title: Sabrina Spellman

text: During her time at Adams College, as revealed in the episode "The Whole Ball of Wax," Sabrina is finally able to meet her mother. However, it is revealed that the Witches' Council had set a decree that if the two were ever to meet face to face, her mother would turn into a ball of wax. While the decree was never repealed, Sabrina accidentally frees her mother by crying into the ball of wax. However, they could not ever see each other face to face again, the one exception being the series finale, in which Hilda volunteered Zelda to be turned into wax until the wedding ended. In the TV movie "Sabrina Goes to Rome", Sabrina, accompanied by Salem, travels to Rome, Italy in order to discover the secret of a mysterious antique locket and save her Aunt Sophia. While there, she befriends Gwen, an inexperienced British witch, who helps her to solve the mystery of the locket. The sequel, "Sabrina Down Under", depicts Sabrina and Gwen going on vacation in Australia's Great Barrier Reef and end up trying to save a hidden colony of merpeople from water pollution and a scheming marine biologist.


title: Sabrina Spellman

text: Throughout the series, it is shown that Sabrina has many love interests and boyfriends she has romantic crushes on. Her most prominent one is her first boyfriend, Harvey Dwight Kinkle. In Seasons 1-4 she meets and dates Harvey Kinkle, who becomes her first true love which is proven when Harvey is turned into a frog by her kiss, she takes the test of true love and passes it, proving she truly loves him. Though in the early seasons, they break up but usually make up in the end. However, in an episode of "Boy Meets World" titled "The Witches of Penbrook", she is seen at the end of the episode on a date with Eric Matthews. When she was dating Dashiell, another magic-powered character, she had to choose between both Dashiell and Harvey and eventually chooses Harvey.


title: Sabrina Spellman

text: In season 4, she is romantically attracted to Josh who is her manager at the coffee house where she works. She kisses him and Harvey witnesses it causing them to break up though they get back together in "Love Means Having to Say You're Sorry". They officially end their romantic relationship in "The End Of an Era" but Harvey still appears in the show as a recurring character. In season 6, she starts dating Josh who at first dated Morgan, her roommate. Meanwhile, in the season 6 finale, Sabrina gives up her one true love to save her Aunt Hilda and it happens when during her aunt's wedding she falls to pieces when Harvey tells her he still has strong romantic feelings for her but she does not return them, making him leave for California. Josh says he is taking the photography job he was offered in Prague, and a cute waiter named Luke says goodbye but she is saved when her Aunt Zelda gives up her adult years to save her.


title: Sabrina Spellman

text: In the seventh season, she meets and starts dating Aaron whom she met at the Scorch magazine office. They become engaged but Sabrina's aunt Irma turns him into a goldfish but Aaron is turned back when Harvey (who is in love with Sabrina) uses Sabrina's magic because he wants to make Sabrina happy. In the series finale, Sabrina prepares for her wedding but stops it when she realizes Aaron is not her soulmate and she runs off with Harvey, her soulmate and first true love (they are soulmates because when their soul stones drop to the ground they fit perfectly) at 12:36, the time they first met seven years ago.


title: Sabrina Spellman

text: In September 2017, it was announced that Sabrina would return to television in the form of a new live action series that would act as a spin-off to The CW's "Riverdale". Prior to that announcement, there were rumors of Sabrina making a guest appearance in "Riverdale", perhaps leading the way into her own spin-off series. On December 1, 2017, "Deadline Hollywood" reported that the series was picked up by Netflix. The first season was released by Netflix on October 26, 2018. The adaptation is a re-imagining of the origin and adventures of Sabrina the Teenage Witch, with a darker and more edgy story that highlights the balance between good and evil. In January 2018, it was announced that Kiernan Shipka had signed on to play the lead role of Sabrina Spellman. In July 2020, Netflix cancelled the series after two seasons divided into four parts.


title: Professional baseball

text: Professional baseball is organized baseball in which players are selected for their talents and are paid to play for a specific team or club system. It is played in leagues and associated farm teams throughout the world.


title: Professional baseball

text: Major League Baseball in the United States and Canada (founded in 1869) consists of the National League (founded in 1876) and the American League (founded in 1901). Historically, teams in one league never played teams in the other until the World Series, in which the champions of the two leagues played against each other. This changed in 1997 with the advent of interleague play. As of 2022, the Philadelphia Phillies, founded in 1883, are the oldest continuous same-name, same-city franchise in both Major League Baseball and all of American professional sports.


title: Professional baseball

text: In addition to the major leagues, many North American cities and towns feature minor league teams. An organization officially styled Minor League Baseball, formerly the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues, oversees nearly all minor league baseball in the United States and Canada. The minor leagues are divided into classes AAA, AA, High A, Low A, Short-Season A, Advanced Rookie, and Rookie. These minor-league divisions are affiliated with major league teams, and serve to develop young players and rehabilitate injured major-leaguers. The Mexican League is an independent league that is a member of Minor League Baseball and has no affiliations to any Major League Baseball teams. Organized Baseball is often applied as an umbrella term for all leagues — Major and minor — under the authority of the Commissioner of Baseball.


