Peng Pai
Peng Pai ( Chinese : 彭湃; Pinyin : Péng Pài) (born October 22, 1896 in Haifeng , † August 30, 1929 in Shanghai ) was a pioneer of the Chinese peasant movement , a revolutionary and one of the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party in its early days.
Among other things, he founded the Hailufeng Soviet, the first Soviet government in China . Peng Pai was one of the Chinese intellectuals who, in the early 1920s, realized that the worries and hardships of the rural population were most responsible for the problems in Chinese society. He believed that the success of any revolution in China depended on the peasantry as its base.
Childhood and youth
Pai was born to Peng Shouyin (澎 寿 殷) and Zhou Feng (周凤) in Haifeng ( Guangdong Province ). Haifeng was rich in natural resources , but a large part of the population lived in poverty. This was mainly due to the excessive tax burden and the exploitation of the peasants by government officials and large landowners. The Peng family was of Cantonese origin and had about 30 members. She owned large estates that were tilled by over 1,500 tenants. As the son and heir of this wealth, Pai's commitment to the rights of the rural population seems surprising at first sight.
His socio-political views were shaped in part by early observations of the impoverished life of his mother's family, Zhou Feng (周凤). She was sold to Peng's father as a concubine at the age of 18 . At that point, Peng Shouyin already had two sons with his first wife. Even though she belonged to the upper class due to her marriage, Zhou Feng was deprived of her status and privileges due to her origins. Peng Pai, who was automatically granted this status at birth, used every opportunity to make personal contact with the less privileged rural population. His mother gave birth to three sons: Peng Hanyuan (彭汉垣), Peng Pai and Peng Shu (彭 述). Peng Hanyuan and Peng Shu later became active members of the peasant movement initiated and led by Peng Pai. All three brothers gave their lives for this movement and are officially honored by the People's Republic of China as martyrs of the revolution.
Even during his traditional upbringing, which is typical for rich Chinese families, Peng Pai proved to be an intelligent boy with a high perception. His father died when he was only 10 years old; from then on his grandfather took over the upbringing.
In 1912, at the age of 16, Pai was married to Cai Suping (蔡 速 平). Although he was against arranged marriages, he obeyed his family's will. However, he insisted on transforming Cai Suping into a woman who was “emancipated” for the time . For example, he forbade her to tie her feet . He also taught her to read and write, and taught her his socio-political views. To the astonishment of the townspeople, the two were often seen walking hand in hand on the streets of Haifeng. As a result of these measures, the " anti-ankle-bandage movement " received increasing local support and awareness of the idea of gender equality increased.
Pai became politically active for the first time in 1916. At the time he was still a student at Lu'an Normal School. The local upper class planned to erect a statue to a corrupt and violent official in order to gain his sympathy and to make him feel positive. Haifeng residents felt humiliated by the venture, but were too scared to protest. When Peng Pai and his classmates found out about this, they organized strikes and protests to prevent the statue from being erected. These culminated in a nightly action in which the students stole the shrine with the statue and cut off its nose. As a result, those responsible were forced to give in to the protests of the students. The success of this action reinforced Peng Pai's tendency to use radical methods.
Studied in Japan (1917–1921)
In 1917, Pai decided to study in Japan , which was highly regarded by society at the time. Although his family did not support these plans and refused to give him any form of financial aid, he managed to realize his dream by contacting a young Chinese financial general. First he studied for a year at the Seijo Academy until he was accepted at Waseda University , where he studied politics and economics.
During his time in Japan, he witnessed several historical events that were to have a profound impact not only on his worldview, but also on China and Sino-Japanese relations. One could say that his years as a student laid the foundation for his political career in the Chinese Communist Party.
One of these events was the 1917 Russian Revolution and its impact on Japan and China. The revolution was welcomed by many Chinese people as it was seen as a model for the struggle against imperialism in Japan and the West. Japan, on the other hand, felt threatened by the newly formed Soviet Union and saw its territorial claims in Siberia , Manchuria and Mongolia in danger. In response, the Japanese government secretly concluded an agreement with the pro-Japanese prime minister of China for military assistance in a potential attack by Russia. This agreement met with major protests among the Chinese studying in Japan. Although the Japanese authorities tried to prevent possible demonstrations by Chinese students by prohibiting their gathering, they managed to hold a secret meeting. When this was discovered by the Japanese police, all participants were arrested. They were taken past the dormitory where Peng Pai lived. When he saw how they passed tied up, hobbling and bleeding and still exuding courage and conviction, it made a great impression on him. Influenced by what he experienced, he decided to join the student movement, in which he became an active member.
