Lushan Conference

Lushan Conference
Name	Lushan Conference
Date	August–November 1959
Location	Lushan, Jiangxi
Participants	Delegates of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, including Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Peng Dehuai, Liu Shaoqi, Deng Xiaoping
Outcome	Purge of Peng Dehuai; consolidation of Mao Zedong Thought

Lushan Conference The Lushan Conference was a major 1959 plenary meeting of the leadership of the Communist Party of China held at Lushan in Jiangxi Province. It assembled senior cadres from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, People's Liberation Army, and provincial delegations to discuss policy after the Great Leap Forward. The meeting became a focal point for debates involving Mao Zedong, Peng Dehuai, Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, and Deng Xiaoping and precipitated a high-profile political purge.

Background

By 1959 the People's Republic of China had experienced the Great Leap Forward campaign, collectivization initiatives, and radical rural industrialization projects promoted by Mao Zedong and the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. The campaign followed earlier policies such as the First Five-Year Plan and the mass mobilization experiences of the Chinese Civil War and the Korean War. Reports of agricultural shortfalls and industrial dislocations reached provincial capitals like Henan, Anhui, Sichuan, and Guangxi and elicited concern from senior leaders including Peng Dehuai, former commander of the Eighth Route Army and a veteran of the Long March. Internationally, the Sino-Soviet split and shifting relations with the Soviet Union and the United States framed strategic anxieties discussed at the meeting.

Proceedings

The conference convened in the context of intra-party consultations among members of the Politburo of the Communist Party of China and the Central Military Commission. Delegates engaged in policy reviews, oral reports, and the presentation of a private letter by Peng Dehuai criticizing aspects of the Great Leap Forward. Key figures such as Zhou Enlai and Liu Shaoqi mediated debates while Mao Zedong presided over discussions informed by ideological references to Marxism–Leninism and earlier revolutionary practice exemplified by the Yan'an rectification movement. Military leaders from the People's Liberation Army Navy and the People's Liberation Army Air Force were present alongside provincial secretaries from Guangdong and Hebei. The proceedings increasingly centered on the evaluation of mass campaigns, production reporting, and cadre criticism mechanisms inherited from the Yan'an era.

Peng Dehuai Affair

Peng Dehuai circulated a private memorandum—often called the "Peng Dihua letter"—to Mao Zedong expressing concerns about inflated production figures, famine risk, and the disruption of peasant agriculture by backyard furnaces and communal kitchens. The letter drew sharp responses from Mao Zedong, who viewed the critique as an attack on the Great Leap Forward and questioned Peng’s political loyalty, invoking comparisons to dissent in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union during the Khrushchev Thaw. At the conference, Peng was denounced by allies of Mao including Lin Biao supporters and Chen Yun associates; he was subjected to ideological criticism and compelled to make self-criticisms reminiscent of the Rectification Movement. The affair concluded with Peng's dismissal from the National Defense Commission and removal from key posts, followed by his marginalization and later imprisonment during the Cultural Revolution.

Political Consequences

The outcome strengthened Mao Zedong’s dominance within the Communist Party of China and led to the sidelining of more pragmatic leaders such as Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping for a time. The purge of Peng signaled an intolerance for public disagreement with the central leadership, consolidating authority through party disciplinary organs like the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. The conference influenced factional realignments involving figures such as Zhou Enlai, Chen Yun, Bo Yibo, and military leaders including Peng Dehuai’s rivals. Internationally, the event affected perceptions in capitals such as Moscow, Washington, D.C., and London, informing diplomatic calculations during the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Impact on Chinese Military Policy

The affair had direct ramifications for the People's Liberation Army: the removal of Peng Dehuai, a prominent military strategist, altered professional military discourse and civil-military relations. Military modernization debates involving the Central Military Commission, the development of nuclear policy under advisors linked to Qian Xuesen, and the balance between conventional forces and militia organization were reframed under leaders sympathetic to Mao Zedong’s mass line. The PLA’s role in political campaigns intensified, prefiguring later entanglements during the Cultural Revolution and affecting doctrine debated within institutions such as the National Defense University (China).

Legacy and Historical Assessment

Historians and analysts working in contexts including Cold War studies, Chinese Communist Party historiography, and comparative political repression assess the conference as a turning point that curtailed internal criticism and reinforced ideological conformity. Contemporary scholarship referencing archives, memoirs by participants like Zhou Enlai and archival materials from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China situates the event within trajectories linking the Great Leap Forward to the Cultural Revolution. Debates continue among researchers in modern Chinese history about responsibility for the ensuing famine, policy failures, and the costs of suppressing dissent exemplified by the Peng Dehuai Affair. The conference remains a focal case in studies of authoritarian decision-making, personnel purges, and the interaction between party leadership and military command.

Category:1959 in China Category:Chinese Communist Party Category:Political purges in China