In the summer of 1959, in Lushan, Jiangxi, an enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau and the Eighth Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China were held. Compared to the relaxed atmosphere of the first half of the meetingOn July 23, the situation suddenly became tense, and the letter written by Mr. Peng to *** was publicly distributed and discussed as meeting materials, and was defined as an "opinion letter".。Mr. Peng did not know about it before it was issued, and he was very dissatisfied with Mr. Peng's opinion on the "Great Leap Forward", and Mr. Peng did not change his tone on July 23.
This day is very crucial. Mao and Peng Ben had the possibility of face-to-face communication to alleviate the problem, but in fact it did not happen. Regarding a detail of July 23, two versions of the description exist. The first statement is more common, that is, after the meeting, Mr. Peng, who was anxious, wanted to communicate with the chairman alone, and called himself a "student of the chairman", but he ignored it; Another theory is that *** called ***'s name and asked him to stay at the venue to communicate, but I don't know if Peng always didn't hear it or did it on purpose, and left the venue by himself after the meeting ended. This statement is the recollection of Captain Li Yinqiao.
Either way, the opportunity was missed. In the following days, the criticism of Mr. Peng was very strong, but the "hard-headed" boss insisted on not reviewing. ** did not require Mr. Peng to write materials, but on July 30, he still arranged for *** two marshals to persuade *** in his personal name to let him take into account the overall situation for a review and speech. The more this is the case, the more Mr. Peng refuses to give in, and rejects Ye and Nie, saying that he has nothing to review.
From a historical point of view, as the vice premier at the time, he opposed exaggeration and false reporting of indicators, and his opinions were scientific and reasonable and responsible to the people, and the boss was rehabilitated in 1978; From an organizational point of view, the "Great Leap Forward" was an experiment in the early stage of socialist construction, which involved the interests of 600 million people. Mr. Peng was criticized under certain historical conditions.
** Knowing the boss's temper very well, seeing that it doesn't make sense, he is basically ready to give up, but the *** marshal does not plan to leave. Ye Shuai has a very emotional side, because he was worried about the situation and future of ***, he couldn't help but shed tears in front of the other party:If you are still alive, you are like this, who will be able to control you in the future? Regarding this plot, Mr. Peng's diary has a clear account, saying that he was moved by ***'s true feelings. He decided to take care of the overall situation and put pen to paper to write a review.
The sentence Ye Shuai asked above sounds quite sharp at first glance, but it is not questioning Mr. Peng's "ambition". He used this way to persuade the boss that "insisting on going his own way" would cause him trouble. If a person's words and deeds are not effectively restricted, it is objectively dangerous, and this is true for the organization and itself. Although Mr. Peng has an upright personality, he has led the revolution for many years, so he can naturally hear the meaning of ***'s words, and the warning is very strong. However, Mr. Peng's review this time mainly focused on the "point" of the Great Leap Forward, and it did not pass the test at the meeting. After August 2, 59, the criticism of him was expanded, and later he wrote a number of materials to review the overall problem. The main topic of the enlarged meeting of the Central Military Commission held after returning to Beijing in mid-August was also to criticize General Peng and related personnel.