P’eng Te-huai

Background

P’eng was born in a village in Hsiang-t’an hsien, Hunan, the same hsien where Mao Tse-tung was born. According to an account of his early life which P’eng gave to Edgar Snow, he came from a family of rich peasants.

Education

He began his education in his ninth year, but because of a family dispute he soon left home, and for the next few years he earned his living through a series of menial jobs. Penniless by his 16th year, he returned home, but he soon got into trouble for participating in the looting of the rice provisions of a rich merchant. For this act he was forced to flee, after which he joined the provincial army. Soon afterwards, in Snow's words, he was to become a revolutionary.” In his 18th year he became a platoon commander and was involved in an abortive plot to overthrow the Hunan governor. His involvement in still another plot against the next Hunan governor resulted in his arrest and imprisonment. He was soon released, and after visiting home again he re-enlisted in the army.

Career

Upon rejoining the army, P’eng was given a commission and sent to a military school in Hunan. After graduation he became a battalion commander in units led by Lu Ti-p'ing, who later became a prominent KMT officer. At this juncture, approximately at the same time as the May Fourth Movement of 1919, P’eng began to take an interest in the writings of the reformers Liang Ch’i-ch’ao and K’ang Yu-wei. He also read Ch’en Tu-hsiu's influential journal Hsin ch’ing-nien (New Youth) and became acquainted with Sun Yat-sen’s famous “three people’s principles,” works by Kautsky, and the Communist Manifesto. In P'eng's words, as quoted by Snow, after reading the Communist Manifesto I dropped my pessimism and began working with a new conviction that society could be changed.” As a consequence, though he himself was not yet a CCP member, he enlisted the aid of young Communists in his troops “began Marxist courses of political training, and organized soldiers’ committees.”

By the time the Northern Expedition began in mid-1926, P'eng was commanding the First Regiment of the Fifth Independent Division, one of the units in an army led by Tang Sheng-chih. T’ang had enlisted his forces in the KMT armies just before the Northern Expedition began. At this time P’eng became acquainted with Huang Kung-lueh, a graduate of the Whampoa Military Academy and, like P'eng, a native of Hsiang-t'an. In the latter part of 1926 and the year 1927, both men took part in the many campaigns conducted by T'ang Sheng-chih in central China, and during this period Huang joined the CCP. By the early part of 1928, now serving in Ho Chien’s 35th Army Huang and P’eng were posted in northern Hunan to the west of Tung-t’ing Lake. In April with Huang as his sponsor P'eng joined the CCP. At about that same time their unit was transferred to the region around P'eng-chiang and Liu-yang in northeast Hunan, the same area that had only recently witnessed some of the Communist-led Autumn Harvest Uprisings.

Of the various assaults on cities launched under the Li Li-san leadership, only the one led by P'eng met with any measure of success. At the end of July 1930 P'eng's 10,000-odd troops captured Changsha with little resistance from Hunanese provincial troops who were poorly disciplined, demoralized, and weary from their recent battles with warlord troops from Kwangsi. Exultant from this initial success, the Communists established a provisional government. This exuberance was matched by the Comintern, which proclaimed that a “new chapter” in the Chinese revolution was being unfolded. On the scene in Changsha there were considerable looting and destruction of Chinese and foreign property by P'eng's troops, many of them untutored peasants. An American diplomat who visited Changsha in mid-August reported that “almost all Government buildings and foreign missions were either burned or demolished.’’ Orthodox Communist accounts do not mention this, but one participant, Wang Chen, admitted to journalist Nym Wales that in "their enthusiasm, the peasants confiscated commodities from some of tlie reactionary shopkeepers.” Wang said this was not a “good method” and blamed it on Li Li-san's leadership.

As described in the biography of Chang Kuo- t'ao. important elements of the Long March remained in the Szechwan-Sikang border area from mid-1935 to 1936 and thus did not proceed directly to north Shansi in the fall of 1935 with Mao, P'eng, Lin Piao, and Chou En-lai. Therefore, because of the reduced size of the troop units in Shensi, Lin Piao's First Army Corps and P’eng’s Third Army Corps were merged, and because Chu Te was among those who had remained in the Szechwan-Sikang area, P'eng became the commander-in-chief. This unit was initially known as the Shensi-Kansu Column, but by the time Edgar Snow visited Shensi in mid- 1936 he identified P'eng as the commander of the First Front Army (Chu TeJs old position). This situation prevailed until Chu Te's arrival in Shensi in the latter part of 1936; P'eng continued to command the First Front Army, but Chu was his superior as commander-in-chief of the Red Army. In the meantime, in early 1936, the Red Army troops in Shensi launched an attack across the Yellow River into Shansi, the stronghold of warlord-governor Yen Hsi-shan. Orthodox Communist histories describe this as an “eastern expedition” to confront the Japanese, who were then steadily encroaching on Chinese territory in north China. In fact, this foray led by P'eng in the early months of 1936 was intended to gain recruits and military supplies for the Red Army (see under Liu Chih-tan). Reinforced by troops sent by Chiang Kai-shek, Governor Yen was able to expel the Communists, who then returned to the Shensi-Kansu border to await the arrival of Chu Te and his troops from the south.

