Lushan Conference in 1959

The Enlarged Meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and the Eighth Plenary Session of the Eighth Party Central Committee held in Lushan, Jiangxi Province in July and August 1959.

The main purpose of the Enlarged Meeting held from July 2 to August 1, 1959, was to further summarize the lessons learned from the work done since 1958 and correct the “Left” mistakes in the "Great Leap Forward" and the People's Commune Movement. At the beginning of the Conference, Mao Zedong raised 19 issues for discussion, such as reading, situation, tasks, comprehensive balance and mass line. He believed that one of the important lessons of the "Great Leap Forward" was the failure to strike a comprehensive balance. In order to make the cadres understand the laws of socialist economic development, Mao also advocated that they should read the Political Economics Textbook of the Soviet Union (third edition, second volume), seriously sum up the lessons learned, further unify their understanding, and mobilize the whole Party to complete the task of "Great Leap Forward" in 1959.

From July 3 to July 10, the Conference was divided into six groups by collaborative areas for discussion. In their speeches, many comrades criticized the mistakes of "communist wind", high targets, disproportionate national economy and failure to act according to objective economic laws and demanded a serious summary of the lessons learned in 1958 from the practical point of view. However, different opinions emerged on how to estimate the domestic situation. Mao hoped to unify the understanding of the central leadership on the basis of the evaluation of "great achievements, many problems, and a bright future" and make efforts to correct the “Left” mistakes.

On July 14, the Conference issued the “Agreed Records of the Lushan Conference on Various Issues (Draft)”, a document whose basic spirit was to correct the “Left”, reflecting the understanding of most participants and reflecting the efforts of the Party Central Committee to continue to correct the “Left”. But this document and its revised draft was shelved after the Conference changed its direction. The turn of the Lushan Conference was caused around a private letter from Peng Dehuai to Mao Zedong.

On July 14, Peng Dehuai wrote to Mao Zedong to state his opinion. First of all, he pointed out that the achievements of the "Great Leap Forward" in 1958 were certain, that the speed of China's economic growth was unprecedented among other countries, and that the general line of more speed and better savings was correct. However, he also highlighted the problems, especially the two problems of "pompous style" and "petty bourgeoisie fanaticism". In the panel speech, Peng Dehuai also talked about some of the points he wrote in the letter.

On July 16, Mao Zedong added the letter from Peng Dehuai to the heading "Comrade Peng Dehuai's Opinion Letter" and issued instructions to the comrades present for discussion. During the discussion, many comrades questioned or objected to the content of the letter. However, Huang Kecheng, Zhou Xiaozhou, Zhang Wentian and many other comrades expressed their agreement with the views in the letter. On the 23rd, Mao Zedong spoke at the Conference and wrongly criticized Peng Dehuai's letter, accusing the "opinion" of showing "bourgeois wavering" and being a right-leaning, anti-Party program. The Conference's direction then changed from correcting the "bourgeois wavering" to the "opportunist" anti-Party program. From then on, the direction of the Conference shifted from correcting the “Left” to opposing the right, concentrating on criticizing the so-called right-leaning of Peng Dehuai and others.

From August 2 to 16, 1959, the Eighth Plenary Session of the Party was held. Seventy-five members of the Central Committee and 74 alternate members of the Central Committee attended the Plenum. Other 14 individuals from relevant departments of the Central Committee and Party committees of provinces, cities and autonomous regions were also attended.

The Plenum focused on exposing and criticizing the so-called "right-leaning anti-Party clique of Peng, Huang, Zhang and Zhou". Mao Zedong made many speeches and wrote many criticisms and letters during the Plenum. He pointed out that there was now a splitting tendency, and that the Lushan Conference was now not a question of anti-Left but of anti-Right. He accused Peng Dehuai of subjective idealism and empiricism, of being a "bourgeois democrat" and of being a "fellow traveler" of the Party who had come with "shares". He made a wrong conclusion about the nature of the struggle at the Lushan Conference, saying that "The struggle at Lushan was a class struggle and a continuation of the life-and-death struggle between the two major antagonistic classes, the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, in the course of the socialist revolution for more than ten years now". The Plenum accused Peng Dehuai's "Opinion" of being "a program of right-leaning opportunists attacking the Party in a vain attempt to usurp power" and baselessly declared that Peng, Huang, Zhang and Zhou had formed an anti-Party group in the nature of a "military club" and were criticized together with the historical issues.

The Plenum examined the implementation of the national economic plan for 1959 and adjusted the economic indicators. It adopted four documents: the "Resolution on the Mistakes of the Anti-Party Clique Headed by Comrade Peng Dehuai", the "Resolution on Defending the Party's General Line and Struggling against Right Opportunism", the "Decision on the Removal of Comrade Huang Kecheng as the Secretary of the Central Secretariat", and the "Resolution on the Campaign for Increasing Production and Practicing Economy", finding that Peng, Huang, Zhang and Zhou had formed a "right opportunist anti-Party clique”. The four documents concluded that Peng, Huang, Zhang and Zhou had formed a "right opportunist anti-party clique" and launched a "purposeful, prepared, planned and organized" attack on the Party. The Plenum decided to transfer them from their posts in the national defense, foreign affairs and as the first secretaries of provincial committees, while retaining their former positions in the Central Committee and the Political Bureau, "to see what happens later".

The fundamental reason why the Plenum shifted from correcting the “Left” to opposing the right was that the Party had not formed a unanimous understanding of the “Left” error in the guiding ideology.