title: Professional baseball

text: Operating outside the Minor League Baseball organization are many independent minor leagues such as the Atlantic League, American Association, Frontier League, and the feeder league to these the Empire Professional Baseball League.


title: Professional baseball

text: Japan has had professional baseball since the 1930s. Nippon Professional Baseball consists of two leagues, the Central League and the Pacific League, each with six teams.


title: Professional baseball

text: Taiwan has had professional baseball since the 1990s. The Chinese Professional Baseball League absorbed Taiwan Major League in 2003.


title: Professional baseball

text: Other Asian leagues include three now defunct leagues, the China National Baseball League, Israel Baseball League, and Baseball Philippines.


title: Professional baseball

text: During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, African-American players were barred from playing the major leagues, though several did manage to play by claiming to be Cubans or Indians. As a result, a number of parallel Negro leagues were formed. However, after Jackie Robinson began playing with the major-league Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947, the Negro leagues gradually faded. The process of integration did not go entirely smoothly; there were some ugly incidents, including pitchers who would try to throw directly at an African-American player's head. Now, however, baseball is fully integrated, and there is little to no racial tension between teammates.


title: Professional baseball

text: Between 1943 and 1954, the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League fielded teams in several Midwestern towns.


title: Leonora Carrington

text: Mary Leonora Carrington (6 April 191725 May 2011) was a British-born Mexican artist, surrealist painter, and novelist. She lived most of her adult life in Mexico City and was one of the last surviving participants in the surrealist movement of the 1930s. Carrington was also a founding member of the women's liberation movement in Mexico during the 1970s.


title: Leonora Carrington

text: Mary Leonora Carrington was born at Westwood House, Clayton Green, Chorley, Lancashire, England, in a Roman Catholic family. Her father Harold Wylde Carrington (1880-1950) was a wealthy textile manufacturer, and her mother Marie (née Moorhead) was from Ireland. She had three brothers: Patrick, Gerald, and Arthur. She lived at Crookhey Hall from 1920 until 1927, a large home in Cockerham, which exerted a great influence on her imagination.


title: Leonora Carrington

text: Educated by governesses, tutors, and nuns, she was expelled from two schools, including New Hall School, Chelmsford, for her rebellious behaviour, until her family sent her to Florence, where she attended Mrs Penrose's Academy of Art. She also, briefly, attended St Mary's convent school in Ascot. In 1927, at the age of ten, she saw her first Surrealist painting in a Left Bank gallery in Paris and later met many Surrealists, including Paul Éluard. Her father opposed her career as an artist, but her mother encouraged her. She returned to England and was presented at Court, but according to her, she brought a copy of Aldous Huxley's "Eyeless in Gaza" (1936) to read instead. In 1935, she attended the Chelsea School of Art in London for one year, and with the help of her father's friend Serge Chermayeff, she was able to transfer to the Ozenfant Academy of Fine Arts established by the French modernist Amédée Ozenfant in London (1936–38).


title: Leonora Carrington

text: She became familiar with Surrealism from a copy of Herbert Read's book, "Surrealism" (1936), given to her by her mother, but she received little encouragement from her family to forge an artistic career. The Surrealist poet and patron Edward James was the champion of her work in Britain; James bought many of her paintings and arranged a show in 1947 for her work at the Pierre Matisse Gallery in New York. Some works are still hanging at James' former family home, currently West Dean College in West Dean, West Sussex.


title: Leonora Carrington

text: In 1936 Carrington saw the work of the German surrealist Max Ernst at the International Surrealist Exhibition in London and was attracted to the Surrealist artist before she even met him. In 1937 Carrington met Ernst at a party held in London. The artists bonded and returned together to Paris, where Ernst promptly separated from his wife. In 1938 they left Paris and settled in Saint Martin d'Ardèche in southern France. The new couple collaborated and supported each other's artistic development. The two artists created sculptures of guardian animals (Ernst created his birds and Carrington created a plaster horse head) to decorate their home in Saint Martin d'Ardèche. In 1939 Carrington and Ernst painted portraits of each other. Both capture the ambivalence in their relationship, but whereas Ernst's "The Triumph of Love" features both artists in the composition, Carrington's "Portrait of Max Ernst" focused solely on Ernst and is laced with heavy symbolisms. The portrait was not her first Surrealist work; between 1937–1938 Carrington painted "Self-Portrait", also called "The Inn of the Dawn Horse", now exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Sporting white jodhpurs and a wild mane of hair, Carrington is perched on the edge of a chair in this curious, dreamlike scene, her hand outstretched toward a prancing hyena and her back to a tailless rocking horse flying behind her.


