Re-Examining Theories on Factionalism in the Maoist Period: The Case of the Lushan Conference of 1959

The Coordination Dilemma before and during the Early Stage of the Lushan Conference (July 2–11)

According to the commonly held view, Mao gained support from provincial leaders both in implementing the GLF policies and in defeating the challenges from Peng Dehuai and other political leaders (Kung and Chen, 2011). In contrast, I find evidence of conflict between Mao and radical leftist provincial leaders, who refused to correct their mistakes and successfully frustrated Mao’s efforts to rectify the GLF policies. Mao’s rectification of the GLF policies from late 1958 onward is described by Chinese historians as “correcting leftist mistakes” 纠左. It reallocated resources from provinces to other government agencies and lowered the industrial and agricultural targets promoted by some radical provincial leaders. ¹ Throughout the entire process of designing industrial policies before the Zhengzhou Conference 郑州会议 of November 2–10, 1958, the relationship between Mao and the provincial leaders was one of mutual benefit. After the GLF began, the provincial first secretaries gained control of local steel production campaigns. Mao named them “marshals” 帅 for these campaigns and with their support successfully took control of the steel industry. Before the Beidaihe Conference 北戴河会议 of August 17–30, 1958, Mao decided to establish “economic coordination zones,” which connected the central and provincial governments. ² The leaders of the economic coordination zones played an important role in supporting Mao’s decisions regarding agricultural and industrial targets. The goal of producing 10.1 million tons of steel for the whole nation was ultimately set by Mao; however, the leaders of the economic coordination zones, such as Ke Qingshi 柯庆施, influenced Mao’s final decision (Pang and Jin, 2003).

After the Beidaihe Conference, Mao realized that the GLF policies had led to serious problems. In his speech at the Zhengzhou Conference on November 10, Mao reminded provincial leaders that the exaggerated goals for agricultural and industrial production probably could not be attained (Unknown, n.d.: 120). Some days later, addressing provincial secretaries at the Wuchang Conference 武昌会议, he restated his skepticism toward the unrealistically high steel targets. On the afternoon of November 22, a dispute broke out between Mao and radical provincial leaders, who insisted on the original steel targets. According to the memoirs of one person present at the scene, this quarrel was so heated that Mao was “agitated” even after the meeting (Wu, 1995: 107).

The divergence continued into the Shanghai Conference 上海会议, which took place from March 25 to April 1, 1959. Mao’s speeches during that conference were severe. On the first day, Mao explicitly criticized the provincial governments’ false reporting of agriculture outputs and unrealistic steel production targets (Li, 1999: 441). This was resented by Ke Qingshi, the first secretary of the CCP East China Bureau and first secretary of the Shanghai Party Committee, and by some other provincial leaders. Ke refused to admit that he had made the mistake of subjectivism (Li, 1999: 480). Mao’s suggestion that the published targets for steel (18 million tons), coal, grain, and cotton should be cut was not approved at the conference.

Mao encouraged high-ranking officials to criticize the radical GLF policies. The critics included Mao’s secretaries Hu Qiaomu 胡乔木, Li Rui 李锐, and Tian Jiaying 田家英; some provincial officials such as Zhou Xiaozhou 周小舟, Zhou Hui 周惠, and Tao Lujia 陶鲁笳; military officials such as Peng Dehuai and Tan Zhenlin 谭震林; and other high officials such as Zhang Wentian 张闻天. Following the Shanghai Conference, Mao encouraged criticism targeting radical provincial leaders as a means of urging those leaders to follow his goal of cutting industrial targets (Li, 1999: 467, 474).

In June 1959, Mao decided to hold the Lushan Conference, with the stated goal of unifying the divergent opinions of party elites and winning their cooperation to further lower the unrealistic industrial targets (Pang and Jin, 2003: 2.950). Most of the Politburo members, provincial first secretaries, ministers, high-ranking military officials, Mao’s secretaries, and other senior party officials attended the conference (Bo, 1993: 847).

In convening the conference, however, Mao faced a serious coordination dilemma. He could not allow the provincial leaders to persist in resisting the reduction of targets, nor could he lose their support for implementing the GLF policies (Wu, 1995: 89). Mao also had to face great pressure from senior officials, whom he had encouraged to criticize the radical GLF policies. However, as Mao himself confessed in his informal talks with some critics, “We need to fully acknowledge the achievements of the provincial leaders even though they have made the industrial and agricultural targets too high to attain. They are the actual persons who manage the GLF affairs in their provinces. [. . .] It is reasonable that they defend their achievements and we should fully respect such actions” (Li, 1993: 77).

Mao gave his first speech to the conference participants on July 10. In an attempt to build consensus, the speech illustrated his ambiguous attitude toward both the radicals and the critics. He emphasized that all should unify their views regarding the “gains” 得 and “losses” 失 caused by the GLF policies. Mao insisted that the losses caused by previous policies were insignificant compared to what had been gained. Therefore, the general correctness of those policies should not be denied. However, Mao also added the caveat that this referred only to the “whole situation” 全局; on certain specific issues within the broader picture, the losses might be greater than the gains. Mao encouraged leaders to correct their mistakes if their losses outweighed their gains (Li, 1993: 63; Editing Group of the Biography of Hu Qiaomu, 2015: 355), and authorized critics to put pressure on those leaders if this were the case. He stated that he would take responsibility for the mistakes he had made (Li, 1993: 64), and that the radical provincial leaders should learn from him and accept the criticisms from other conference participants (Li, 1993: 62). This speech made critics such as Li Rui and others feel that Mao was on their side (Li, 1993: 65).