Another important event was the Japanese rice unrest (米 騒 動 kome sōdō) in 1918. After the end of the First World War , there was strong inflation in Japan . The prices for rice could be kept stable at the beginning, but then rose all the faster. The farmers could no longer benefit from the cultivation because the prices for equipment and fertilizer had risen even more. The only ones who made a profit were the big landowners. The displeasure of the rural population living in poverty towards the rich upper class increased. Although Peng Pai was impressed by Japan's material development, the rice riots made him aware that the country's wealth did not benefit all segments of the population, and in fact only a select few benefited from it. After this realization he dealt increasingly with the topic of socialism . He concluded that the only way to ensure China's survival was through socialism, and that it would take a complete social, political and economic revolution to establish it.
In 1921, Pai finished his studies and returned to his hometown. Shortly after his arrival, he published an article that revealed his newfound ideologies in Japan. It was a mixture of anarchist and socialist ideas. In the article he called, among other things, for the abolition of the law, the government and the state. He describes the law as an instrument with the help of which the ruling class oppresses the simple population and through which the state exploits the peasants. He also advocated the abolition of private property and repeatedly called for social revolution and the overthrow of the system.
Before going to Japan, he believed that reforms in the existing system would be the solution to China's problems. But the experiences and experiences during his studies turned him into a passionate revolutionary.
Education officer in Haifeng (1921–1922)
In October he was appointed as the new representative of the Haifeng District Education Office (traditional characters: 海豐縣, short characters 海丰县, pinyin: Hǎifēng Xiàn). He created new schools, improved curricula, and recruited young teachers and principals with pro-socialist ideals. He also organized a May Day parade for the district town, involving both his students and boys and girls from wealthy families.
The beginnings of the peasant movement (1922–1926)
Initial distrust
In the summer of 1922, Peng Pai was relieved of his duties as educational officer. The decisive factor was the May 1st parade he organized. He then went to the country and tried to reorganize himself there and win supporters for his cause. This turned out to be a difficult undertaking, as the peasants had never heard of the nation or communism before and the term revolution was also completely unknown to them.
Pai's first attempts were disheartening and highlighted the villagers' distrust of revolutionaries, who viewed the villagers as the aloof "elite". They slammed doors in front of Peng Pai and turned away when they saw him. They thought he was a tax and debt collector from the big landowners.
The residents were shocked when he explained to them that he wanted exactly the opposite of it: he was convinced that it was not they who owed the big landowners, but rather the big landowners, because of years of ruthless exploitation. They had never heard anything like this before. (" Not to owe anyone anything is good enough, then how can it be that someone owes ME something? "). Out of fear and distrust of this stranger, they avoided Peng Pai, as they relied on their previous experience. They believed that it was fate who was born a farmer and who was born a large landowner. And even if this stranger urged her to stand up for her freedom, it wouldn't change that. Anyone who believed it would be crazy in the eyes of the farmers.
Adjustment phase and acquisition of followers
So Pai had to do something different in order to gain the farmers' trust. From then on, Peng Pai adapted to the rural conditions. He dressed in the style of a peasant, changed his way of speaking, had himself introduced by one of the peasants and always waited until the peasants had finished their work to give a speech. However, it was less about a speech than about an entertainment show in which he could B. wanted to convince with the help of a puppet show or self-composed songs. So he managed to convey his political views to the farmers in a playful and entertaining way. To show how serious he really was with his plan, Peng Pai burned all the title deeds of his inherited lands and announced to the farmers that all the land they were currently working should belong to them from now on.
Thus the foundation stone for a farmers' organization was laid and the stream of interested parties did not seem to stop, especially since the advantages of membership of such an association could not be denied. In addition to free medical care, they also received help with everyday activities. A small clinic and a pharmacy were even built, which were so well attended that from then on you had to identify yourself in order to visit them. In addition, the peasants learned to read, write and do arithmetic so that the power imbalance compared to the big landowners and merchants could narrow. As a member of the farmers' organization, you also got personal protection if needed. After such unusual and serious efforts, Peng Pai managed to establish the first county-wide farmers' association in China, the Haifeng County Farmers Association. In a specially opened magazine, the Red Heart Weekly , he defended his position on socialism.