title: Leonora Carrington

text: With the outbreak of World War II Ernst, who was German, was arrested by the French authorities for being a "hostile alien". With the intercession of Paul Éluard, and other friends, including the American journalist Varian Fry, he was discharged a few weeks later. Soon after the Nazis invaded France, Ernst was arrested again, this time by the Gestapo, because his art was considered by the Nazis to be "degenerate". He managed to escape and flee to the United States with the help of Peggy Guggenheim, who was a sponsor of the arts.


title: Leonora Carrington

text: After Ernst's arrest Carrington was devastated and agreed to go to Spain with a friend, Catherine Yarrow. She stayed with family friends in Madrid until her paralyzing anxiety and delusions led to a psychotic break and she was admitted into an asylum. She was given electroconvulsive therapy and was treated with the drugs Cardiazol (a powerful convulsant), and Luminal (a barbiturate). She was released from the asylum into the care of a keeper, and was told that her parents had decided to send her to a sanatorium in South Africa. En route to South Africa, she stopped in Portugal, where she made her escape. She went to the Mexican Embassy to find Renato Leduc, a poet and Mexican Ambassador. Leduc was a friend of Pablo Picasso (they knew each other from bull fights) and agreed to a marriage of convenience with Carrington so that she would be accorded the immunity given to a diplomat's wife. The pair divorced in 1943. Meanwhile, Ernst had married Peggy Guggenheim in New York in 1941. That marriage ended a few years later. Ernst and Carrington never resumed their relationship.


title: Leonora Carrington

text: After spending a year in New York, Leduc and Carrington went to Mexico, where many European artists fled in search of asylum, in 1942, which she grew to love and where she lived, on and off, for the rest of her life.


title: Leonora Carrington

text: When Carrington first came to Mexico she was preceded by the success of surrealist exhibitions which allowed her to create many connections within the surrealist movement. Her connections within these surrealist circles were influential in opening artistic doors that had long been closed to Mexican artists. After living in Mexico for seven years, Leonora Carrington held her first solo exhibition at the Galeria Clardecor. Much of the initial response from the public was very encouraging, and the press for months following published positive and approving critic reviews.


title: Leonora Carrington

text: After spending part of the 1960s in New York City, Carrington lived and worked in Mexico once again. While in Mexico she was asked, in 1963, to create a mural which she named "El Mundo Magico de los Mayas", and which was influenced by folk stories from the region. The mural is now located in the Museo Nacional de Antropología in Mexico City.


title: Leonora Carrington

text: In 1973 Carrington designed "Mujeres conciencia", a poster for the Women's Liberation movement in Mexico, depicting a 'new Eve'. In the 1970s women artists of previous waves and generations responded to the more liberal climate and movement of the array of feminist waves. Many pushed the issues of women's liberation and consciousness within their work while others spoke out on issues instead of making art. She frequently spoke about women’s “legendary powers” and the need for women to take back “the rights that belonged to them.” Many artists involved in the Surrealism regarded women to be useful as muses but not seen as artists in their own right. Carrington was adopted as a femme-enfant by the Surrealists because of her rebelliousness against her upper-class upbringing.


title: Leonora Carrington

text: Carrington primarily focused on psychic freedom in the belief that such freedom cannot be achieved until political freedom is also accomplished. Through these beliefs Carrington understood that "greater cooperation and sharing of knowledge between politically active women in Mexico and North America" was important for emancipation. Carrington's political commitment led to her winning the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Women's Caucus for Art convention in New York in 1986. Throughout the decade women identified and defined an array of relationships to feminist and mainstream concepts and concerns. Continuing through the decade women continued to question the meaning of existence through form and material.


title: Leonora Carrington

text: She later married Emerico Weisz (nicknamed "Chiki"), born in Hungary in 1911, a photographer and the darkroom manager for Robert Capa during the Spanish Civil War. Together they had two sons: Gabriel, an intellectual and poet, and Pablo, a doctor and Surrealist artist. Chiki Weisz died 17 January 2007, at home. He was 97 years old.


title: Leonora Carrington

text: Leonora Carrington died on 25 May 2011, aged 94, in a hospital in Mexico City as a result of complications arising from pneumonia. Her remains were buried at Panteón Inglés (English Cemetery) in Mexico City.


title: Leonora Carrington

text: Carrington stated that: "I painted for myself...I never believed anyone would exhibit or buy my work." She was not interested in the writings of Sigmund Freud, as were other Surrealists in the movement. She instead focused on magical realism and alchemy and used autobiographical detail and symbolism as the subjects of her paintings. Carrington was interested in presenting female sexuality as she experienced it, rather than as that of male surrealists' characterization of female sexuality. Carrington's work of the 1940s is focused on the underlying theme of women's role in the creative process.


