Peng Pai

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A Hakka established the first Chinese Soviet Government in Hailufeng.

The cradle of the modern Chinese peasant associations were in the two counties of Haifeng and Lufeng, in the East River districts of Guangdong province, where majority of the residents there were and still are Hakka. The pioneer of the peasant movement was Peng Pai who was born into a wealthy Haifeng landlord Hakka family. He became a school teacher in his native village. He was one of the first in the district to join the Chinese Communist Party. He soon engaged in trying to organize the peasants. Peng Pai led his students to stage the 1921 May Day demonstration. For this he was dismissed by his school principal.

After the dismissal Peng Pai went out into the country side devoting himself entirely to the business of rousing the peasants. As the son of a landlord he was first received with mistrust and hostility. He used gramophone to play music and songs to attract the villagers to his meetings. Peng Pai told the village audiences to form peasant organization to fight for their own interest. Soon they were convinced and the first Peasant Association was formed in 1922. More organizations were established and they spread rapidly to neighbouring districts and a Guangdong Provincial Peasant association was founded.

At the high of this movement the peasant organizations contained more than 200,000 members in these two counties of Hailu and Haifeng. Thus they became the model and the bastion for the peasant movement in China especially in Guangdong province.

In February 1924 the Kuomintang established a Peasant Department in the city of Guangzhou and Peng Pai became the first secretary of the Department. In July 1924 Peng Pai4 set up the Peasant Movement Training Institute and became its first director. Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung) and Zhou Enlai (Chou En-lai) also gave lectures in this Institute. In 1925 Peng Pai left Guangzhou to resume his work to organize peasants to form Peasant Associations in Guangdong province. Mao Ze-dong took over from Peng Pai and became the second director of the Institute. Mao's brother Mao Zemin (Mao Tse-min) was one his students, who included a large percentage of Hunanese probably recruited by Mao's provincial Party committee. In September 1925 Mao Zedong took the whole student body of the Peasant Movement Training Institute on a two-week visit to Haifeng, where they were given lectures by Peng Pai and shown an agrarian revolution in action.

In July 1926 the Northern Expedition got under way with Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek) as commander-in-chief selected jointly by the Kuomintang and the Communists. Peng Pai took part in the expedition and was ordered to arouse the peasants to help the expedition forces.

To cut the story short; on 12 April 1927 the KMT and CCP coalition abruply ended and on 1 August 1927 the Communists staged a uprising in the city of Nanchang in Jiangxi province, later it was called the Nanchang Uprising . After the collapse of the Uprising the Communist, including Peng Pai, retreated to Shantou (Swatow) in Guangdong province where they held for ten days against assaults from both the foreign gunboats and native troops of militarists. The Communists, later, withdrew to Hunan.

In October 1927 Peng Pai went bck to his hometown and staged an insurrection during which a Soviet Government was established in Hailufeng (Hailu and Haifeng). The following month in November 1927 Mao Ze-dong set up a Soviet Government in Jing Gang Shan in the border between the two provinces of Hunan and Jiangxi. A peasant army was organized, and it was announced that land would be taken from the landlords and distributed to the peasants. The peasant army took the neighbouring counties of Jieshi (Chiehshih) and Jiecheng (Chiencheng).

The warlord of Guangdong province Chen Jiong-min (Chen Chiung-ming) sent troops to encircle the counties under the control of the Soviet Government. The warlord troops constantly attacked the Peasant Soviet. Eventually the peasant movement in Hailufeng was destroyed by the warlord Chen Jiong-min.

Peng Pai escaped to Guangzhou and joined up with Zhang Da-lei, another Hakka, to stage the Guangzhou (Canton) insurrection on 11 December 1927. After the failure of the insurrection Zhang Dalei was killed and Peng Pai was captured by the warlord soldiers and was executed in 1929

(Source: http://www.asiawind.com/pub/forum/fhakka/mhonarc/msg00591.html)