting the harvest, he received the answer: "unless the center sends down a great comrade, one cannot stand up against this storm." On the same tour Peng heard complaints that household utensils were being melted down for "steel", and that houses and orchards were cut and torn down in order to provide fuel for the backyard furnaces. In a subsequent tour through his native province of Hunan, later in 1958, Peng observed the same problems associated everywhere with the Great Leap Forward: serious food shortages; hungry children and babies; elders who expressed bitterness and anger; and arrogant, boasting Party cadres who administered local economic reforms. During his inspection tours through China in the fall of 1958, Peng composed a poem that summarized his attitude towards the Great Leap Forward:

Grain scattered on the ground, potato leaves withered;

Strong young people have left to make steel;

Only children and old women reap the crops;

How can they pass the coming year?

Allow me to raise my voice for the people!

At an enlarged Politburo meeting in Shanghai, held from March 25 – April 1, Peng openly criticized Mao in the Chairman's presence for the first time, accusing him of "taking personal command" of national politics and disregarding the collective leadership of the Chinese government and the Party. Mao responded with vague criticisms of Peng, which Peng said was "provocative". From April 24 – June 15 Peng left on a goodwill military tour through Eastern Europe. Peng met with Khrushchev on May 24, and was criticized during the Cultural Revolution for having criticized Mao's leadership to the Soviet leader, but the evidence that Peng criticized Mao to Khrushchev is very circumstantial, and Mao did not mention this during his efforts to have Peng purged. Peng's absence from China during the seven weeks that he was abroad allowed Mao to freely spread negative rumors discrediting Peng within the Party, and to develop consensus among other senior Party leaders to oppose Peng when he returned.

The Eighth Plenum of the Eighth CCP Central Committee was held in the scenic resort town of Lushan, Jiangxi, on July 2, 1959, to discuss Party members' positions on the Great Leap Forward. Mao opened the conference by encouraging Party members to "criticize and offer opinions" on the government's "mistakes and shortcomings", and he promised that he would not attack any member personally as a "rightist" or "counter - revolutionary" for any opinions expressed at the conference. Peng had returned to China just previous to the conference after spending seven weeks abroad and was not planning on attending the conference, but Mao personally phoned Peng and invited him to attend. Peng obeyed Mao and travelled to Lushan to participate in the conference.

Peng participated in group meetings in the early portion of the conference, gaining consensus among his peers for criticizing the widespread practice of inaccurately reporting agricultural statistics, and emphasizing that "everybody had a share of responsibility, including Comrade Mao Zedong". Peng bluntly criticized the hesitation of senior Party members to disagree with the Party leadership, implying that many Party leaders were cowardly for following orders that they knew were not in the best interests of the Chinese people. After gaining the consensus of several of his peers, Peng developed his opinions more systematically, but was hesitant to bring up the full range of his criticisms in public. Peng discussed his thoughts with several other senior Party leaders (notably the CCP Secretary of Hunan, Zhou Xiaozhou), and Peng's colleagues encouraged Peng to visit Mao privately in order to win Mao's support for a reversal of the policies of the Great Leap Forward. Peng visited Mao's quarters on the night of July 13, but found Mao asleep, and wrote Mao a "letter of opinion" articulating Peng's ideas instead. Peng delivered the letter to Mao on the morning of July 14, but Mao did not read the letter until July 17. Later on July 17 Mao had Peng's letter widely circulated among the other delegates at the conference. Peng did not intend his letter to be widely read and attempted to prevent its circulation, but was not successful. Most other senior leaders, including Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping, supported Peng's position before Mao began to attack it, indicating that they shared Peng's views and that they did not see Peng's letter as an attack on the Chairman.