In addition to the formal speech, Mao spoke privately with many people. He tried to soothe their feelings of dissatisfaction and to calm hostilities between them. He did this in order to attain a situation of compromise in which party solidarity could be re-established. On July 11, at a “gathering of the Hunan tongxianghui 湖南同乡会,” Mao engaged in an informal conversation with Zhou Xiaozhou, Zhou Hui, and Li Rui, who were not satisfied with the radical policies of the early stage of the GLF. Zhou Xiaozhou pointed out that the problem of false reporting could not be blamed solely on the commune cadres and that the main responsibility should be taken by those “above” 上面. Radical provincial leaders such as Ke Qingshi were disturbed by Zhou’s words, which seemed to refer to them (Li, 1993: 70). Furthermore, Zhou Xiaozhou complained that the provincial first secretaries had too much power and did not report Mao’s words accurately. Mao accepted both of Zhou’s comments (Li, 1993: 45–46).

However, while Mao did not reject Zhou’s implication that the main responsibility for false reporting lay with the provincial leaders, he still avoided focusing on this issue. He wanted Li Rui, Zhou Hui, and Zhou Xiaozhou to dissuade critics from emphasizing this problem. Mao also clearly expressed his intention to reduce the steel production targets (Li, 1993: 69) and warned his interlocutors not to be careless in reporting his ideas to others, especially the provincial leaders (Quan and Huang, 1997: 184–85, 198; Li, 1993: 70). According to Li Rui, Mao did not want radical provincial leaders like Ke Qingshi to know about his comments regarding previous policies (Li, 1993: 70; Quan and Huang, 1997: 184–85). Such discussions show Mao’s desire to appease the critics’ anger toward the provincial leaders. He also told his listeners that he could persuade those who persisted in the original policies to change their minds, restoring the system to unity. For this audience, he sought to emphasize his role as an informal mediator who would convince both sides to follow him.

The Unintended Consequence of Mao’s Informal Conversations with the Critics (July 12–22)

Mao’s private conversations with the critics had the unintended consequence of motivating Peng Dehuai to deliver his letter to Mao (Teiwes and Sun, 1999: 204). Scholars hold that Peng’s letter represented a challenge to Mao’s leadership position, which caused Mao to counterattack. My new narrative questions this interpretation. It demonstrates that the chief targets of Peng’s criticism were the radical provincial leaders rather than the chairman. Moreover, it shows that Mao not only supported Peng Dehuai but also used his letter as a means to shape consensus among the conference participants. Nevertheless, Mao’s effort intensified the conflict between the two sides, which in turn influenced Mao’s interpretation of the wider national situation.

On July 12, Zhou Xiaozhou told Peng Dehuai that Mao had accepted his criticism of the provincial leaders (Peng, 1981: 268; Quan and Huang, 1997: 84–85). These signals caused Peng to believe that Mao took the same line as the critics of the radical GLF policies. He decided to express his personal support for the chairman in a letter, which he delivered on the afternoon of July 14 (Li, 1993: 114; Teiwes and Sun, 1999: 211). According to the memoir of Wang Chengguang 王承光, Peng’s secretary, Peng did not see his letter as an attack on Mao. He not only foresaw that the letter would probably be distributed, but even hoped that Mao could use it to pressure the provincial leaders. As Peng said,

The chairman perhaps will have a talk with me; or he will discuss my letter with those standing Politburo members; or perhaps distribute this letter in the conference. If this letter is distributed, it will hurt some people. However, it is also fine if this letter can be distributed, because it will force the provincial leaders to criticize themselves. (Wang, 1998: 742)

In the letter, Peng evaluated the losses and gains of the GLF. He stressed that, despite the various problems, the gains of the GLF represented major achievements. The letter echoed previous statements made by Mao himself, and repeated Mao’s argument that the radical provincial leaders were responsible for the losses caused by their policy mistakes. As he stated, “The wind of exaggeration bred and spread rather universally. [. . .] The wind of exaggeration and boasting spread to every region and department, and some unbelievable miracles were also reported in the press. This surely has done tremendous harm to the prestige of the party” (Peng, 1968: 11). At the Shanghai Conference, Mao had warned that some radical provincial leaders had forced the local cadres to make false reports (Unknown, n.d.: 188), while in his discussion with Zhou Xiaozhou, Mao had admitted that some mistakes made by communes and counties had originated with the provincial leaders. Peng got this information from Zhou Xiaozhou and in his letter he followed Mao’s lead. He also elaborated Mao’s criticism that the provincial leaders still refused to admit their mistakes. “Even up to the meeting of provincial secretaries, we had still not been able to find out the realities of the overall situation,” Peng would later recall (Peng, 1968: 11).

There is evidence to show that on first reading the letter, Mao did not believe it was intended as criticism. Mao’s first reaction was to say that Peng always showed him the faults of his policies with good intentions. Mao praised Peng for daring to tell the truth, but worried that his words would offend some people (Quan and Huang, 1997: 210). This account is based on the memory of Mao’s bodyguard, Li Yinqiao 李银桥. However, Mao’s tone was to change dramatically, and on July 23 he delivered a harsh attack on Peng. This change made a lasting impression on Li Yinqiao, such that he remembered Mao’s words very clearly and spoke many times to interviewers about his feelings of confusion (Quan and Huang, 1997: 210).