title: Leonora Carrington

text: Carrington's work is identified and compared with the surrealist movement. Within the surrealist movement, there was a strong exploration of the women's body combining the mysterious forces of nature combined. During this time women artists correlated the woman figure with creative nature while using ironic stances.


title: Leonora Carrington

text: When painting, she used small brushstroke techniques building up layers in a meticulous manner, creating rich imagery.


title: Leonora Carrington

text: In "Self-Portrait" (1938) Carrington offers her own interpretation of female sexuality by looking toward her own sexual reality rather than theorizing on the subject, as was custom by other Surrealists in the movement. Carrington's move away from the characterization of female sexuality subverted the traditional male role of the Surrealist movement. "Self-Portrait" (1937–38) also offers insight into Carrington's interest in the "alchemical transformation of matter and her response to the Surrealist cult of desire as a source of creative inspiration." "Self Portrait" further explores the duality that comes with being a woman. This concept of duality is explored by Carrington using a mirror to assert duality of the self and the self being an observer with being observed. The hyena depicted in "Self-Portrait" (1937–38) joins both male and female into a whole, metaphoric of the worlds of the night and the dream. The symbol of the hyena is present in many of Carrington's later works, including "La Debutante" in her book of short stories "The Oval Lady".


title: Leonora Carrington

text: Three years after being released from the asylum and with the encouragement of André Breton, Carrington wrote about her psychotic experience in her memoir "Down Below". In this, she explained how she had a nervous breakdown, didn't want to eat, and left Spain. This is where she was imprisoned in an asylum. She illustrates all that was done to her: ruthless institutional therapies, sexual assault, hallucinatory drugs, and unsanitary conditions. It has been suggested that the events of the book should not be taken literally, given Carrington's state at the time of her institutionalization; however, recent authors have sought to examine the details of her institution in order to discredit this theory. She also created art to depict her experience, such as her "Portrait of Dr. Morales" and "Map of Down Below".


title: Leonora Carrington

text: Her book "The Hearing Trumpet" deals with aging and the female body. It follows the story of older women who, in the words of Madeleine Cottenet-Hage in her essay "The Body Subversive: Corporeal Imagery in Carrington, Prassinos and Mansour", seek to destroy the institutions of their imaginative society to usher in a "spirit of sisterhood." "The Hearing Trumpet" also criticizes the shaming of the nude female body, and it is believed to be one of the first books to tackle the notion of gender identity in the twentieth century. Carrington's views situated motherhood as a key experience to femininity. Carrington stated, "We, women, are animals conditioned by maternity... For female animals love-making, which is followed by the great drama of the birth of a new animal, pushes us into the depths of the biological cave." While this may seem to differ from certain modern feminist perspectives, the cave, of which Carrington offers many versions, is the setting for a symbolic coming to life, not an actual birth-giving ("and this can mean aquatic or maternal, this can be double, in my opinion"; mère and mer, following Simone de Beauvoir).


title: Leonora Carrington

text: Carrington had an interest in animals, myth, and symbolism. This interest became stronger after she moved to Mexico and started a relationship with the émigré Spanish artist Remedios Varo. The two studied alchemy, the kabbalah, and the post-classic Mayan mystical writings, Popol Vuh.


title: Leonora Carrington

text: The first important exhibition of her work appeared in 1947 at the Pierre Matisse Gallery in New York City. Carrington was invited to show her work in an international exhibition of Surrealism, where she was the only female English professional painter. She became a celebrity almost overnight. In Mexico, she authored and successfully published several books.


title: Leonora Carrington

text: The first major exhibition of her work in UK for twenty years took place at Chichester's Pallant House Gallery, West Sussex, from 17 June to 12 September 2010, and subsequently in Norwich at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, as part of a season of major international exhibitions called "Surreal Friends" that celebrated women's role in the Surrealist movement. Her work was exhibited alongside pieces by her close friends, the Spanish painter Remedios Varo (1908–1963) and the Hungarian photographer Kati Horna (1912–2000).


title: Leonora Carrington

text: In 2013 Carrington was the subject of a major retrospective at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin. Titled "The Celtic Surrealist", it was curated by Sean Kissane and examined Carrington's Irish background to illuminate many cultural, political and mythological themes present in her work.


title: Leonora Carrington

text: Carrington's art often depicts horses, as in her "Self-Portrait (Inn of the Dawn Horse)" and the painting "The Horses of Lord Candlestick". Her fascination with drawing horses began in her childhood. Horses also appear in her writings. In her first published short story, "The House of Fear", Carrington portrays a horse in the role of a psychic guide to a young heroine. In 1935, Carrington's first essay, "Jezzamathatics or Introduction to the Wonderful Process of Painting", was published before her story "The Seventh Horse". Carrington often used codes of words to dictate interpretation in her artwork. "Candlestick" is a code that she commonly used to represent her family, and the word "lord" for her father.