In Peng's letter, Peng compared himself to the courageous but tactless Han dynasty general Zhang Fei. Because of Mao's popular association with Zhang's enemy, Cao Cao, Mao interpreted this as implying a confrontational relationship. Peng criticized the poor allocation of labor across China, especially the inefficient, country wide practice of forcing farmers to work in backyard furnaces. He criticized the nationwide famine and severe shortage of cotton, and stated that the Chinese people were justified in demanding change from the present conditions. Peng blamed the problems of the Great Leap on what he called "problems in our way of thinking and style of work", especially the tendency for Party administrators to submit exaggerated production reports, and for Party bureaucrats to accept these figures uncritically. Peng blamed the mistakes of the Party on a culture of "petty bourgeois fanaticism", a tendency to believe in achieving change through blindly encouraging mass movements, and claimed that the acceptance of this culture had led to the Party leadership forgetting "the mass line and the style of seeking truth from facts", which Peng believed had led to the Communist victories over the Japanese and Kuomintang. Peng criticized Mao's policy of "putting politics in command", substituting economic principles and productive work for political objectives.

Mao's decision to have Peng's letter widely circulated completely changed the direction of the conference. On July 21, Zhang Wentian gave an independent, supplementary speech attacking Mao's policies, and the same day a majority of delegates expressed their approval of Peng's letter, making it an official conference document. Mao interpreted the letter as a personal attack, and began to defend himself on July 23, attacking Peng and those who disagreed with his policies. Mao defended his commune system by claiming that "until now, not a single commune has collapsed". He attacked Peng and those who shared his political opinions as "imperialists", "bourgeoisie" and "rightists", and associated their positions with other Communist leaders who had led failed oppositions to Mao's leadership, including Li Lisan, Wang Ming, Gao Gang and Rao Shushi. Mao brought up an ultimatum, stating that, if the delegates of the conference sided with Peng, Mao would split the Communist Party, retreating into the countryside and leading the peasants to "overthrow the government". The other senior leaders of the Communist Party, including Zhou Enlai and Liu Shaoqi, were unwilling to risk splitting the Party, and sided with Mao in opposing Peng's position.

From August 2, the conference debated whether Peng should be disciplined, what punishment Peng should receive, and for what reasons. On August 16 the conference passed two resolutions. The first resolution condemned Peng as the leader of an "anti - Party clique", and called for Peng's removal from the positions of Defense Minister and Vice Chairman of the Military Commission. The resolution did not eject Peng from the Communist Party, and it allowed Peng to retain his position in the Politburo, but he was excluded from Politburo meetings for years. The second resolution recognized Mao's dominance within the Party and subtly called for an end to the policies of the Great Leap Forward. After Mao had rallied the rest of the Party against him, Peng's options were limited to stubbornly standing his ground, engaging in a humiliating self criticism, or suicide. After private discussion with other senior leaders, Peng considered the prestige of Mao and the unity of the Party and agreed to make a self criticism, which was publicly reviewed at the conference, in which he admitted that he had made "severe mistakes" associated with his "rightist viewpoint", that he had been a follower of Li Lisan and Wang Ming, and in which he openly implicated his supporters in his "mistakes". After the conference, Peng said privately to Zhou Enlai regarding his self criticism: "For the first time in my life, I have spoken out against my very heart!" Mao purged most of Peng's supporters from important offices following the conference, almost completely isolating Peng politically for the rest of his life. Peng later reflected that he was confused that Mao could have interpreted his private letter as a political attack, and wondered why, after thirty years of working together, Mao could not have discussed the matter privately with him, if Peng had indeed made the mistakes Mao claimed he did.

In September 1959 Mao replaced Peng as Defense Minister with Lin Biao, effectively ending Peng's military career. Peng was relocated to a suburb of Beijing, forfeiting his Marshal's uniform and military decorations. Lin reversed Peng's reforms, abolishing all signs and privileges of rank, purging officers considered sympathetic to the USSR, directing soldiers to work part time as industrial and agricultural laborers, and indoctrinating the armed forces in Mao Zedong Thought. Lin's system of indoctrination made it clear that the Party was clearly in command of China's armed forces, and Lin ensured that the army's political commissars enjoyed great power and status in order to see that his directives were followed. Lin implemented these reforms in order to please Mao, but privately was concerned that they would weaken the PLA (which they did). Lin used his position as Minister of Defense to flatter Mao by using the army to promote Mao's personality cult throughout China, devising and running a number of national Maoist propaganda campaigns based on the PLA. The most successful of Lin's efforts to promote Mao's personality cult was the "learn from Lei Feng" campaign, which Lin began in 1963.

