August 7th Conference

A conference to sum up the lessons learned from the defeat of the revolution. In order to sum up the lessons learned from the failure of the revolution, correct Chen Duxiu's right-leaning opportunist mistakes, and determine the Party's struggle policy and tasks in the new period, with the help of the Communist International, the Central Committee of the CPC held an emergency meeting of the Central Committee on August 7, 1927 at 41 Sanjiao Street (now 139 Poyang Street), the former Russian Concession in Hankou. The Conference is known as the August 7th Conference.

The members of the Central Committee were: Li Weihan, Qu Qiubai, Zhang Tailei, Deng Zhongxia, Ren Bishi, Su Zhaozheng, Gu Shunzhang, Luo Yinong, Chen Qiaonian, Cai Hesen; the alternate members of the Central Committee were: Li Zhenying, Lu Chen, Mao Zedong; the members of the Central Supervisory Committee were: Yang Pao’an, Wang Hebo; the delegates of the Communist Youth League were: Li Zifen, Yang Shannan, Lu Dingyi; the delegate of the Hunan Provincial Committee was: Peng Gongda; the delegate of the Hubei Provincial Committee was: Zheng Chaolin; the delegate of the Central Military Committee was: Wang Yifei, the head of the Secretariat of the Party Central Committee was: Deng Xiaoping; the representatives of the Communist International were: Rominazi and two other Russian comrades.

The Conference thoroughly liquidated the right-leaning opportunist mistakes of Chen Duxiu in the late stage of revolution, determined the policy of implementing agrarian revolution and armed uprising, and elected the Provisional Political Bureau of the Central Committee headed by Qu Qiubai, with nine members: Su Zhaozheng, Xiang Zhongfa, Qu Qiubai, Luo Yinong, Gu Shunzhang, Wang Hebo, Li Weihan, Peng Pai, and Ren Bishi. In his speech, Mao Zedong focused on the idea that the Party must have relied on the peasants and master the barrel of the gun, stressing that the Party should have paid great attention to the military in the future. This idea is usually known by the expression of "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun".

The August 7th Conference was an important conference in the history of the Party, which firmly corrected and put an end to Chen Duxiu's right-leaning opportunist mistakes at an urgent juncture of the Chinese revolution and began the great turnaround from the defeat of the revolution to the rise of the Agrarian Revolutionary War.