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{{Short description|1959 meetings of the Politburo and Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party}}
{{Chinese
| pic = File:庐山会议旧址.JPG
| piccap = Site of the Lushan Conference
| caption = Lu Mountain, site of the conference
| s = 庐山会议
| t = 廬山會議
| p = Lúshān Huìyì
}}
The '''Lushan Conference''' was a meeting of the top leaders of the [[Chinese Communist Party]] (CCP) held between July and August 1959. The [[Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party|CCP Politburo]] met in an "expanded session" (''Kuoda Huiyi'') between July 2 and August 1, followed by the '''8th Plenum of the [[8th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party|CCP Eighth Central Committee]]''' from August 2&ndash;16. The major topic of discussion was the [[Great Leap Forward]]. 

The Lushan Conference saw the political purge of the [[Ministry of National Defense of the People's Republic of China#Minister|Defense Minister]], Marshal [[Peng Dehuai]], whose criticism of some aspects of the [[Great Leap Forward]] was seen as an attack on the political line of CCP Chairman [[Mao Zedong]],<ref name=":22">{{Cite journal |last=Teiwes |first=Frederick C. |author-link=Frederick Teiwes |date=1986 |editor-last=Longpu |editor-first=Zheng |editor2-last=Domes |editor2-first=Jurgen |title=Peng Dehuai and Mao Zedong |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2158776 |journal=The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs |issue=16 |pages=81–98 |doi=10.2307/2158776 |issn=0156-7365|url-access=subscription }}</ref> resulting in a massive "[[Anti-Right Deviation Struggle]]" within the CCP.<ref name=":02">{{Cite web |title=An Illustrated History of the Communist Party of China |url=http://www.china.org.cn/english/features/47598.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240616205454/http://www.china.org.cn/english/features/47598.htm |archive-date=2024-06-16 |access-date=2024-12-28 |website=[[China Internet Information Center]]}}</ref><ref name=":6">{{Cite web |title=中国共产党大事记·1959年 |url=http://cpc.people.com.cn/GB/64162/64164/4416041.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240808165603/http://cpc.people.com.cn/GB/64162/64164/4416041.html |archive-date=2024-08-08 |access-date=2024-12-28 |website=[[People's Daily|People's Net]]}}</ref> The Lushan Conference also marked the first time since the founding of the [[China|People's Republic of China]] (PRC) in 1949 that disagreement over the direction of policy spilled into open conflict between party leaders. 

The conference's name is derived from the meeting place, a resort on [[Mount Lu]] in [[Jiujiang]], China.

==The conference==
The original objective of the conference was to review the events of the Great Leap Forward and solve practical issues brought forth by those events. When the Lushan Conference began, the leadership was divided on questions of how the crisis had developed and what the response going forward should be.<ref name=":32">{{Cite book |last=Hammond |first=Ken |title=China's Revolution and the Quest for a Socialist Future |publisher=1804 Books |year=2023 |isbn=9781736850084 |location=New York, NY |pages=}}</ref>{{Rp|page=50}} Mao was critical of his own role in the failures of the Great Leap Forward.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book |last=Meisner |first=Maurice J. |author-link=Maurice Meisner |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/13270932 |title=Mao's China and after : a history of the People's Republic |date=1999 |isbn=0-02-920870-X |edition=Third |location=New York |pages=231 |oclc=13270932}}</ref> He described the backyard steel campaign he had promoted as a "great catastrophe" and criticized himself for pushing communization so fast.<ref name=":2" /> In a July speech before the Lushan Conference, Mao states, "The chaos caused was on a grand level and I take responsibility for it."<ref name=":2" /> Mao also defended [[Three Red Banners|the policies]] of the Great Leap Forward in general and communes in particular.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Meisner |first=Maurice J. |author-link=Maurice Meisner |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/13270932 |title=Mao's China and after : a history of the People's Republic |date=1999 |isbn=0-02-920870-X |edition=3rd |location=New York |pages=231–232 |oclc=13270932}}</ref> 

