ABSTRACT
The broad outline of developments at Lushan has long been well known: after an early initial stage of the meeting when Mao seemed prepared to make significant modifications to Great Leap policy. Mao Zedong sharply criticized Chen Yun at the November 1958 Zhengzhou conference for his advocacy of abolishing commodities and money and he was now excluded from the key committee set up to draft an outline for the Lushan meeting. 'Party unity' had been restored, but completely on Mao's terms and with scant concern for the plight of China's masses. The account of Marshal He Long's role conflicts with that of Cultural Revolution sources which claim his reluctance to criticize Peng Dehuai. Subsequent analysis using post-Mao Party history sources demonstrates that Peng, rather than being the military modernizer par excellence as usually portrayed, had in fact strongly backed Mao's political emphasis during the spring 1958 military affairs conference.