title: Leonora Carrington

text: Carrington contributed to the 1973 Mexican horror film "The Mansion of Madness" directed by Juan López Moctezuma, loosely based on the Edgar Allan Poe short story "The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether". She supervised the artistic design for the sets and costumes, with one of her sons, Gabriel Weisz. The repeated appearance of a white horse, Carrington's alter ego, and the elaborate surreal feasts and costumes show her influence and vision.


title: Leonora Carrington

text: In 2005 Christie's auctioned Carrington's "Juggler (El Juglar"), and the realised price was US$713,000, setting a new record for the highest price paid at auction for a living surrealist painter. Carrington painted portraits of the telenovela actor Enrique Álvarez Félix, son of actress María Félix, a friend of Carrington's first husband.


title: Leonora Carrington

text: In 2015, Carrington was honoured through a Google Doodle commemorating her 98th birthday. The Doodle was based on her painting, "How Doth the Little Crocodile", drawn in surrealist style. The painting was inspired by a poem in Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland", and this painting was eventually turned into "Cocodrilo" located on Paseo de la Reforma.


title: Paramount Players

text: Paramount Players is an American film production label of Paramount Pictures, focusing on "contemporary properties" while working with other Paramount Global brands. The name alludes to the company's earliest origins as Famous Players Film Company, before its 1914 founding by William Wadsworth Hodkinson.


title: Paramount Players

text: On June 7, 2017, Jim Gianopulos, who joined Paramount Pictures as the Chairman and CEO in March, announced the launch of the Paramount Players division with Brian Robbins, the founder and former CEO of AwesomenessTV, as president. Robbins will work with Viacom’s Nickelodeon, MTV, Comedy Central and BET operations to generate projects while the new division focuses on "contemporary properties." The division was created after Paramount and Viacom expressed disappointment at Comedy Central stars Jordan Peele and Amy Schumer producing their own films (2017's "Get Out" and 2015's "Trainwreck", respectively) for Universal Pictures due to feeling "unwelcome" by Paramount's former executives.


title: Paramount Players

text: On August 17, 2017, Paramount Players acquired its first project, which is a film adaptation of the book "Vacation Guide to the Solar System" by Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley.


title: Paramount Players

text: On October 1, 2018, Brian Robbins left his position as the president of Paramount Players after Viacom tapped him to be the president of Nickelodeon, ending his 16-month run at the studio. Despite leaving the studio, he will remain involved with Paramount Players' Nickelodeon films ("Dora and the Lost City of Gold" and "Playing with Fire"). Wyck Godfrey, the president of Paramount Motion Picture Group, is serving as interim and will oversee day-to-day operations with support from Robbins until Paramount finds a new president for the studio.


title: Paramount Players

text: On June 30, 2020, Emma Watts replaced Wyck Godfrey as the president of Paramount Motion Picture Group and began on July 20 (Godfrey returned to producing). In October, Watts tapped Jeremy Kramer as president.


title: Paramount Players

text: On March 8, 2022, Kramer stepped down and the studio's operations were merged into the purview of Mike Ireland and Daria Cercek, the head executives of the Paramount Pictures Motion Picture Group, though Paramount Players and its current film inventory remains otherwise unaffected.


title: Mike Holmgren

text: Michael George Holmgren (born June 15, 1948) is a former American football coach and executive. He began his NFL career as a quarterbacks' coach and later as an offensive coordinator with the San Francisco 49ers, where they won Super Bowls XXIII and XXIV. He served as the head coach of the Green Bay Packers from 1992 to 1998, where he won Super Bowl XXXI, and of the Seattle Seahawks from 1999 to 2008. His last role in the NFL was as team president of the Cleveland Browns from 2010 to 2012. Prior to his career in the NFL, Holmgren coached football at the high school and collegiate levels.


title: Mike Holmgren

text: Holmgren is noted for his role in molding quarterbacks such as Steve Young, Brett Favre, and Matt Hasselbeck during his tenures in San Francisco, Green Bay, and Seattle, respectively. Joe Montana won his two MVP awards under the direction of Holmgren in 1989 and 1990.


title: Mike Holmgren

text: Under Holmgren's leadership and play-calling the Green Bay Packers were consistent winners and never had a losing season. He was considered one of the best coaches in the NFL by many fellow coaches and players. He led the Packers to their 12th league championship in Super Bowl XXXI, a 35-21 win over the New England Patriots; and also reached Super Bowl XXXII. Under Holmgren the Seahawks also became a frequent playoff team, including five division titles and the franchise's first Super Bowl appearance in Super Bowl XL.


