Battle for China's Past : Mao and the Cultural Revolution

CHALLENGING THE HEGEMONY I
particularly controversial about it. Except for one single reference to
bourgeois fanaticism, Peng’s letter was not even as sharply critical of the
Great Leap Forward as the conference resolution that the three of them
had been instructed to draft. After a private conversation with Mao, Tian
Jiaying was convinced that Mao was forced to agree to criticize Peng by
the argument that if nothing was done the revolutionary left might as
well be disbanded (zuopai jiu yao sanhuo le).
Zhang Hengzhi (2007) goes even further. He argues that it was Liu
Shaoqi and his lieutenants who encouraged the Great Leap radicalism
and Mao was the cautious one. But Mao was ready to shoulder the
responsibility when the mistakes became obvious since Mao he not
want to damp the revolutionary spirit of the radicals. Zhang further
argues, by quoting Liu Shaoqi, that Peng’s letter was directed at Liu.
The fight between Liu and Peng left Mao with little choice: Liu had
only recently been made Mao’s official successor, and if he sided with
Peng then the CCP would split. It was Liu who wanted to get rid of
Peng and it was Liu who said in 1961 that anyone could be rehabilitated
except Peng. It was Liu who said that Peng, like Wei Yan, 8 had a
treacherous bone (fan gu), that he had the character of Zhukov (the
Russian general whose role was crucial in Khrushchev’s coup) and the
hypocritical style of Feng Yuxiang. 9 Mao was drawn into the Peng
affair reluctantly and that was why Mao said on 24 October 1966 that
Deng Xiaoping had never come to seek advice from him since 1959,
and that he was not happy with the August 1959 Lushan Conference
because the outcome was pushed through entirely by Liu and Deng
and he was given no choice.
According to Zhong Yanlin (2006), Deng Xiaoping was at least
initially very enthusiastic in promoting the Great Leap Forward. For
instance when the leadership inside Henan Province was split on the
speed of economic development at the beginning of Great Leap
Forward, Deng Xiaoping, as the General Secretary of the CCP,
supported the radical Wu Zhipu, the party boss of Henan, by saying
that Wu was on the side of truth (Xu Ming 1998). Deng also protected
Li Jingquan, the party boss of Sichuan province (Zhang Suhua 2006),
from any punishment when the Great Leap Forward disaster was
revealed. Henan and Sichuan were two of the three provinces worst hit
by the famine. As Zhang Suhua (2006) points out, Deng headed the
office of the General Secretariat of the CCP that had carried out the
day-to-day instructions of the CCP and therefore was directly in charge
of putting the Great Leap Forward policies into practice. Therefore
what Deng believed and wanted to be done must have made great
differences. For instance on 5 September 1958, Deng’s office issued a
telephone conference decree instructing every level of party authorities
to meet the quota targets for iron and steel production. The instruction
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