In a major step toward the institutionalization of Communist rule in the northwest, the Northwest Military and Administrative Committee (NWMAC) was set up in late 1949. (The official appointments were made in December, but the NWMAC did not go into operation until January 1950). P'eng was appointed chairman. The NWMAC was headquartered in Sian, which was also the headquarters of the Northwest Military Region under P’eng’s command. Some reports, including a Russian biography of P’eng, assert that he was secretary of the Party's Northwest Bureau at this time, but for most if not all of this period Hsi Chung-hsun held this post. In December the Communists also established the Sinkiang Military District under the Northwest Military Region. P'eng was made Sinkiang commander and political commissar, but these were nominal posts, and Wang Chen, the senior CCP figure in Sinkiang, soon became the acting commander. P'eng was in Sinkiang briefly toward the end of the year, but in early January 1950 he went to Peking to deliver a progress report on conditions in the northwest. His report, which dealt principally with the military campaigns he had just fought, was published in the authoritative Hsin-hua yueh-pao (New China monthly). The next issue of this journal reprinted an article by P’cng on “present tasks and future work” in the northwest, and again in October 1950 it reprinted an article summarizing a year of Communist control in this area.

P’eng was the only first-rank PLA veteran who participated in the Korean War. There were, however, many important second-echelon military figures who were there during or shortly after the war. They include Ch'en Keng, Kan Szu-ch’i，Li Ta, Li Chih-min, Sung Shih-lun, Yang Te-chih, Yang Yung, Wang P'ing, Hung Hsuch-chih, Han Hsicn-ch'u, and Teng Hua. In late July 1953 the Korean Armistice Agreement was signed, whereupon Kim II Sung and P’eng issued armistice orders to the Korean People’s Army and the CPV, respectively. Two weeks later, on August 1954. He returned to a hero’s welcome in Peking, and a month later he reported on the war before the 24th meeting of the Central Peopled Government Council (September 12)—once again claiming total victory. During the following months P'eng and Kim II Sung had some exchanges of official letters with the United Nations’ Command and the chairman of the Neutral Nations Repatriation Commission regarding the repatriation of prisoners-of-war. By this time, however, the major negotiating responsibilities for the Chinese had been turned over to Huang Hua, a representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In short, P’eng’s direct involvement in Korea ended with his departure in August 1953, even though he was not formally replaced as CPV commander until September 1954 when the above-mentioned Tcng Hua assumed the post.

In January 1953, the NWMAC, which P'eng still nominally headed, was reorganized into the Northwest Administrative Committee. He was reappointed the chairman, but from his return to China until the committee was dissolved in November 1954 there is no indication that he returned to Sian to assume his position. Rather, he was regularly reported in Peking in connection with his posts in the central government (for example, the Committee to Draft the Constitution). In 1954 elections were held for deputies to the First NPC. Representation was principally by geographic areas, but there were two special categories, one for overseas Chinese and another for the PLA. P'cng, still technically the CPV commander, was elected a CPV deputy. (Four years later there were still large numbers of Chinese troops in Korea, and even though P'eng had long since relinquished his command he was returned as a CPV deputy to the Second NPC.) P'eng attended the first session of the First NPC, held in September 1954, which adopted the constitution and reorganized the central government. Under State Council Premier Chou En-lai, P'eng was appointed the third-ranking vice-premier after Ch'en Yun and Lin Piao. In the newly established National Defense Council, headed by Mao, P'cng was selected as the second-ranking vice-chairman after Chu Te. Finally and most important, P’eng was appointed minister of the newly created Ministry of National Defense.

Politics

From Changsha the defeated Red Army troops moved in a southeast direction toward Chi-an (Kian) in central Kiangsi. At the same time, in late September, the CCP convened the Third Plenum at Lu-shan in north Kiangsi to review the situation and plan future strategy. Li Li-san still had the political strength to maintain a precarious hold on the reins of power, but over the next several weeks the combined pressures from contending CCP factions and the Comintern forced his “exile” to Moscow. The intra-Party struggles continued at the Fourth Plenum, held in Shanghai in January 1931, when the Comintern-backed Russian-returned Student leadership acceded to power (see under Ch'en Shao-y'i). In a very important sense the intra-Party disputes which characterized the Third and Fourth Plenums ignored the emerging reality that the core of Communist power was rapidly gravitating to the rural areas where Mao, Chu, and P'eng (none of whom attended either plenum) were in command of military forces. Despite the failure at Changsha, the Mao-Chu-PJeng troops had the strength to capture Kian in central Kiangsi in October 1930. The city was held only a few weeks before the decision was taken to abandon it, but, according to one account, enemy documents were captured there and revealed that an (Anti-Bolshevik) Corps was operating within the Red Army. These disclosures, in turn, set the stage for the famous Fu-fien Incident of December 1930.