Similarly, my research has found evidence that Mao’s distribution of Peng’s letter on July 16 was not intended to initiate a personal attack on Peng. Rather, it served Mao’s general effort to narrow the gap between the radicals and the critics. First of all, it was Mao himself who chose the title “Comrade Peng Dehuai’s letter of opinion” for the copies that were distributed. Mao noted that, “This letter is distributed for every comrade to take into account 参考.” The term cankao 参考 implied that all comrades should take Peng’s opinion seriously. Second, on July 16 Mao decided to postpone the conference. He also asked Liu Shaoqi and Zhou Enlai to rearrange the sections into which the conference participants were organized to discuss the themes related to the conference. Mao made this decision because Li Rui had told him that, as the leaders of those sections, the radical provincial leaders had strenuously suppressed any criticism of their policies. Li suggested rearranging the sections so that those leaders could not exert such influence, and Mao immediately agreed (Li, 1993: 74, 76). Soon afterward, Liu Shaoqi and Zhou Enlai talked to the leaders of the economic coordination zones and required them to allow people to fully criticize their mistakes (Li, 1993: 73). Third, according to Li Rui’s observation, during private talks on July 17 Mao had no intention of initiating a public criticism of Peng (Li, 1993: 79). Such evidence indicates that he was not predisposed to lash out against Peng.

Mao’s desire to shape a consensus between the radicals and the critics is further illustrated by his personal communication with both sides after the distribution of Peng’s letter. Mao continued his efforts to persuade the critics to fully understand the importance of the provincial leaders. On July 17, Mao talked informally to some critics and emphasized that it was very important to acknowledge the achievements of the provinces, rather than focusing on their shortcomings. It was the provincial leaders who took charge of implementing the policies, and they wanted to defend their achievements (Li, 1993: 76; Quan and Huang, 1997: 206). Mao also had several talks with radical provincial leaders directly. On the evening of July 16, in a formal meeting with the radicals, Mao claimed that the major goal of the current industrial policy was to change those leaders’ radical behavior. He urged the radical officials to be reconciled with the critics (Li, 1993: 75) and asked the leaders of the economic coordination zones to read Lu Xun’s 鲁迅 The True Story of Ah-Q 阿Q正传 in order to learn how to absorb criticisms (Quan and Huang, 1997: 232–34; Li, 1993: 81).

However, following Mao’s distribution of Peng’s letter, the disagreement between the conference participants became even more serious. Both sides shifted focus from concrete industrial and agricultural targets to the issue of accountability. In the absence of any common ground for judging mistakes, they saw no hope of compromise. Critics such as Mao’s secretaries Li Rui and Hu Qiaomu repeatedly used Peng as an ally. They developed Peng’s claims that the radicals dared to cheat the center, refused to admit mistakes, and repressed critical views because of their interest in personal promotion (Li, 1993: 118).

On the other side, the radical provincial leaders were successful in placing the interpretative focus on Peng’s views regarding the losses and achievements of the GLF. On July 19, Zeng Xisheng 曾希圣, the party secretary of Anhui province, insisted that the backyard steel furnace campaign was effective and did not waste money (Li, 1993: 126). During informal talks with Mao, Zeng even connected Peng’s opinion to a conspiracy involving Russian leaders (Li, 1993: 126; Peng, 1968: 744). Zhang Zhongliang 张仲良, the leader of the Northwest Bureau, also focused on Peng’s references to the losses and gains from the GLF, and emphasized that the achievements of the backyard furnace campaign outweighed its losses (Li, 1993: 124). Before July 23, Ke Qingshi privately criticized Peng for putting losses before gains (Li, 1993: 124). Influenced by those comments, even some provincial leaders who had accepted criticisms and were not involved in the debate between the two sides began to agree with the radicals’ interpretation. For example, Tao Zhu 陶铸 changed his mind and strongly emphasized that the achievements of the GLF far outweighed the losses (Li, 1993: 127). Wang Renzhong 王任重 also insisted that Peng’s opinion on losses and gains was to be criticized (Li, 1993: 129).

The Emergence of Mao’s New Understanding of the Situation (July 23–August 2)

On July 23, Mao responded to the increasing controversy by making an emotional speech. According to previous scholarship, this speech was meant to “rally his supporters and frighten Peng Dehuai’s sympathizers” (MacFarquhar, 1983: 218). However, my research reveals that Mao’s personal experiences around this time led him to form a new interpretation of the national situation. In line with this new interpretation, Mao went beyond the goal of promoting policy consensus among the conference participants and suggested a new means of unifying the whole party to deal with the challenge that he perceived as coming from two sources: class enemies and evil factions within the party.

In his July 23 speech, Mao emphasized that temporary policy setbacks gave bourgeois rightists opportunities to criticize policy faults and frustrate the enthusiasm of the masses that had been generated during the GLF campaign. In doing so, their aim was to overturn communist rule. This problem demanded the exercise of great caution; the damage had spread even as far as certain inner party members, whom Mao called the “irresolute people” 动摇分子 or the “middle-of-the-roaders” 中间派 (Li, 1993: 146). According to Mao, such people were clearly influenced by bourgeois elements, as could be seen in their irresolute attitude toward the GLF movement. As an example of such irresolution, Mao pointed to Peng’s placing of the GLF’s losses before its gains. He warned that these middle-of-the-roaders needed to correct their mental “direction” 方向 in order to avoid being manipulated by hostile bourgeois elements into damaging the communist state (Li, 1993: 152).