A major specific focus of the Lushan Conference was the distortion created by false production reports.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Russo |first=Alessandro |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1156439609 |title=Cultural Revolution and revolutionary culture |date=2020 |publisher=[[Duke University Press]] |isbn=978-1-4780-1218-4 |location=Durham |pages=29 |oclc=1156439609}}</ref> During the [[Great Leap Forward]], lower bureaucratic levels were asked to fulfill unrealistic production quotas.<ref name=":0" /> Ignoring the actual conditions at even lower levels, officials frequently claimed that the production goals had been achieved.<ref name=":0" /> These behaviors were prompted by higher-level officials who overly emphasized production and addressed the peasants as "rural [[Stakhanovites]]."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Russo |first=Alessandro |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1156439609 |title=Cultural Revolution and revolutionary culture |date=2020 |publisher=[[Duke University Press]] |isbn=978-1-4780-1218-4 |location=Durham |pages=32 |oclc=1156439609}}</ref> The ensuing false statistics impeded central coordination of the economy.<ref name=":0" /> At Mount Lu, addressing these issues implicated a broader political tension over centralization and decentralization.<ref name=":0" /> As academic Alessandro Russo writes, the party's former strength of coordinating peasant political power had now created a major obstacle.<ref name=":0" />

[[Mao Zedong]] also intended to use the conference to contain the "leftist tendency" elements in the [[Great Leap Forward]].

==Peng Dehuai's complaints==
In Spring 1959, [[China|PRC]] Defense Minister [[Peng Dehuai]] led a Chinese military delegation on a visit to Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.<ref name=":2" /> Peng expressed his displeasure with the Great Leap Forward to various communist leaders, including [[Nikita Khrushchev|Nikita Khruschev.]]<ref name=":2" /> In his view, the socioeconomic policies of the period undermined the economic development necessary to modernize the army.<ref name=":2" /> On his return to China in mid-June, Peng criticized the Great Leap Forward.<ref name=":2" /> 

Peng's criticism culminated in his "Letter of Opinion."<ref name=":2" /> On July 14, Peng wrote a private letter to Mao criticizing some elements of the Great Leap Forward. In the letter, he cautiously framed his words and did not deny the "great achievement" of Mao, but meanwhile showed his disapproval for elements like the "winds of exaggeration" (i.e., over-reporting of grain production), the communal dining, and also the establishment of [[People's commune|commune]] [[militia]], which he felt would undermine the strength of the [[People's Liberation Army]].  He expressed his "confusion" towards "rather large losses" and the "epidemic of bragging" in the Great Leap Forward.<ref>{{cite book| title = Mao: the Real Story. | year = 2012 | url = https://archive.org/details/maorealstory00pant | url-access = limited | last1=Pantsov | first1=Alexander V. | last2=Levine |first2=Steven | publisher = Simon & Schuster | chapter = 30 | pages = [https://archive.org/details/maorealstory00pant/page/n492 463]–464}}</ref> Peng attributed the problems to "[[Petite bourgeoisie|petty bourgeois]] fanaticism."<ref name=":2" />

For this reason, Mao extended the conference for more than ten days.

==Downfall of Peng Dehuai==
{{multiple image
|header            = "Peng, Huang, Zhang, Zhou Right-Opportunist Anti-Party Clique"
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|image1=General Peng Dehuai.jpg
|caption1=[[Peng Dehuai]]
|width1=150
|image2=Huang Kecheng.jpg
|caption2=[[Huang Kecheng]]
|width2=147
|image3=Zhang Wentian3.jpg
|caption3=[[Zhang Wentian]]
|width3=134
|image4=Zhou Siaozhou.jpg
|caption4=[[Zhou Xiaozhou (politician)|Zhou Xiaozhou]]
|width4=141
}}
On July 23, Mao showed Peng's letter to his comrades and asked them to express their views on the issue.  Peng made no further substantive argument other than for the party to immediately withdraw from political initiatives in rural areas.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Russo |first=Alessandro |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1156439609 |title=Cultural Revolution and revolutionary culture |date=2020 |publisher=[[Duke University Press]] |isbn=978-1-4780-1218-4 |location=Durham |pages=34 |oclc=1156439609}}</ref> Peng's position found no support among other conference attendees, as it amounted to "political suicide" for the party.<ref name=":1" /> For example, [[Zhou Enlai]], normally a mediator between the left and right sides of the party, was extremely critical of Peng.<ref name=":1" /> Additionally, Peng's position would mean de facto realignment with Soviet approaches at a time when Mao had been trying to find an independent path in terms of both foreign and domestic policy approaches.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Russo |first=Alessandro |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1156439609 |title=Cultural Revolution and revolutionary culture |date=2020 |publisher=[[Duke University Press]] |isbn=978-1-4780-1218-4 |location=Durham |pages=35–36 |oclc=1156439609}}</ref>

