Mao began to look askance at Peng’s re-
forms—and began to view them as a threat.
He then authorized the creation of large-scale
militias, which were highly indoctrinated, to
serve as a political counterweight to the regu-
lar establishment. Chinese military weakness
was further underscored during the confronta-
tion with well-equipped Nationalist forces on
Dachen Island in 1958, which further damaged
Peng’s reputation. Unfortunately, relations
with Chairman Mao came to a head during the
famous Party Congress at Lushan. There Peng
boldly and bluntly criticized the chairman for
embarking on his radical and ill-fated Great
Leap Forward—an attempt at mass collec-
tivization and mass industrialization—that
nearly gutted the economy. This unprece-
dented belligerence was perceived by Mao as
a direct assault upon his regime, and backed
by party radicals like Lin, the chairman
stripped Peng of his office and forced him into
political exile. Overnight, China’s most famous
general became a “nonperson.” Peng lived qui-
etly in political limbo until 1965, when he was
tapped to serve as chief of military construc-
tion in Sichuan Province. The following year
Mao sought to mute mounting criticism of his
unsuccessful economic reforms by unleashing
his radical Cultural Revolution. Peng found
himself summarily arrested and roughed up by
Red Guards and made to confess to nonexist-
ent crimes against the state. The old soldier
endured nearly a decade of physical and men-
tal abuse before dying from lack of medical at-
tention on November 29, 1974. Fortunately, in
1978, two years after Mao’s death, his reputa-
tion was formally resurrected. The unpreten-
tious, blunt-speaking Peng certainly deserved
a better fate, and his place is securely fixed in
the pantheon of Chinese military heroes.Bibliography
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