On the other hand, Mao also pointed out the existence of radical leftists—or “leftists in quotation marks” 带引号的左派 in Mao’s words, implying their difference from the true followers of Marxism—who had also damaged the GLF movement through their resistance to valuable criticism (Li, 1993: 152). He listed policy mistakes the radicals had made because of their rejection of such criticism (Li, 1993: 153, 155) and stated that they should “bite the bullet” 硬着头皮 by bearing the critical views and returning to the correct way of governing. In doing so, they would gain the secure backing of the party (Li, 1993: 146), regain the support of the masses, and ensure that the party could successfully resist the bourgeois challenge (Li, 1993: 146–48).

In this speech Mao sent a clear signal that all categories should immediately act to achieve unity so that the party could overcome the bourgeois challenge. He did not attach the “category” labels to any specific individuals, nor did he actualize the imagined categories into concrete factions. Rather, he simply used certain expressions from Peng Dehuai’s letter to show that “some comrades” 有的同志 did not adhere to the correct view of the GLF (Li, 1993: 150). He asked Ke Qingshi whether he should take any responsibility for high steel production targets, but did not label Ke as a radical leftist (Li, 1993: 158). Mao also told his audience that his interpretation of the situation might change according to new evidence (Li, 1993: 152). He ended the speech by asking the conference participants to analyze their own problems and responsibilities according to his categorization system (Li, 1993: 195). He thus presented the opportunity for both critics and radicals to conduct self-correction based on their understanding of the categories to which they belonged.

This way of framing the situation was built upon class-struggle theory. It assumed that the party faced constant danger of collapse because, although the capitalists had lost their economic base, bourgeois elements were able to mislead irresolute middle-of-the-roader party officials and cause them to deviate from the correct way of thinking and behaving (Central Archives of the CCP and CCCCP Document Research Office, 2013: 3.280). Meanwhile, Mao’s description of the radical leftists was based on the epistemological theory regarding the ceaseless “contradiction” 矛盾 between the boundless objective universe and people’s limited perception. As Mao described the situation in this speech, such a contradiction caused leftists to show partiality, even though they claimed to support the GLF movement. Their resistance to advice would lead them to deviate from the truth of the objective world, which was represented by the voices of the masses (CCCCP Document Research Office, 1987: 7.115; Li 1999: 471).

During Mao’s interaction with the radicals and critics, both sides prompted his memories of certain established theoretical interpretations of party history. By applying these to the existing situation, Mao was able to establish a new interpretation of the current problems. For example, when Mao originally read Peng’s letter, he did not see the placing of “losses” before “gains” as inappropriate, because it resonated with his own criticism of radical policies. However, the radical provincial leaders reminded Mao that Peng had made serious challenges to Mao’s leadership authority on several occasions during the party’s history. This planted the suggestion that in placing “losses” before “gains” Peng had intended to challenge the entire GLF plan. Such reminders and suggestions echoed the detailed reports that Mao had received on the rightists’ harsh criticism of the GLF, as those rightists had also claimed that the GLF’s losses far outweighed its gains (Li, 1993: 54, 146). Mao therefore became convinced and began to use these facts as evidence to show the influence of class enemies on irresolute party officials (Li, 1993: 146, 151).

Mao was also influenced by the critics. In their personal talks with Mao, Li Rui, Zhou Xiaozhou, and Zhou Hui complained about the great pressure from the radicals’ side in the section meetings, aimed at preventing criticism of their mistakes (Li, 1993: 66–67). For Mao, this complaint evoked memories of the Shanghai Conference of April 1959, when he had interpreted the radical leftists’ refusal to admit their mistakes as proof of his theory that such rejection was the major obstacle preventing industrial policymaking from adapting to the real economic environment (Li, 1999: 457–71). Mao took the situation at the Lushan Conference as a recurrence of what had happened at Shanghai. In his speech of July 23, he repeated the statements he had made at the Shanghai Conference articulating the relationship between the radicals’ policy faults and their resistance to critical views, and encouraged people to criticize them without fearing “execution” or “imprisonment” (Li, 1993: 155). Moreover, he again emphasized the necessity of criticizing the leftists. As he said in both meetings, “[We shall] dare not to be executed or imprisoned [when criticizing them]” (Li, 1999: 463; Li, 1993: 154).

During the three days after the July 23 speech, the reactions of both sides were such that Mao turned to the line-struggle theory to develop his understanding of the situation. Immediately after hearing the speech, radicals such as Ke Qingshi and Li Jingquan 李井泉 expressed their willingness to fulfil their roles according to Mao’s demand. Li Jingquan actively conducted self-criticism over his previous emotional resistance to criticism. He also admitted that the agricultural and industrial targets he had set were inappropriate and that he had made the mistake of false reporting (Li, 1993: 167). Ke Qingshi also conducted self-criticism, declaring that his previous attitude had been wrong and admitting that he had made mistakes during the process of setting overly high steel production targets (Li, 1993: 168). Radical policymakers finally agreed to reduce agricultural and steel production targets as required by Mao.

Moreover, radicals continued to direct Mao’s attention to Peng’s political ambition (Li, 1993: 192). Ke Qingshi stressed that party history showed that any challenge to the party’s correct line would inevitably result in a challenge to Mao’s leadership. Ke further stated that such challengers would never commit to self-correction because their minds were fully occupied by their personal ambitions for power (Li, 1993: 168).

In contrast to the radicals’ strategic response, Peng Dehuai and Zhang Wentian did not identify with the categorical features Mao had proposed for them. They remained reluctant to admit that they had been influenced by bourgeois elements and insisted that they were following the correct ideological line (Li, 1993: 174, 178). Other party leaders, such as Zhou Enlai and Zhu De, two of the most prestigious figures in the party, also supported Peng’s self-defense that his criticisms of policy were motivated by good intentions (Li, 1993: 163, 178). Most of the conference participants were sympathetic toward Peng and were reluctant to recognize the connection between Mao’s categorization and concrete individuals (Li, 1993: 162).

