| dc.description.abstract | The Lushan Conference in 1959 was a wrap-up meeting convened by the central government of Communist China with the attempt to contain the excessive leftist tendency, which has caused various major problems across the country since the beginning of Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward campaign and People’s commune. However, this attempt was not quite successful due to Mao’s optimistic view of the situation then and persistent adherence to the Three Red Banners. During the conference, Peng Dehuai made various statements, evenly through a letter addressed to Mao, about the many problems caused by the Great Leap Forward and People’s commune. Mao, displeased by these statements, decided to retaliate and made it—to a higher level—a conflict of political views and classes. This action of Mao rendered Peng Dehuai, Huang Kecheng, Zhang Wentian, and Zhou Xiaozhou an antiparty group. At that point, the Lushan Conference, despite its original aim of containing leftist views, turned into an antirightist movement and ultimately into a tragedy.
Such a turning point in the Lushan Conference was attributable to complex reasons. On the international aspect, the Sino–Soviet split, Mao’s dissatisfaction with Nikita Khrushchev, and the international criticism of the Great Leap Forward and People’s commune led Mao to falsely assume that Peng was associated with Khrushchev. Within the country, the reasons included the conflict between Mao and Peng in opinions on the political dynamics, Mao’s suspicion toward Peng’s motives in writing the letter, historical grudges between Mao and Peng, the cult of personality of Mao, and the pro-Mao movement. After the Lushan Conference, the escalating anti-rightist-tendency conflicts and the continuing leap-forward implementation resulted in a large-scale famine later termed as the Great Chinese Famine. The growing cult of personality of Mao has also led indirectly to the Cultural Revolution, bringing catastrophes and detrimental consequences to China. | en_US |