By the time of the Plenum, which immediately followed the Lushan Conference, Peng had become politically isolated and stripped from his position as Defence Minister, replaced by Marshal [[Lin Biao]].<ref name=":3">{{Cite book |last=Meisner |first=Maurice J. |author-link=Maurice Meisner|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/13270932 |title=Mao's China and after : a history of the People's Republic |date=1999 |isbn=0-02-920870-X |edition=3rd |location=New York |pages=232 |oclc=13270932}}</ref> The Lushan Plenum adopted a resolution denouncing "the anti-Party clique headed by Peng Duhai."<ref name=":3" />

In contrast to Peng, Mao's position was that peasant enthusiasm was positive because political development required mass momentum.<ref name=":5">{{Cite book |last=Russo |first=Alessandro |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1156439609 |title=Cultural Revolution and revolutionary culture |date=2020 |publisher=[[Duke University Press]] |isbn=978-1-4780-1218-4 |location=Durham |pages=35 |oclc=1156439609}}</ref> Mao continued to believe that the experiment of giving the peasantry a political role should be continued.<ref name=":5" /> His view was that initiatives like self-organizing agricultural tasks, self-managed schools, and cooperative medical services should continue wherever possible.<ref name=":5" /> Mao nonetheless agreed that specific objectives had to be made more realistic and that the absurd bureaucratic boasting regarding production quotas had to be stopped.<ref name=":5" />  

Mao bitterly criticised Peng for being part of a group that wavered in the face of difficulties and who were "only 30 kilometres away from the rightists".<ref>Bernstein, T. (2006). Mao Zedong and the famine of 1959-1960: a study in wilfulness. ''The China Quarterly'', 186, p. 431</ref> Mao also announced in August that the conflict at the conference is a class struggle and that the conflict "is the continuation of the life-or-death struggle between the two great antagonists of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat in the process of the socialist revolution during the past decade."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Starr |first1=John Bryan |title=Conceptual Foundations of Mao Tse-Tung's Theory of Continuous Revolution |journal=[[Asian Survey]] |date=1971 |volume=11 |issue=6 |pages=621 |doi=10.2307/2642773 |jstor=2642773 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2642773 |access-date=22 October 2022 |issn=0004-4687|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Peng was subsequently dismissed and arrested. In September 1959, he was replaced by [[Lin Biao]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Meisner |first=Maurice J. |author-link=Maurice Meisner |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/13270932 |title=Mao's China and after : a history of the People's Republic |date=1999 |isbn=0-02-920870-X |edition=3rd |location=New York |pages=253 |oclc=13270932}}</ref> As indicated by Mao in a September 1959 speech, Mao believed that Peng and others had gone "behind the back of our fatherland to collude with a foreign country."<ref name=":2" />

Although the criticism of Peng Dehuai resulted in a victory for Mao Zedong, it also led the leadership to conclude that he had been treated unfairly and that the party's norms had been violated.

[[Zhou Xiaozhou (politician)|Zhou Xiaozhou]], along with [[Huang Kecheng]] and [[Zhang Wentian]], who lent their support to [[Peng Dehuai]] in questioning the wisdom of the [[Great Leap Forward]], were also branded as traitors, stripped of their positions, and sent to [[re-education through labour]]. [[Li Rui (politician)|Li Rui]], one of Mao's private secretaries, was also stripped of party membership and sent to a labor camp for refusing to denounce Peng.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2019-02-16|title=Mao's personal secretary and biggest critic Li Rui dies at 101|url=https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/2186435/mao-zedongs-personal-secretary-and-biggest-critic-li-rui-dies|access-date=2021-08-11|website=South China Morning Post|language=en}}</ref>