Mao noted this problem and was reminded of previous ideological controversies in the party’s history. Zhu De’s support of Peng made Mao think of Zhu’s hesitation to support Mao’s ideological line at certain critical moments in the past. He also recalled his previous conflict with Zhang Wentian, the former party leader who had held different opinions from Mao during the CCP’s revolutionary period before 1949. In a private talk with Lin Ke 林克, his English teacher, Mao called Zhu and Zhang the “old rightists” 老右派. By this he meant that they had long been on an ideological path that conflicted with Mao’s own line (Li, 1993: 192) and might easily return to their original rightist position because of Peng’s influence.

Moreover, Mao heard from Tian Jiaying that immediately after the July 23 speech Peng Dehuai had met with Huang Kecheng 黄克诚, Li Rui, Zhou Xiaozhou, and Zhou Hui. Tian Jiaying had been present at that meeting and reported that the other participants had expressed improper criticisms of Mao’s speech (Li, 1993: 183; Quan and Huang, 1998: 289, 319). This information led Mao to suspect the existence of a personal conspiracy. During late July to early August, Mao also received several reports of criticism of the GLF policies made by local party officials in Jiangxi, Hunan, and Anhui provinces (Li, 1993: 256–57). Mao’s comments regarding those events show that he considered them to parallel the criticism at Lushan. He discovered that, despite the absence of unified organization, all of the critics from both central and local levels shared similar views regarding the GLF policies, and had formed alliances based on their common purpose to challenge the party’s rule (CCCCP Document Research Office, 1987: 8.410–11, 8.422–23, 8.431).

All such hints reminded Mao of the line-struggle theory, drawn from the party’s history and philosophical foundations. ³ This theory, one of the major doctrines held by the CCP during the Maoist period, stressed that the party would always face the risk of being damaged by inimical political factions. According to this view, faction members illegally colluded based on a commonly held “line” 路线, which could refer to their worldviews, policy demands, or personal pursuit of power, with the aim of overturning the party’s leadership. The line-struggle theory also pointed out the endless struggle with the holders of the wrong lines, aimed not at defeating those factions but at restoring party solidarity 团结 by making them and all irresolute people return to the correct ideological position (Walder, 2017: 167; Dittmer, 1977: 675–85; Schurmann, 1966: 32–33, 54; Bo, 1993: 879).

Mao colligated his encountered events into a new framework to describe the ongoing situation based on both the class-struggle and line-struggle theories. He ceased criticism of the radical leftists but clarified that the existence of factions following the “right-deviationist” 右倾 line at all levels of the party organization was the major threat to the party. Those factions reflected the views, interests, and goals of the bourgeois class and organized their attacks on the party based on personal ties (Li, 1993: 202; CCCCP Document Research Office, 1987: 8.431). They had begun their frantic assault on the party leadership at their respective levels of the CCP government (CCCCP Document Research Office, 1987: 8.405, 8.431). Mao further stated that the actions of Peng Dehuai and his co-conspirators should be viewed as one part of the overall situation, representing an assault by the right-deviationist faction at the Central Committee level, and echoing the criticisms made by factions at the local level (Li, 1993: 164, 183–84; CCCCP Document Research Office, 1987: 8.405, 8.431; Bo, 1993: 610, 616–19, 879).

Mao further defined those who were sympathetic toward Peng as part of the irresolute “middle-of-the-roaders” and ordered them to end their vacillation between correct and incorrect opinions. He warned that they must recognize the ongoing situation as a conspiracy by bourgeois and right-deviationist factions to destroy the party, rather than as due to real faults of GLF policy implementation. He stressed that “we do not worry about the frantic assault by the rightists, but we do worry about these middle-of-the-roader comrades’ irresolution” (CCCCP Document Research Office, 1987: 8.379–80).

According to Mao’s new view of the situation, coordination no longer meant shaping policy consensus among conference participants; rather, it meant restoring the solidarity of the whole party in resisting the class enemy. This goal was to be achieved through an education process that included harsh criticism of factional members in order to make them realize and correct their mistakes (CCCCP Document Research Office, 1987: 8.380). In pursuit of this goal, Mao led the conference into a new stage.

The Search for Evidence and Consensus Building (August 2–16)

Current research on the Lushan Conference cannot explain how all the conference participants, including the accused members of the Peng Dehuai faction, accepted the roles assigned to them by Mao, even when that acceptance might have damaged their political career. My study shows the process by which a performative consensus was attained.

As Mao saw it, in order to establish party solidarity, Central Committee members would first have to reach consensus on his interpretation of the situation; then, based on that consensus, they would figure out the correct path of action. In his view, such a consensus would be achieved through the members’ collective search for evidence during the formal procedure of the conference. The evidence would need to be strong enough to convince all participants, including those accused of being faction members, of the correctness of Mao’s understanding of the situation (Li, 1993: 212). Mao therefore pushed the Lushan Conference into an official stage of searching for evidence. He enlarged the conference from the Politburo to the whole of the Central Committee, thereby officially setting in motion the party’s organizational resolution on Peng Dehuai’s faction, since, according to the party’s rules, this could only be approved by the Central Committee. On August 2, the day on which the Eighth Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee started in Lushan, Mao published a letter addressed to Zhang Wentian but shown to all conference participants. In this letter, he used the term “military club” 军事俱乐部 to describe Peng Dehuai and Zhang Wentian’s faction (CCCCP Document Research Office, 1987: 8.399). Five persons were accused of being members of that military club: Peng Dehuai, Huang Kecheng, Zhang Wentian, Zhou Xiaozhou, and Li Rui. They were accused of having intentionally challenged Mao’s leadership.