Pai's closest followers were those who joined not only for the many advantages of the peasant association, but also felt the same urge as he did to improve and defend the rights of the peasant class. Peng Pai saw them personally as his first comrades.
Further activities of the peasant association and the political rise of Peng Pai
The association advocated lower rents and boycotted the big landowners. In addition, the farmers' organization won court cases in which the farmers refused to accept a rent increase on the land they were working on. From now on, the farmers became more and more involved in business matters, which gave them a stronger public presence and also gave them enough self-confidence to stand up for their rights personally and no longer allow themselves to be exploited without resistance.
On New Year's Day 1923 he was finally elected President of the Peasant Association, which at that time, according to his own account, consisted of around 20,000 families, i.e. around 100,000 individual members. That made up a quarter of the entire population of the district.
When a typhoon devastated the country in July 1923 and the yields of agriculture fell by 70%, the farmers were only supposed to receive 30% of their wages. This sparked large protests; the farmers refused, demanding that they still receive their full wages.
He had divided Haifeng's society into two camps: the peasants and the big landowners, mutual opponents whose interests could not be more different.
In 1924 he joined the Kuomintang (KMT or Nationalist Party) and served there as Minister of the Department for the Rural Population after the Kuomintang's alliance with the Communist Party was formed in 1923.
The KMT was led by Sun Yat-sen at the time and pursued the policy of closer cooperation with Russia, cooperation with the communists and support for the peasant and labor movements.
The Central Committee also decided, based on Peng Pai's ideas and suggestions, to found an "Institute of the Guangzhou Peasant Movement" (Chinese: 广州 农民 运动 讲习 所), where young idealists were prepared and trained to move out to the masses of the rural population and to teach them the ideology and philosophy of the party. Peng Pai was the director of the first and fifth PMTI periods, Mao Zedong was the director of the sixth.
Outbreak of the Chinese Civil War (1927)
On April 12, 1927, the Kuomintang launched a strike against the Communist Party. That day has been referred to in communist historiography as the Shanghai massacre and the starting point for the break of the First United Front between the Kuomintang and the CCP. It has been shown, however, that after April 12, the Comintern explicitly ordered the Chinese Communists to remain in the Kuomintang. Only after the left wing of the Kuomintang turned against the methods of infiltration of the communists in the summer, on August 7, 1927, the Comintern decided to break and fight against the Kuomintang. On September 11, 1927, the Comintern initiated the Autumn Harvest Uprising , which started the Chinese Civil War .
Pai was elected a member of the CCP Central Committee during the 5th National Congress in Wuhan, and was later installed as a member of the CCP Front Committee, which was led by Zhou Enlai . This organized and led the Nanchang uprising on August 1st of that year. On August 7th, at the party's emergency meeting, Peng Pai was elected an alternate member of the CCP Political Bureau.
Pai followed the Nanchang Uprising forces back to Guangdong, where he founded the Hailufeng Soviet Worker-Peasant Government and established a territorial base after successfully organizing and leading armed uprisings in Haifeng and Lufeng in mid-November . It was the first Soviet government in China, and Peng Pai himself was its president. On behalf of Peng Pai, the Hailufeng Soviet murdered and tortured opponents of their government under the name of the "Red Guard". Jung Chang and Jon Halliday describe in their book "Mao: The Unknown Story" that during the brief period of Peng's leadership and the equally short-lived Hailufeng Soviet villages were razed to the ground and tens of thousands of people lost their lives.
In the spring of 1928, only 4 months after the introduction of the Hailufeng Soviet, it was overthrown again by troops of the KMT with overwhelming superiority. On the orders of the CCP Central Committee, Peng Pai then went from Guangdong to Shanghai . In July 1928, Peng Pai was elected a full member of the Politburo and served as Minister for Central Land Movements and served as a member of the CCP Central Military Affairs.