==Consequences of the conference==
Immediately after the Lushan Conference, Mao launched the ''[[Anti-Right Deviation Struggle]]'' at the [[Eighth Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party|Eighth Plenary Session of the Eighth CCP Central Committee]] in August 1959, aiming at purging the "right-deviationists" or "right-opportunists" within the CCP.<ref name=":02" /><ref name=":6" /><ref name=":12">{{Cite web |title=Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party since the Founding of the People’s Republic of China |url=https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/resolution-certain-questions-history-our-party-founding-peoples-republic-china |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20241225024145/https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/resolution-certain-questions-history-our-party-founding-peoples-republic-china |archive-date=2024-12-25 |access-date=2024-12-28 |website=[[Wilson Center]] |language=en}}</ref> According to Mao, the Lushan Conference disclosed the existence of a huge group of "[[rightists]]" who were vulnerable to [[Western world|Western]] influence.<ref name=":7">{{Cite journal |last=Zhang |first=Yang |date=June 1, 2023 |title=Strategic Vigilance: Mao's “Anti-Peaceful Evolution” Strategy and China's Policy toward the United States, 1959–1976 |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/6/article/900749/pdf |journal=[[Journal of Cold War Studies]] |volume=25 |issue=2 |pages=93–111}}</ref> In total, over 3 million CCP members were purged or penalized during the campaign.<ref name=":33">{{Cite web |last=Wu |first=Shihong |last2=Gao |first2=Qi |date=2017-08-09 |title=邓小平与共和国重大历史事件（17） |trans-title=Deng Xiaoping and the major historical events of the People's Republic of China (17) |url=http://cpc.people.com.cn/n1/2017/0809/c69113-29460152.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240606202826/http://cpc.people.com.cn/n1/2017/0809/c69113-29460152.html |archive-date=2024-06-06 |access-date=2024-12-28 |website=[[People's Daily|People's Net]] |publisher=Guangan Daily}}</ref>

After the Lushan Conference, Mao intensified efforts to diverge China's approach to economic development from the Soviet model.<ref name=":022">{{Cite book |last=Hirata |first=Koji |title=Making Mao's Steelworks: Industrial Manchuria and the Transnational Origins of Chinese Socialism |date=2024 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |isbn=978-1-009-38227-4 |series=Cambridge Studies in the History of the People's Republic of China series |location=New York, NY}}</ref>{{Rp|page=237}} Between December 1959 and February 1960, he read Joseph Stalin's ''[[Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR]]'' and a Soviet text on political economy and criticized the Soviet approach in discussions with scholars.<ref name=":022" />{{Rp|page=237}} 

Not long after the Lushan Conference, Mao removed himself from the day-to-day workings of the party.<ref name=":4">{{Cite book |last=Meisner |first=Maurice J. |author-link=Maurice Meisner |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/13270932 |title=Mao's China and after : a history of the People's Republic |date=1999 |isbn=0-02-920870-X |edition=3rd |location=New York |pages=253 |oclc=13270932}}</ref> Historian [[Maurice Meisner]] contends that Mao must have understood that Peng's criticisms were widely shared by the Party leadership and that Mao could not command sufficient support from the Central Committee to continue the radical policies of the Great Leap Forward, had he been so inclined.<ref name=":4" />

Mao himself summarized the Lushan Conference in the [[Seven Thousand Cadres Conference]] after the disasters of the [[Great Leap Forward]], as he self-criticized and argued the Lushan Conference should be focused on the works; however, "then up jumped Peng and said 'you fucked my mother for forty days, can I fuck your mother for twenty days?'", and the conference became a mess.<ref>{{cite book |last1=MacFarquhar |first1=Roderick |author1-link=Roderick MacFarquhar |title=The Coming of the Cataclysm, 1961-1966 |date=1997 |publisher=Royal Institute of International Affairs, Studies of the East Asian Institute |location=Oxford |isbn=978-0-231-11082-2 |page=286 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ITPAoAEACAAJ |access-date=31 October 2022 |language=en}}</ref>

==See also==
{{Portal|China}}
*[[Great Leap Forward]]
*The Second Plenum of the [[9th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party]], held in 1970. Because this conference was also held in Mount Lu, it is sometimes also referred to as the "Second Lushan Conference".
*[[Seven Thousand Cadres Conference]]

==References==
{{reflist}}
*[[Jonathan Spence|Spence, Jonathan]]. ''[[The Search for Modern China]].'' [[W.W. Norton and Company]], New York, 1990.
*Yang, Dali. "Calamity and Reform in China." Stanford University Press, 1996.
{{Mao Zedong}}{{Cultural Revolution}}
{{National meetings of the Chinese Communist Party}}
{{Authority control}}
[[Category:1959 in China]]
[[Category:Great Leap Forward]]
[[Category:History of Jiujiang]]
[[Category:Liu Shaoqi]]
[[Category:Mao Zedong]]
[[Category:1959 conferences]]
[[Category:Assemblies of the Chinese Communist Party]]
[[Category:July 1959 in Asia]]
[[Category:August 1959 in Asia]]
[[Category:1950s political conferences]]