Peng Pai was a pioneer of the Chinese agrarian movement and a leading revolutionary in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) during its early years. He was born in Haifeng, Guangdong Province, China. Peng Pai was one of the few Chinese intellectuals who were aware in the early 1920s that peasantry and land issues caused the most critical problems for Chinese society. He believed that the success of any revolution in China must depend on the peasants as its base foundation. After his death, Peng was praised by Mao Zedong as "the king of peasant movement".

The Nanchang Uprising was the first major Nationalist Party of China–Chinese Communist Party engagement of the Chinese Civil War, begun by the Chinese Communists to counter the Shanghai massacre of 1927 by the Kuomintang.