title: Mike Holmgren

text: As president of the Cleveland Browns, Holmgren failed to improve the team, which had a record of 5–11 the season before his arrival, and 14–34 in his tenure. Despite Holmgren's reputation as a quarterback guru, the Browns fielded three different opening-day starters in his three years with the team. In the face of much criticism in the media, he was released by the Browns in November 2012.


title: Mike Holmgren

text: Holmgren started out as a tight end before becoming a standout quarterback at San Francisco's Abraham Lincoln High School where he was named "Prep Athlete of the Year" in 1965 and graduated in 1966.


title: Mike Holmgren

text: Holmgren continued his playing career in Los Angeles as a quarterback at the University of Southern California from 1966 to 1969, and was a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity. As a sophomore, he was on USC's national championship team of 1967. Holmgren played behind starter Steve Sogge in 1967 and 1968. A shoulder injury put him behind sophomore Jimmy Jones in 1969; he earned his bachelor's degree in 1970.


title: Mike Holmgren

text: Although a back-up, Holmgren was selected in the 1970 NFL Draft by the St. Louis Cardinals; taken in the eighth round (201st overall), he went to camp with both the Cardinals and the New York Jets that year.


title: Mike Holmgren

text: Holmgren's coaching career began in 1971 at his alma mater, Abraham Lincoln High School in San Francisco, where he also taught history. One year later, he moved to San Francisco's Sacred Heart Cathedral Preparatory as a teacher and assistant coach. He also coached at Oak Grove High School in San Jose, California, from 1975 to 1980 and won one Central Coast Section championship.


title: Mike Holmgren

text: In 1981, Holmgren became the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach for the San Francisco State Gators, working for Vic Rowen.


title: Mike Holmgren

text: From 1982 to 1985, Holmgren was the quarterbacks coach at Brigham Young University under LaVell Edwards. During his four-year tenure at BYU, Holmgren not only helped coach the team's potent offense to a national championship in 1984, but in that period mentored and developed two of BYU's future NFL quarterbacks, Steve Young and Robbie Bosco, and one future NFL head coach, Andy Reid.


title: Mike Holmgren

text: Bosco would make it to Green Bay several years before Holmgren, but his eventual appointment as Packers head coach would bring him back into contact with Andy Reid and Steve Young.


title: Mike Holmgren

text: Under Holmgren, Bosco led the Cougars to a national championship in 1984, finished third in Heisman Trophy balloting and was drafted by the Green Bay Packers in 1985. Bosco's NFL career was cut short by an arm injury, and he returned to BYU as a quarterbacks coach.


title: Mike Holmgren

text: In addition to mentoring quarterbacks at BYU, Holmgren also worked with Reid, at the time a graduate assistant. Reid went on to become an offensive line coach at Holmgren's previous school, San Francisco State, and in 1992 rejoined Holmgren in Green Bay as offensive assistant coach. In 1998 Reid became quarterbacks coach and assistant coach, then in 1999 was named head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles.


title: Mike Holmgren

text: Holmgren began his NFL coaching career as an assistant coach of the San Francisco 49ers from 1986 to 1991. He coached the 49ers’ quarterbacks from 1986–1988 under head coach Bill Walsh, working with Steve Young, whom he had coached at BYU, and Joe Montana. When George Seifert took over as head coach, Holmgren became the team's offensive coordinator and served from 1989 to 1991. In this stretch, Joe Montana won his two MVP awards and had his best season in 1989. During his tenure with San Francisco, the 49ers posted a 71-–23–1 (74.7%) regular season record to reach the postseason each year except 1991. San Francisco won Super Bowl XXIII over the Cincinnati Bengals 20–16 and Super Bowl XXIV over the Denver Broncos 55–10, setting records for most points, most offensive points, and margin of victory in a Super Bowl. As offensive coordinator in 1989, Holmgren's 49er offense was ranked number one in the NFL. His years with the 49ers have led to later success mentoring other young assistants and Holmgren is one of the larger branches of the Sid Gillman coaching tree, from which Walsh and Seifert descended.


title: Mike Holmgren

text: Holmgren was head coach of the Green Bay Packers from 1992 to 1998, which became one of the most successful coaching stints in NFL history. As head coach of the Packers, Holmgren posted a 75–37–0 (67.0%) regular-season record, a 9–5 (64.3%) postseason mark, and two Super Bowl appearances, including a 35–21 victory over the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XXXI. By winning at least one game in five consecutive postseasons (1993–1997) Holmgren joined John Madden (1973–1977), John Harbaugh (2008–2012), Bill Belichick (2011–2018), and Pete Carroll (2012–2016) as the only coaches in league history to accomplish the feat. Holmgren's Packers posted an NFL-best 48–16 (75.0%) record, finished first in the NFC Central Division three times and second once, and set a 7–3 mark in the playoffs between 1995 and 1998. By taking the Packers to six consecutive postseasons (1993–1998), Holmgren set a franchise record with a team that had had just two winning seasons in the 19 years before he was hired. Holmgren is well known for molding quarterback Brett Favre from a wild gun slinger to a three time MVP from 1995–1997.


