Peng Dehuai was a Chinese general and China's Minister of National Defense from 1954 to 1959. Peng was born into a poor peasant family, and received several years of primary education before his family's poverty forced him to suspend his education at the age of ten, and to work for several years as a manual laborer. When he was sixteen, Peng became a professional soldier. Over the next ten years Peng served in the armies of several Hunan-based warlord armies, raising himself from the rank of private second class to major. In 1926, Peng's forces joined the Kuomintang, and Peng was first introduced to communism. Peng participated in the Northern Expedition, and supported Wang Jingwei's attempt to form a left-leaning Kuomintang government based in Wuhan. After Wang was defeated, Peng briefly rejoined Chiang Kai-shek's forces before joining the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), allying himself with Mao Zedong and Zhu De.
Peng in his Marshal uniform, 1955
By his mid-thirties, Peng was one of the most senior generals in the Jiangxi Soviet (1934-1935).
Peng Dehuai commanded the largest communist offensive in the war against Japan.
A statue of Peng now stands on the Chinese border with Korea, on the place that Peng crossed into North Korea in 1950.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victorious in the Chinese Civil War against the Kuomintang. In 1949, Mao proclaimed the establishment of the People's Republic of China. Since then, the CCP has governed China and has had sole control over the People's Liberation Army (PLA). Successive leaders of the CCP have added their own theories to the party's constitution, which outlines the party's ideology, collectively referred to as socialism with Chinese characteristics. As of 2023, the CCP has more than 98 million members, making it the second largest political party by membership in the world after India's Bharatiya Janata Party.
Site of the first CCP Congress, in the former Shanghai French Concession
Chinese communists celebrate Joseph Stalin's birthday, 1949.
A temporary monument displayed in Changsha, Hunan Province, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the CCP's founding
A monument dedicated to Karl Marx (left) and Friedrich Engels (right) in Shanghai