At first, the five rejected Mao’s accusation. All of them denied that they had intentionally colluded to oppose Mao’s leadership. They admitted only that they had a normal friendship, although they shared some critical views on the GLF policies (Li, 1993: 284–86, 290).

From August 3 to August 10, other conference participants, fearful of being labeled as irresolute people, joined in the collective accusation and the search for evidence to support Mao’s interpretation of the situation (Li, 1993: 284). The evidence was constructed based on the intentional misinterpretation of the accused persons’ previous words and actions. Such interpretation targeted these individuals’ personal characteristics. Labels indicating strong negative moral judgment, such as “careerists,” “ghosts,” and “hypocrites,” were used by critics to describe the “evil” personalities involved in organizing factions (Li, 1993: 269, 271). This intense harassment inflicted great mental pressure on the accused (Li, 1993: 280). In arguing against this offensive misinterpretation, the accused clarified the actual thoughts behind their words and actions. However, this method of defense served only to provide more interpretative space, which interrogators elaborated on to reinforce the original accusation (Li, 1993: 280–82, 296–98, 304–5, 307–8, 311–13; Quan and Huang, 1993: 308–9). Seeing no hope of changing such self-reinforcing meaning-making dynamics, the defendants became angry, frustrated, and aggrieved. As Zhang Wentian complained in frustration after undergoing questioning on August 9, “people chased after the so-called anti-party secret plan. They interpreted every word and action that we did in the conference as the illustration of secret collusion and planning. [. . .] They had no evidence but only anxiously forced us to admit that ‘we have intentionally organized and planned [to oppose the party]’” (Li, 1993: 282).

In this febrile atmosphere, and under intense questioning from members of the panel, Zhang Wentian eventually chose to accuse Peng Dehuai in order to reduce his own burden. Among the revelations made by Zhang, one key fact shocked the listeners (Li, 1993: 319). On August 9, Zhang Wentian said that Peng Dehuai had once posed the following questions: “Is it really necessary to create so many strategies to fight against those comrades who hold different opinions on the overly radical GLF policies?” and “Hasn’t the chairman paid attention only to his personal authority rather than the collective leadership?” According to Zhang, Peng Dehuai further suggested that Mao “should be cautious about the mistakes that Stalin made in his later years” (Li, 1993: 319). Peng’s comparison of Mao with the later years of Stalin was just one component of Zhang’s overall narrative, which described Peng’s expression of personal confusion regarding Mao’s arbitrary exercise of power. On disclosing this, Zhang’s interlocutors “immediately showed their astonishment” (Li, 1993: 319). They found that it was easy to connect Peng’s comments with Khrushchev’s harsh attack in 1956 on the mistakes of Stalin’s later years. Stripping Peng’s words of their original context, they interpreted them as expressing opposition to Mao.

Such misinterpretation put pressure on the other defendants. Li Rui, Huang Kecheng, and Zhou Xiaozhou all admitted that they had expressed agreement with Peng Dehuai’s comparison of Mao with Stalin’s later years. Although they continued to claim their sincere loyalty to the chairman, their confession provided support for Mao’s suspicion of collusion between military leaders and civil officials, which he expressed in his July 23 speech. Other participants therefore ignored the claims of loyalty and instead stressed the intention of the accused to overthrow the chairman as leader (Li, 1993: 320–21).

Eventually, the defendants decided to give up their defense and to sacrifice themselves as evidence that Mao’s interpretation was correct. Peng Dehuai stated in his confession that his factional alliance and his criticism of the GLF could all be taken as an attack by the right-deviationist faction on the party and Mao’s leadership. As he admitted some years later, he accepted all the accusations without discrimination because he considered it important to demonstrate the chairman’s correctness and thus restore the party’s solidarity under Mao’s leadership (Li, 1993: 193, 261; Bo, 1993: 865). A similar rationale guided other members of the purported faction to undertake self-criticism in front of the entire conference (Li, 1993: 346–53).

Mao openly welcomed their self-criticism. On August 18, he delivered Zhang Wentian’s letter of self-criticism to all Central Committee members and praised Zhang’s attitude. He also stated his confidence that the party would re-establish solidarity (CCCCP Document Research Office, 1987: 8.453, 8.461).

Indeed, party solidarity was restored among high officials, as demonstrated in their performative speeches and self-criticisms. As for the accused faction members, they were expelled from the policymaking circle following the conference (Editing Group of the Biography of Hu Qiaomu, 2015: 364). This, however, marked only the beginning of a much larger campaign. In the official resolution issued to the whole country, the Central Committee followed Mao’s statement on the national situation. It claimed that the party had been damaged by right-deviationist factions and would have to restore its solidarity under Mao’s leadership to resist the influence of the class enemy (Central Archives of the CCP and CCCCP Document Research Office, 2013: 32.37). After the Lushan Conference, and until 1962, the anti-right deviationist movement extended throughout the whole party system (Li, 1993: 363–64). During this period, more than three million party cadres were labeled as members of right-deviationist factions (Walder, 2017: 168).