title: Mike Holmgren

text: Many of Holmgren's 1992 coaches, including Andy Reid, Steve Mariucci, Dick Jauron, Ray Rhodes, and Jon Gruden, would go on to head coaching careers in the NFL. Marty Mornhinweg, an assistant hired later in Holmgren's tenure at Green Bay, also became an NFL head coach, and was previously an offensive coordinator under Reid with the Philadelphia Eagles from 2006 to 2012. Doug Pederson, a backup quarterback for Holmgren's Packers from 1996 through 1998, would also serve as an assistant under Reid in both Philadelphia and with the Kansas City Chiefs, later winning Super Bowl LII as the head coach of the Eagles in 2018.


title: Mike Holmgren

text: Holmgren resigned from the Green Bay Packers after the 1998 season to accept an eight-year head coach contract offered by the Seattle Seahawks. Originally, Holmgren was the Executive Vice President/General Manager and Head Coach of the Seahawks. Following the 2002 season, Holmgren was terminated as Seahawks General Manager.


title: Mike Holmgren

text: Holmgren took the Seahawks to their first postseason since 1988 during his first season with the club in 1999, breaking a 10-year playoff drought. Holmgren posted a 72–56 (56.3%) regular season record and a 4–6 postseason record, including an AFC West Division title (1999), one NFC Wildcard berth (2003), four consecutive NFC West Division titles (2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007), an NFC championship (2005), and the Seahawks' first-ever appearance in a Super Bowl.


title: Mike Holmgren

text: Holmgren's (and the Seahawks' until they won the Super Bowl in 2013) best season to date was 2005. The team posted the best regular season 13–3 (81.3%) record in franchise history, set a team record 11 consecutive wins, and won their first playoff game since 1984. Holmgren also molded former Green Bay backup quarterback Matt Hasselbeck into a Pro Bowl and Super Bowl quarterback in the 2005 NFL season (much as he did with Favre in the 1990s), and coached Shaun Alexander to the NFL's MVP, a 2005 rushing title, and an NFL record 28 touchdowns in a single season.


title: Mike Holmgren

text: With the 2005 NFC Championship win, Holmgren became the fifth member of a small coaching fraternity that has taken two different NFL franchises to the Super Bowl, joining Bill Parcells, Dan Reeves, Don Shula, Dick Vermeil, and later John Fox and Andy Reid. Had the Seahawks won Super Bowl XL, he would have become the first head coach in NFL history to win a Super Bowl with two different franchises, however they fell short, losing 21–10 to the Pittsburgh Steelers.


title: Mike Holmgren

text: On January 22, 2008, Holmgren announced he would serve out the remaining year of his contract with a lame duck year and end his tenure as head coach of the Seattle Seahawks at the end of the 2008 NFL season. Jim L. Mora, the defensive backs coach, succeeded Holmgren upon his departure.


title: Mike Holmgren

text: On December 19, 2008, Holmgren received the Steve Largent Award, becoming the first coach in Seahawks history to attain the accolade.


title: Mike Holmgren

text: Since 2012, He has served as an analyst for Seattle Sports station KJR 950AM and as a color analyst for Westwood One's radio broadcast of Super Bowl LI.


title: Mike Holmgren

text: On December 21, 2009, Holmgren accepted the job to be president of the Cleveland Browns. On January 3, 2011, Holmgren fired Browns coach Eric Mangini after a disappointing 5–11 record. On October 16, 2012, Browns owner Jimmy Haslam announced that Holmgren would leave the team at the end of the 2012 season.


title: Mike Holmgren

text: In 2020, he was named as a coaching finalist for the Pro Football Hall of Fame's "Centennial Slate." He was again up for the class of 2021, but was among the coaches part of the final cut.


title: Mike Holmgren

text: Holmgren and his wife, Kathy, met at age 12 and have been married since June 15, 1971; they married on his birthday so he would not forget the date. Holmgren first proposed marriage to Kathy when he was age 15, to which she replied: "Nope." They have four daughters — twins Calla and Jenny (born 1973), Emily (1977), and Gretchen (1981). They also have four granddaughters — Emma, Emerson, Mary and Isabell, and three grandsons — Luke, Michael, and Samuel. Holmgren and his wife currently reside in Seattle, Washington.


title: Mike Holmgren

text: The Holmgren family is heavily involved in the Evangelical Covenant Church and the denomination's North Park University, in Chicago. In 2004, they led the fundraising drive to build the university's Holmgren Athletic Complex.


title: Mike Holmgren

text: Holmgren's grandfather, Jens Bugge, who served briefly as a commandant at West Point and wrote a book on military strategy, also had the distinction of being eulogized by Gen. Douglas MacArthur. Both of Holmgren's parents were officers in the Salvation Army.


title: Mike Holmgren

text: Holmgren endorsed Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. He endorsed and will campaign for Mandela Barnes in the 2022 U.S. Senate election.