After his forced retirement, Peng lived alone, under constant surveillance from the Central Guard Unit of the PLA, accompanied by a secretary and a bodyguard. His wife remained in Beijing; and, due to her work as the Party secretary of Beijing Normal University, was only able to visit infrequently. Peng's guards prevented curious local farmers from visiting Peng, until Peng threatened to complain to Mao. Peng's niece, Peng Meikui, visited frequently, and the two became close. Peng spent most of his free time renovating his home, gardening and studying Marxist theory, agriculture and economics. Peng was not completely purged: even though he could not participate in government meetings or decision making bodies, he still received and read all documents distributed to the members of the Politburo and State Council, which he was technically still a member of. In 1960 Peng attended the funeral of Lin Boqu.

In 1960 – 1961, the effects of Mao's economic policies continued to produce widespread economic collapse, improving Peng's reputation among Party leaders who secretly believed that Mao's policies were a mistake, and who desired to reverse them. Deng Xiaoping and Liu Shaoqi led Party efforts to revive the Chinese economy, and cultivated Peng's friendship as part of a wider effort to gain widespread support for their activities. In November – December 1961 Peng received permission to leave his residence for the first time since 1959 in order to conduct an inspection tour of Hunan. Peng found the conditions there even worse than in 1959; and, in a January 1962 conference of 7,000 Party leaders to determine Party economic policies, repeated most of the criticisms that he had made at Lushan. On June 16, 1962, Peng submitted a document, his "Letter of 80,000 Words", to Mao and the Politburo, in which he gave a full account of his life, admitted to several "mistakes", defended himself against most of the accusations made against him at the Lushan Conference, requested to be readmitted to decision making government bodies, and sharply criticized the economic policies of the Great Leap Forward. In his letter Peng first wrote one of his most widely quoted sayings: "I want to be a Hai Rui!" The efforts of Liu and Deng to rehabilitate Peng further were not initially successful. Peng was not allowed to attend the Tenth Plenum of the Eighth CCP Central Committee, held in September 1962, and the efforts to reverse the verdict on Peng made at the Lushan Conference failed. From 1962 – 1965, Peng continued to live in relative obscurity, though he was no longer under house arrest.

After Mao Zedong purged Peng in 1959, Mao appointed Marshal He Long to the head of an office to investigate Peng's past in order to find additional reasons to criticize Peng. He accepted the position but was sympathetic to Peng, and stalled for over a year before submitting his report. Mao's prestige weakened when it became widely known that Mao's Great Leap Forward had been a disaster, and He eventually presented a report that was positive, and which attempted to vindicate Peng.

In September 1965 Mao agreed to rehabilitate Peng by promoting him to a position managing the industrial development of Southwest China, a project known as the Third Front. Peng initially refused this position, so Mao called him personally, and convinced Peng to accept it by suggesting that the condemnation of Peng at the Lushan Conference may have been a mistake. Peng was then appointed "Deputy Commander of the Great Third Line of Construction in Southwest China" and "Third Secretary of the Control Commission of the CCP's Southwest Bureau". In practice, Peng's responsibilities were to oversee the industrial development of Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan, and Tibet, with a focus on developing military industries and logistical networks. These positions were far below what Peng's position had been before 1959, but signaled his return to national politics. Peng worked energetically until August 1966, when the beginning of the Cultural Revolution had him recalled to Chengdu and the first Red Guards began patrolling the streets, violently attacking their perceived enemies. Peng's bodyguards warned him to avoid contact with the Red Guards, but Peng disregarded their advice, saying: "a CCP member does not have to be afraid of the masses." Peng's disregard for personal danger and his confidence in the Chinese Communist Party made him one of the Cultural Revolution's first victims.

