Peng Zhen - Biography

Biography

Born in Houma (a town in Shanxi province), Peng was originally named Fu Maogong. He joined the Chinese Communist Party in 1923 as a founding member of the Shanxi Province CP. 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. Around the same time, he was appointed the Organization Department Director of the North Bureau of CPC. He also served on a number of positions as vice-president of the Central Party School and director of the CPC Policy Research Office. In 1945 he served in the history research committee and the organizing committee of the Communist Party's 7th National Congress. He is credited with substantial efforts towards the 1948 capture of Beijing by Communist forces in the Chinese Civil War.

Peng was a member of the CPC Central Committee starting from 1944 as well as member of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee. He also held the positions of First Secretary of the Beijing Municipal Committee, and Mayor of Beijing (1951). He was Politburo member from 1956 to 1966.

Peng was appointed head of the Five Man Group in charge of preparing the cultural revolution, but he fell out of favor with Mao Zedong in the 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 conference, along with Lu Dingyi, Luo Ruiqing and Yang Shangkun, at the very start of the Cultural Revolution.

Peng survived to be rehabilitated under Deng Xiaoping. He subsequently became Secretary of the Political and Legal Affairs Commission of the CPC Central Committee (1980), a post he already held from late 1950s in the capacity of leader of a Central Politics and Law Leading Group. As Chairman of the Standing Committee of the Sixth National People's Congress (1983), he sought to increase the NPC's power. Peng retired from his leading political positions in 1988.

He is considered one of the Eight Immortals of the Communist Party of China.