Peng Zhen

Peng Zhen (pronounced ; October 12, 1902 – April 26, 1997) was a leading member of the Chinese Communist Party.

He joined the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1923 as a founding member of the Shanxi Province CCP.

Arrested in 1929, he continued underground political activities while imprisoned.

He was released from prison in 1935 and began organizing a resistance movement against the invading Japanese forces.

Peng was important in developing the Second United Front during the War of Resistance.

Around the same time, he was appointed the Organization Department Director of the North Bureau of CCP.

Peng also served on a number of positions as vice-president of the Central Party School and director of the CCP Policy Research Office.

Peng was a member of the CCP Central Committee starting from 1944 as well as a member of the Secretariat of the CCP Central Committee.

In 1945 he served in the history research committee and the organizing committee of the Communist Party's 7th National Congress.

In September 1945 Peng was sent by Mao Zedong to take up overall leadership of the Communists in Northeast China.

He was accompanied by Lin Biao who was to assist Peng with directing military operations against the Nationalists.

Peng decided that the Communists could hold the 3 big cities of the Northeast: Shenyang, Changchun and Harbin.

When the Nationalists under the command of Du Yuming attacked in November 1945, the Communists were forced back.

Peng was removed as Communist leader in the northeast after further failure by Lin Biao's forces in March 1946 led to the Communists retreat back to Harbin.

He led the party organization in Beijing following the victory of the Communists in the Chinese Civil War in 1949, but was purged during the Cultural Revolution for opposing Mao's views on the role of literature in relation to the state.

He subsequently became Secretary of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission, a post he already held from late 1950s in the capacity of leader of a Central Politics and Law Leading Group.

He also held the positions of First Secretary of the Beijing Municipal Committee, and Mayor of Beijing from 1951 to 1966.

In addition to being mayor, he was a high-ranking member of the Politburo from 1956 to 1966.

In June 1960, he attended Bucharest Conference of Representatives of Communist and Workers Parties, countering Soviet leader Khrushchev during the conference.

Peng was appointed head of the Five Man Group in charge of preparing a "cultural revolution", but he fell out of favor with Mao Zedong in April 1966 when he attacked Mao's belief that all literature should support the state.

He was accused of being an associate to Wu Han's counter-revolutionary clique and deposed at a May 1966 conference in what became the opening act of the Cultural Revolution.

Lu Dingyi, Luo Ruiqing and Yang Shangkun were also deposed.

Peng survived the Cultural Revolution, and was eventually rehabilitated under Deng Xiaoping.

He was rehabilitated under Deng Xiaoping in 1982 along with other 'wrongly accused' officials, and became the inaugural head of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission.

Born in Houma, Shanxi province, Peng was originally named Fu Maogong (傅懋恭).

Beginning in 1983, as Chairman of the Standing Committee of the Sixth National People's Congress, he sought to increase the NPC's power.

He used the NPC as a base to oppose reform.

Peng retired from his leading political positions in 1988.

The obituary also curiously made mention of his support of Deng Xiaoping's 1992 "southern tour" which re-ignited economic reforms after relative stagnation following the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre.

He was considered one of the Eight Elders of the CCP.

Peng Zhen died on April 26, 1997, from blood cancer aged 94, two months after the death of former vice premier Deng Xiaoping, and was eulogized with high honours by the highest organs of the party and the state.

His official obituary declared him a "great proletarian revolutionary, politician, and outstanding expert in the affairs of the state; unswerving Marxist, instrumental in laying the foundations of legal institution in our country, and excellent leader of the party and state."