Peng was one of the first public figures singled out for persecution in 1966 by the Cultural Revolution Group. The Party Secretariat attempted to shield Peng, but Mao's wife, Jiang Qing, took a personal interest in Peng's persecution and directed Red Guards in Sichuan to find Peng in Chengdu, arrest him, and deliver him to Beijing to be persecuted. Local Red Guards in Chengdu were not enthusiastic to follow these orders: they visited Peng's house on December 22, 1966 and attempted to intimidate Peng by informing him of the recent arrests of some of his friends and comrades, and of the imminent arrests of Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping. Because of local Red Guards' lack of enthusiasm to carry out Jiang Qing's orders, a more radical Red Guard leader, Wang Dabin, arrived in Chengdu on December 24, and denounced his local comrades as "rightists" and "traitors" for delaying Peng's arrest. The Red Guards then abducted Peng in the early morning of December 25, put him in chains, and ransacked his house. Peng's bodyguards arrived to save Peng at around 4:00 AM, but were already too late.

Prime Minister Zhou Enlai made an effort to save Peng by placing him under PLA surveillance. On December 25, Zhou's office ordered the Red Guards who had abducted Peng to accompany members of the PLA from Chengdu, to deliver Peng to Beijing by train (instead of by plane, because the airports in Sichuan had been taken over by Red Guards), and then to deliver Peng to the Beijing PLA garrison. After the party arrived in Beijing, Wang Dabin successfully directed Red Guards under his command to delay the PLA unit scheduled to take possession of Peng, and succeeded in keeping Peng from being saved.

In January 1967 Peng was taken to his first "struggle session", in which he was paraded in chains before several thousand jeering Red Guards, wearing a large paper dunce cap and with a wooden board hung from his neck, on which his "crimes" were written. In the fall Peng was held at a PLA military prison outside of Beijing, and was allowed to receive extra clothing. In July Mao and Lin Biao, cooperating with Jiang Qing's faction, ordered the PLA to form an "investigation group" to determine Peng's "crimes", so that Peng could be more thoroughly humiliated in future struggle sessions. Peng's jailers attempted to force Peng to confess that he was a "great warlord", a "great ambitionist" and a "great conspirator" who had "crept into the Party and the Army". Peng refused to confess to these accusations or to "surrender to the masses", so his jailers strapped Peng to the floor of an unlit cell, and did not allow him to stand or sit up, drink water rise to go to the toilet, or move in his sleep for several days. After Peng still refused to "confess", his jailers began routinely beating him, breaking several ribs, injuring his back and damaging his internal organs, especially his lungs. Peng's violent "interrogations" lasted over ten hours a day, but his interrogators were replaced every two hours in order to keep them from developing any sympathy for Peng (a practice pioneered by Stalinist secret police in the 1930s). Peng was "interrogated" in this way over 130 times. During interrogations he shouted denials to the Red Guards who beat him, and it is reputed that he pounded the table so hard that the cell walls shook.

In late July 1967, following the failed Wuhan Uprising, Party leaders decided that Peng should be used as an example by publicly humiliating him by name at a national level. On July 31, an article appeared that was distributed nationally, and which directed the nation to take part in vilifying him. In this article, Peng was called a "capitalist", a "great ambitionist and great conspirator" who had "always opposed Chairman Mao", and who was "the representative of the greatest capitalist - roader [Liu Shaoqi] in the army". The article accused Peng of conspiring with foreign countries, allying with "imperialists, revisionists and counter - revolutionaries", and waging "a wild attack against the Party". The campaign of national vilification against Peng lasted several months, until late 1967. On August 16 another article stated that Peng "was never a Marxist", but that he had instead been a "capitalist great warlord" who had "crept into the Party and into the army... we have to struggle against him until he falls, until he breaks down, until he stinks." CCP propagandists made an effort to discredit Peng's military career by portraying it as a long string of failures, except for those battles that were supposedly directed closely by Mao Zedong, and to convince the Chinese people that Peng was a subhuman villain who should be destroyed without compassion or mercy.

In August 1967, Peng was taken to a "struggle meeting", which was held in a stadium attended by 40,000 PLA soldiers. At this meeting, Peng was led in chains to a stage, where he was forced to kneel for several hours while he listened to soldiers repeatedly denouncing him for his "crimes". At the end of the meeting, Lin Biao personally appeared to the soldiers, where he addressed the assembled soldiers and Peng, who was still kneeling. Lin gave a speech in which he denounced Peng as a villainous element who must be purged, and that it was "in the interest of the whole Party, the whole army, and the whole people of the whole country" to persecute Peng so severely. Lin then addressed Peng directly, stating: "If you reform yourself, all right, if not, it is all right too. But of course we hope you reform yourself." It is not known whether Peng eventually broke down and "confessed" at the rally.

