braddelong.substack.com/p/document-195…
DOCUMENT: 1959-07-14: Peng Dehuai to Mao Zedong
Without a doubt, one of the most pivotal documents of modern Chinese history...
Written half a month before the 8th Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party that was... 1/
DOCUMENT: 1959-07-14: Peng Dehuai to Mao Zedong
Without a doubt, one of the most pivotal documents of modern Chinese history...
Written half a month before the 8th Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party that was... 1/
...held at Lu Mountain in Jiangxi, this attempt by Marshall Peng to turn policy around and save some of the 50-100 million citizens of China who were then about to starve to death. Peng was purged. Later, in the Cultural Revolution, with Mao’s active blessing, the Red... 2/ 
...Guards were to torture him, and denounce him as a “capitalist great warlord": “we have to struggle against him until he falls, until he breaks down, until he stinks.”
His health broken—serious blood clots—and with Mao ruling that his conditions should not be treated... 3/
His health broken—serious blood clots—and with Mao ruling that his conditions should not be treated... 3/
...he went into a decline, dying in 1974. The story is that his last request was to be allowed to see the sun and the trees through the window, but it was declined.
My belief is that Lu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping (and perhaps Zhao Enlai?) encouraged Marshall Peng to challenge.. 4/
My belief is that Lu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping (and perhaps Zhao Enlai?) encouraged Marshall Peng to challenge.. 4/
...Mao and attempt to reverse the Great Leap Forward policies that had set China on the path to famine, but then double-crossed him—or simply lost their nerve. However, in the aftermath of the Lu Mountain Plenary Meeting, Mao was to some degree sidelined. And by 1961... 5/
...Lu Shaoqi was attributing 30% of the responsibility for the famine and 70% to mistakes—Mao’s mistakes. Mao then made a tactical retreat, ceding authority over the management of the economy to Lu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping as they tried to salvage the situation and reduce... 6/
...the scale of the disaster.
Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping appear to have thought that Mao was easing into retirement. Instead, he was preparing for the Socialist Education Movement—and then the Cultural Revolution 7/END
Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping appear to have thought that Mao was easing into retirement. Instead, he was preparing for the Socialist Education Movement—and then the Cultural Revolution 7/END
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