Lu-shan Conference

The Lu-shan Conference, held in July-August 1959, was a pivotal meeting of the Chinese Communist Party's Central Committee. During this conference, Peng Dehuai, the minister of defense, criticized the excesses and economic failures of the Great Leap Forward. Mao Zedong viewed this criticism as a direct challenge to his leadership and policies. As a result, Peng was removed from his posts and subsequently persecuted during the Cultural Revolution. This event solidified Mao's intolerance for dissent and marked a turning point where he increasingly saw any criticism of his agenda as a crime. The conference also occurred against the backdrop of the growing Sino-Soviet split, exacerbated by Khrushchev's ridicule of China's commune policies and the withdrawal of Soviet aid.12