Peng was imprisoned for the rest of his life. In 1969 the Party formed a "special investigation group" to reach a verdict in his case. Peng's jailers then forced Peng to write a full biography of his life many times, but they did not believe that he ever fully confessed his "crimes". Peng was then subjected to constant violent "interrogations" throughout most of 1970, until a special military tribune sentenced Peng to life imprisonment. The sentence was immediately approved by Lin Biao's General Chief of Staff, Huang Yongsheng.

After the 1971 Lin Biao incident, the military attempted to improve Peng's living conditions, but the years of deprivation and torture from 1967 – 1970 had seriously weakened his physical health, and from late 1972 until his death Peng was seriously ill, probably with tuberculosis, thrombosis, or both. Peng was briefly hospitalized in 1973 before being returned to prison, the first time that he had been outside of prison since 1967. Peng's niece, Peng Meikui, visited Peng in the hospital and convinced his jailers to allow an operation, but the nature and results of this operation are unknown. Peng's medical condition deteriorated further in 1974; but, because of direct orders from Mao not to treat him, he received no substantial medical aid. Peng died at 3:35 PM on November 29, 1974. His last wish was to see the sun and trees outside the windows of his hospital room (the windows were covered with newspaper), but this request was denied. Peng Meikui was allowed to view Peng's body for twenty minutes, but was then removed. Peng's body was quickly cremated, and his ashes were sent to Chengdu, identified only by a note that read: "No. 327 – Wang Chuan, from Chengdu."

The leadership of the CCP successfully concealed Peng's death for several years, and successfully convinced the only civilian witness, Peng Meikui, not to tell anyone of Peng's death. Peng's former bodyguards did not learn of Peng's death until 1976. Peng's wife, Pu Anxiu, had also been arrested by Red Guards and "sentenced" to a "labor reform camp", where she remained until 1975, when she was released to settle as a farmer in North China. She did not find out about Peng's death until she was allowed to return to Beijing, in 1978, when the news was first publicly disclosed.

Mao died in 1976; and, following a brief power struggle, Peng's former ally, Deng Xiaoping, emerged as the paramount leader of China. One of Deng's first political goals was to rehabilitate Party members who had been condemned and persecuted during the Cultural Revolution. By 1978, many people, led by General Huang Kecheng (who had been a comrade of Peng's since Peng rebelled against the Kuomintang in 1928) were agitating for Peng's posthumous rehabilitation. The Chinese government formally reversed the "erroneous" verdict of Peng during the Third Plenum of the Eleventh CCP Central Committee, held from December 18 – 22, 1978. Deng gave a speech announcing Peng's rehabilitation, stating:

"He was courageous in battle, open and straightforward, incorruptible and impeccable, and strict towards himself. He cared about the masses, and was never concerned about his own advantage. He was never afraid of difficulties, neither of carrying heavy loads. In his revolutionary work, he was dilligent, honest, and he had an utmost sense of responsibility."

Deng's speech also stated that Mao's decision in 1959, which vilified Peng as the leader of an "anti - Party clique", had been "entirely wrong", and that it had "undermined intra - Party democracy". From January 1979, the Party encouraged historians and those who had known Peng to produce many memoirs, historical stories, and articles praising and remembering Peng. In 1980 the Intermediate Court of Justice in Wuhan sentenced Wang Dabin, the Red Guard who had directed Peng's arrest in 1966, to nine years in prison for "the persecution and torture of Comrade Peng Dehuai". In 1986, an "autobiography", Memoirs of a Chinese Marshal, was compiled from various documents that Peng had written about his life. Much of the material for Memoirs was drawn from the "confessions" that Peng had written during the Cultural Revolution, and the book focused on Peng's early life, before the Second Sino - Japanese War. In 1988, China released a set of stamps to commemorate the ninetieth anniversary of Peng's birth. In modern China, Peng is considered one of the greatest military leaders of the twentieth century.