Capture and Death
In 1929, Peng Pai was betrayed by one of his subordinates, Bai Xin (白鑫). Peng Pai, Yang Yin, and three other CCP leaders were arrested in Shanghai on August 24th. Pai refused to admit his murder orders while in detention. Zhou Enlai , who headed the Central Special Task Units (CSTU), organized an unsuccessful attempt to rescue Peng Pai. He was executed on August 30, 1929 in Shanghai. In order to avenge the murder of Peng Pai, Zhou Enlai commissioned Chen Geng and Gu Shunzhang to kill Bai Xin on November 11th that year.
Anti-Peng-Pai Incident in the Cultural Revolution
During the Chinese Cultural Revolution , the "Anti-Peng-Pai Incident (反 彭湃 事件)" against the relatives of Peng Pai broke out in Shanwei, Guangdong . Peng Pai's mother was detained and persecuted, and his third son, Peng Hong (彭 洪), was killed and secretly buried. Peng Pai's cousin and nephew were also killed in a massacre that killed over 160 people. The head of the nephew was the power pole suspended for three days shown to the public. During the " Boluan Fanzheng " period, the victims of the massacre were rehabilitated.
However, some scholars have indicated that the incident was in retaliation by local citizens. The historical background was that Peng Pai imposed the policy of "red terror" when he led the peasant movement, which killed at least thousands of landowners and other people.
Bibliography
- Yong-Pil Pang: Peng Pai From Landlord to Revolutionary Modern China. SAGE Publications Thousand Oaks, CA July 1975. ( mcx.sagepub.com ).
- Fernando Galbiati: Peng Pai and the Hai-Lu-Feng Soviet. Stanford University Press, Stanford CA 1985, ISBN 0-8047-1219-0 . ( books.google.de ).
- Current Intelligence Staff Study: Mao Tse-Tung And Historical Materialism. April 1961. p. 8.
- Jung Chang, Jon Halliday: Mao: The Unknown Story. Random House, 2005, ISBN 0-224-07126-2 , p. 109.
- Zheng Wang: Huang Dinghui (1907–): Career Revolustionary. Women in the Chinese Enlightenment : Oral and Textual Histories. University of California Press, Berkeley, CA 1999, ISBN 0-520-21874-4 , pp. 310-314.
- Enlai Zhou: The Arrest and Murder of Comrades Peng Pai, Yang Yin, Yan Changyi and Xing Shizhen. In: Selected works of Zhou Enlai. Volume 1. Foreign Languages Press, Beijing 1981, ISBN 0-08-024551-X , pp. 35-40.
- Kai Vogelsang: History of China. Reclam, 2012, ISBN 978-3-15-010857-4 , p. 521 f.
- The Cambridge History of China. Volume 13. Republican China 1912-1949. Part 2. Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-24338-6 , p. 307.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Ulrike Eifler, pp. 90–91.
- ↑ Yutong Yang: Autumn Harvest Uprising (1927) . In: Xiaobing Li (Ed.): China at War: An Encyclopedia . ABC-Clio, 2012, ISBN 1-59884-415-6 , pp. 15th f .
- ^ A b Gucheng Li: A Glossary of Political Terms of the People's Republic of China . Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong 1995.
- ↑ a b c Li Shengping (李盛平): 习仲勋 在 广东 主持 平反 冤假错案. In: Yanhuang Chunqiu . Retrieved August 6, 2020 .
- ↑ a b c Shuozhong Huang: 习仲勋 主政 广东 二三事 ： 使 广东 成 改革 开放 先锋 ( zh ) In: Global Times .
- ↑ a b Huang Suisheng (黄穗生): 彭湃 洗冤录 ： 文革 期间 数千 人 屠杀 彭家 后人. In: Phoenix New Media (凤凰网). February 3, 2018, accessed August 6, 2020 .
- ↑ Ling Guan: 以暴易暴 彭湃 20 条 杀戮 令 延 祸 家族 ( zh ) In: Duowei News . January 12, 2016.
- ↑ Jie Yu: 彭湃 ： 从 "彭 菩萨" 到 "彭 魔王" . In: Chinese Independent PEN Center . 2019.
- ↑ Jiasheng Mao: "乡村 自治" 的 终结 与 中国 大 动乱 的 肇始 . In: Chinese Independent PEN Center . 2019.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Peng, Pai |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | 彭湃; Péng, Pài |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Chinese revolutionary and politician (CCP) |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 22, 1896 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Haifeng |
| DATE OF DEATH | August 30, 1929 |
| Place of death | Shanghai |