Two Dimensions of Mao’s Agentic Dynamics

The first part of my historical narrative (July 2–August 1) shows how Mao formulated his new framing of the overall situation, in which Peng Dehuai’s actions received new meaning. My study reveals the dimensions of Mao’s agency beyond what previous scholars have identified as the “pragmatic” strategies he used to compete with concrete competitors (Heilmann and Perry, 2011: 8, 12–13). Although the term “pragmatic” can identify some features of Mao’s policymaking style, it nevertheless “los[es] sight of the ways in which agency actually shapes social actions” (Emirbayer and Mische, 1998: 962–63). By taking Mao’s “agency” to be the result of internally complex dynamics, my study reveals the agentic dynamics of his policymaking, an aspect previously concealed by the effort to attribute Mao’s actions to his “pragmatic strategies.” Such agentic dynamics entails Mao’s integration of discretely perceived phenomena with a coherent ideological logic in order to frame an interpretation of factional struggle situations beyond the perceived involvement of concrete individuals, events, and institutions. My study shows both the “integrative” and the “heuristic” dimensions of this agentic dynamics.

Mao employed ideological frameworks to interpret the potential relevance of separately occurring events, connecting his various observations to create a new general description of the overall “situation” 形势. He then reinterpreted those observations as instances which illustrated how the imagined overall situation had unfolded (Timmermans and Tavory, 2012: 171–73). For instance, Mao built a connection between the critics’ views on industrial policy expressed at Lushan and the views presented by local party officials in other policy fields; he even found similarities between the criticisms of the GLF policies and Khrushchev’s criticism of Stalin in Soviet Russia. Mao disregarded the boundaries between different policy areas, between policies and other political events, and between local and central policies. By searching for the similarities among different views, events, and organizations, he progressively attained a certain awareness of their connections within his pre-existing ideological understanding of political dynamics. He selectively wove those ideological insights into a holistic imaginary of the situation through mechanisms of interpretation, performance, interaction, and colligation. His interpretation of the situation theorized a common orientation across events, policies, and organizations, and enabled the colligation of those concrete experiences into a dynamic of political interaction.

Moreover, the heuristic manner in which Mao created his imaginary of the situation is illustrated by his continual refocusing of alternative ideological logics (Timmermans and Tavory, 2012: 171). Situations, in Mao’s view, were ever-changing and subject to re-evaluation and reconstruction through his reflective intelligence (Emirbayer and Mische, 1998: 967). In facing new and unexpected events he needed to constantly move back and forth between the phenomena themselves and ideological theories so that he could select the most appropriate ideological logics against a background of multiple existing theories. Within those new interpretative frames, Mao’s previous experiences gained new meanings (Timmermans and Tavory, 2012: 173, 176).

For example, my paper shows how this heuristic dynamic led to the change in Mao’s interpretation of Peng’s placing of the word “losses” before “gains” when evaluating the GLF policies. At first, Mao did not take Peng’s expression as inappropriate, because it resonated with his own criticism of radical policies. Later, however, his new observations of reality led him to use class-struggle theory to understand the situation. He therefore reinterpreted Peng Dehuai’s expression as a reflection of the bourgeois influence over irresolute party members. This shift was evident in his July 23 speech (Li, 1993: 151). From July 23 to 26, Mao continued to perceive new phenomena, which shifted his attention to line-struggle theory and led to his new interpretation regarding the emergence of a right-deviationist faction in the party. In the light of that interpretation, Peng’s previous expressions gained new meaning as part of an intentional challenge to the party’s proper leadership. It was then a logical next step to see such an “intention” as having guided Peng’s organization of a faction at the Central Committee level (Li, 1993: 209).

The Mechanism of Misinterpretation during Collective Performance

The second part of my narrative (August 2–16) traces how all the conference participants, including the accused faction members, reached agreement on Mao’s script. This was illustrated by their change of performative actions, intended both to prove Mao’s claims and to demonstrate their fulfillment of the roles assigned to them by his interpretative framework. Thus, my narrative reveals a historical process that is missed by current theories, which take Mao’s success in defeating factions to be the result of egoistic officials’ promotion of their political interests. In this interpretation, these officials followed Mao’s calls to attack factions because of perceived incentives generated by the skewed distribution of resources in the party organization. That is, Mao’s ability to provide protection to other members in exchange for their support, his incomparable charismatic authority, and the concentration of power in his position as leader enabled him to manipulate these officials to serve his own interests (Goldstein, 1991; Tsou, 1995).

My narrative shows that collective misinterpretation among conference participants played a key part in motivating the accused to admit to their roles as faction members and in their eventual acceptance of organizational punishment (White, 2008). The collective investigation of factions that was conducted by the conference participants after August 2 created an atmosphere that led the accused to suffer tension, pressure, and mistrust. In that situation, they lost all hope of convincing the other conference participants of their own explanation of their actions, and so were forced to accept their roles as faction members.

The first response of the accused, to engage in self-defense, is indicative of their initial rejection of Mao’s arrangement of their characters. However, their protests and claims to good intentions behind certain actions that they had carried out and ideas they had expressed proved counterproductive. Other participants imposed different meanings on those actions—as illustrations of their evil intention to build a factional alliance to oppose the party. In doing so, these conference participants aimed to demonstrate their own enthusiastic adherence to Mao’s proposed roles, and to cast off any suspicion that they belonged to the ranks of the irresolute middle-of-the-roader officials. During interaction with their opponents, the expectation of the accused that others would accept their own interpretation suffered repeated disappointment. Such misinterpretation aroused in the accused feelings of frustration, anger, and despair.

