ABSTRACT
The dismissal of Defense Minister P'eng Te-huai was the culmination of the second top level leadership crisis in post-1949 China. Cultural Revolution sources have linked P'eng's Lushan behavior to the Russians. A long standing comrade in arms who had stood with Mao at crucial political junctures despite personal friction in the past was treated as a disloyal opponent for responding to the Chairman's pre-Lushan appeals to speak out freely. In the broadest sense, the urgency Mao placed on the need to combat right opportunist views spilled over into the disciplinary realm. The charges concerning P'eng's military deviations were extremely wide ranging. The strongest critique came from P'eng Te-huai and his cohorts who, with the exception of Chou Hsiao-chou, had no direct authority for economic matters. Many of the allegations raised against P'eng and associates bore striking resemblance to the "unprincipled struggle" of Kao Kang and Jao Shu-shih to which P'eng, Huang K'o-ch'eng and Chang Wen-t'ien were now explicitly linked.