Exact details are lacking, but scattered reports suggest that P'eng spent most of the early war years moving back and forth from the Communist capital at Yenan to hattlefront areas in Shansi and Hopeh. Chu Te also spent considerable time near the front in the period through 1939, but afterwards he remained in Yenan and Peng assumed a more important role as the top field commander. Among the numerous wartime battles with the Japanese, P'eng is probably best known in connection with the Hundred Regiments Offensive. This series of battles took place on a five-province front in north China from August to December 1940. Some 400,000 Eighth Route Army troops were committed in a major effort to sever Japanese rail communications and to destroy enemy strong points and blockhouses. Significant damages were inflicted on the Japanese, but they in turn responded in 1941-42 with a savage counterattack known as the policy (kill all, bum all, destroy all).

P’eng was in Peking again in June 1950 to attend the second session of the First CPPCC when Liu Shao-che presented his important report on the land reform law. P’eng’s presence in Peking at that time suggests that he also attended the Party's Third Plenum (June 6-9). In midAugust he was named to succeed Cbia TJo-fu as chairman of the NWMACs Finance and Economics Committee. However, this and his several other posts in the northwest became nominal when the Chinese entered the Korean War soon afterwards.

In early November 1957 P'eng went to Moscow with Mao Tse-tung's delegation to the celebrations commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Russian Revolution. In addition to membership on Mao's official delegation, P'eng headed a sub-delegation of military leaders which arrived in Moscow a few days later. This was probably the most important group of military figures sent abroad in the post-1949 period, it included Marshal Yeh Chien-ying, Chief-of-Staff Su Yii, General Political Department director T’an Cheng, as well as the heads of the PLA Air Force, Navy, Armored Corps, Artillery, and General Rear Services (logistics). In short, P'eng was accompanied by a group capable of conducting full-dress negotiations on Sino-Soviet military affairs and strategy. P'eng and his military colleagues had arrived in Moscow in the wake of Moscow’s impressive display of its growing military power the test of an intercontinental ballistic missile and the launching of the first sputnik. Moreover, according to later Chinese assertions (which were not denied by the Russians), the Soviet Union had agreed in October to supply China with a sample atomic weapon and technical data on its manufacture. Apart from the military discussions which obviously took place, the Chinese leaders also participated in a “summit” meeting of leaders from Communist nations. P’eng’s military group then toured Soviet military installations before departing for China. En route home in late November and early December they visited Khabarovsk and Vladivostok. The visit to these cities, both of which have important military installations, was noteworthy if only because so few Chinese delegations have been there, despite their immediate proximity to Manchuria.

Membership

Exact details are lacking, but scattered reports suggest that P'eng spent most of the early war years moving back and forth from the Communist capital at Yenan to hattlefront areas in Shansi and Hopeh. Chu Te also spent considerable time near the front in the period through 1939, but afterwards he remained in Yenan and Peng assumed a more important role as the top field commander. Among the numerous wartime battles with the Japanese, P'eng is probably best known in connection with the Hundred Regiments Offensive. This series of battles took place on a five-province front in north China from August to December 1940. Some 400,000 Eighth Route Army troops were committed in a major effort to sever Japanese rail communications and to destroy enemy strong points and blockhouses. Significant damages were inflicted on the Japanese, but they in turn responded in 1941-42 with a savage counterattack known as the policy (kill all, bum all, destroy all).

Connections

Edgar Snow learned from P'eng that in 1926 he married a middle-school girl who was a member of the Communist Youth League during the revolution they became separated and P’eng had not seen her after 1928. During the Sino-Japanese War he married P’u An-hsiu, who was born about 1920 near Shanghai in Kiangsu province. P'u served in Yenan as a cultural worker during the war years. She docs not seem to have been politically active in the post-1949 years, but from 1959 to 1964 she was a deputy to the Second NPC from Kiangsu. P'u has two prominent elder sisters, P'u Hsi-hsiu and P'u Chich-hsiu. Hsi-hsiu, a newspaperwoman who worked for many years for the Wen hui pao in Shanghai and Peking, has been an alternate member of the China Democratic League since 1956. Like so many members of the non-Communist political parties, she was labeled a “rightist” during the 1957-58 “anti-rightist” campaign.

Spouse:

P’u An-hsiu