Furthermore, the great pressure felt by the accused caused the emergence of new evidence, as they sought to enlarge the scope of their confession in the hope of avoiding a guilty verdict on the most serious charges. Zhang Wentian’s confession regarding Peng Dehuai’s comparison of Mao with Stalin’s later years was intended to show Peng Dehuai’s personal confusion about the current situation rather than evidence of a conspiracy to overturn Mao’s rule. However, this comparison was actually interpreted as evidence of Peng’s intention to challenge Mao, and served only to intensify the pressure on the accused. As demonstrated by the experiences of Huang Kecheng and Li Rui, such psychological stress pushed the defendants into a state of mutual suspicion because of their doubts over whether their associates may have provided evidence against them. They therefore accused each other of having made secret statements against Mao. They did this because of their attempt to show honesty in front of other conference participants. These attempts could not exempt any individual from accusation; rather, they strengthened others’ interpretation of their collusion to oppose the chairman. As a result, the conference participants became increasingly angry toward the accused.

Under intolerable pressure in this fanatical environment, the accused individuals eventually abandoned their original self-interpretation and sacrificed themselves to prove their role as a faction. Such self-sacrifice was, however, performative, because it did not mean that they truly admitted their mistakes, but rather that they gave up any expectation that others would accept their interpretation of events and of their personal roles.

Relational Patterns and Reproduction of Their Causal Impact

The whole narrative of the Lushan Conference implies the mechanism through which the decentralized pattern of the Chinese party-state would continuously reproduce factional politics among central policymakers after 1959. Previous scholarship has explained factional exclusion in the CCP as a result of the absence of democratic and rational political order in the party’s governing process. However, this approach ignores the dynamic relationship between factional exclusion and the relational patterns endemic to the Chinese party-state and thus fails to explain the reproductive mechanism of factional politics in the Maoist period.

The coordination difficulties at Lushan can be understood as the outcome of two relational patterns among Chinese policymakers, which formed during the routine policymaking process. First, the prolonged negotiation between Mao and the provincial party secretaries before July 23 over how to lower the industrial targets illustrated Mao’s heavy reliance on provincial leaders to implement policies. His dilemma regarding those radical leaders originated from the power-sharing structure of the Chinese policy-implementation process, in which the provincial government played a key role in realizing the decisions of the party center. Their active support was crucial to the accomplishment of Mao’s GLF plan because he had shifted industrialization initiatives to the provinces and had to rely on local leaders to deliver results (Teiwes and Sun, 2004: 14).

Second, the policymakers’ failure to achieve collective agreement before July 23 on the judgment of their past administrative setbacks illustrated the lack of an accountability system in the party-state (Lieberthal and Oksenberg, 1988: 136–37). The debate between critics and radical provincial leaders, which started in late 1958 and continued through the Lushan Conference, showed that each side attributed the faults of the GLF to the other. Each believed they were right and refused to accept criticism from the other side. In such debates, the central leaders, including Mao, had no formal standard by which to assign responsibility, and relied on personal relations to resolve conflicts. As Chen Yun 陈云 and Bo Yibo 薄一波, the policymakers in charge of economic planning, admitted, this problem happened because neither the party leaders nor bureaucrats had the knowledge or information that could have allowed them to determine the suitable scope of targets for each bureaucratic agency in the industrial sector (Chen, 2005: 3.225; Central Archives of the CCP and CCCCP Document Research Office, 2013: 28.274; Bo, 1993: 799). This difficulty led to Mao’s repeated failure to attain a coordinated initiative and eventually prompted his change of rationale from policy deliberation to factional condemnation.

This article shows how such structural patterns engendered policymakers’ ideologically guided responses to the coordination difficulty, such that the gap between the measures taken and the structural causes ironically contributed to the maintenance of these patterns. The conference participants’ performative alignment with Mao’s script was expedient. It had no impact on the relational pattern in which the coordination difficulty was rooted. The effects of Mao’s temporary power to unify the radical provincial leaders dissolved when industrial policymaking returned to bureaucratic routine. Immediately after the Lushan Conference, provinces such as Gansu, Zhejiang, and Sichuan reported that their criticism of Peng’s right-deviationist line had encouraged the people and they had great confidence that they could accomplish their targets. Their optimistic attitude made Mao believe that the high targets were indeed reasonable (Pang and Jin, 2003: 2.1011–1029; Central Archives of the CCP and CCCCP Document Research Office, 2013: 32.33–36; Li, 1993: 364–65).

The pattern of interaction among political elites that emerged at the Lushan Conference continued to exist thereafter, and would be a significant factor in creating the conditions for the unprecedented division within the CCP during the Cultural Revolution. For example, in 1962 the assessment of the GLF once again provoked conflict between central and provincial leaders. This tension broke out during a central work conference (known as the Seven Thousand Cadres Conference), during which there was a great debate between provincial and central leaders as to who should take responsibility for the GLF. Prompted by this debate, Liu Shaoqi publicly criticized those who had made mistakes throughout the GLF, a move that provoked Mao’s antipathy because Liu proposed that mistakes had been made collectively by Mao and the provincial leaders (MacFarquhar, 1997: 137–82; Zhang, 2006: 42).

Furthermore, the accused faction members and those who had criticized them withdrew their confessions after Mao’s death, and in 1981 the party’s Central Committee renounced its accusation of the Peng Dehuai faction (CCCCP, 1981). The debaters at Lushan did not succeed in attaining compromise on the accountability problem. For example, until the 1990s, Li Rui and Zhou Hui continued to claim that the radical provincial leaders should take the major responsibility for the faults of the GLF, while the post-Mao official judgment on the GLF remained ambiguous in its attitude toward radical provincial leaders such as Li Jingquan and Zeng Xisheng.