The 2020 United States presidential election in Iowa was held on Tuesday, November 3, 2020, as part of the 2020 United States presidential election in which all 50 states plus the District of Columbia participated. Iowa voters chose electors to represent them in the Electoral College via a popular vote, pitting the Republican Party's nominee, incumbent President Donald Trump of Florida, and running mate Vice President Mike Pence of Indiana against Democratic Party nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden of Delaware, and his running mate California Senator Kamala Harris. Iowa has six electoral votes in the Electoral College.


title: 2020 United States presidential election in Iowa

text: Trump won the state 53.1% to 44.9%. Prior to this election, most news organizations had considered Iowa as either leaning towards Trump or a tossup. As was the case in Ohio, this election has confirmed Iowa's trend from a Midwestern swing state toward the GOP column, the same trend as neighboring Missouri starting in 2008. Iowa had voted Democratic in six of seven elections prior to 2016, with the exception being George W. Bush's narrow plurality win in 2004. In 2016, however, Iowa voted for Trump by an unexpectedly large margin of 9.4%, voting over ten points to the right of the nation overall, indicating a possible realignment of the previously Democratic-leaning state towards the GOP, much as in the case of West Virginia in 2000 and 2004. Even though Biden contested the state, Trump ended up carrying it by only a slightly reduced margin of 8.2% even as his national margin of defeat grew by 2.4%, meaning that the state voted even further to the right of the national average than it did in 2016.


text: Biden became the first Democratic nominee since Jimmy Carter in 1976 to win the presidency without carrying Iowa, the first since 1916 to win without carrying Wapello County, as well as the first since FDR in 1940 to win the presidency without carrying Dubuque County and Howard County. Biden improved on Hillary Clinton's margins in the Des Moines and Cedar Rapids metropolitan areas and traditionally conservative western Iowa, the latter of which borders Nebraska's 2nd congressional district (Omaha urban area), an electoral vote Trump won in 2016 but lost in 2020. Trump improved on his 2016 performance in populist northeast and south Iowa and became the first Republican to win Iowa in back to back elections since Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984. This was the first election since 1988 in which Iowa voted for the loser of both the popular and electoral vote.


text: Iowa is one of three states that voted twice for Barack Obama and Trump, the other two being Ohio and Florida. This was the first time since 2000 that Iowa backed the losing candidate in a presidential election, and the first since 1988 that it voted for the loser of both the popular and electoral vote. It is also the first time since 2004 that Iowa voted for a different candidate than neighboring Wisconsin.


text: The state's caucuses, traditionally the first major electoral event in the country, were held on February 3, 2020.


text: Incumbent president Donald Trump received about 97 percent of the votes in the Republican caucuses, and received 39 of the GOP delegates, while Bill Weld received enough votes to clinch 1 delegate.


text: After a three-day delay in votes being reported, the Iowa Democratic Party declared that Pete Buttigieg had narrowly won the state delegate equivalent (SDE) count of the Democratic caucuses with 26.2 percent. Bernie Sanders came in second with 26.1 percent of the SDEs, despite the fact that he received more popular votes (26.5 percent) than Buttigieg (25.1 percent). Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, and Amy Klobuchar finished in third, fourth, and fifth place, respectively.


text: The Libertarian Party of Iowa conducted their own caucuses on February 8, offering in-person caucus locations and an online virtual caucus. Only registered Libertarian voters were eligible to participate.


text: Per exit polling by the Associated Press, Trump's strength in Iowa came from White Iowans with no college degree, who comprised 62% of the electorate and supported Trump by 58%–40%. Trump also dominated amongst Christian voters, garnering 66% of Protestants, 54% of Catholics, and 76% of born-again/Evangelical Christians. 53% of voters believed Trump was better able to handle international trade. Trump continued to win the cultural message among voters without college degrees in the Hawkeye State.


text: During the primary season, there remained hope among Democrats that Iowa would still be a contestable state. However, Trump's well-held victory in the state in the general election also saw Republican congressional candidates—from Senator Joni Ernst to two House seats, both held by Democrats (one vacated by Dave Loebsack in Iowa's 2nd district)—winning their election.


text: Neither Biden nor Trump flipped any counties in the state, although Biden came within 2% of flipping Dallas County, a suburb of Des Moines. Jefferson County was also very close, having gone for Trump by a similarly tight margin four years earlier.


title: Peng Dehuai

text: Peng Dehuai (; October 24, 1898November 29, 1974) was a prominent Chinese Communist military leader, who served as China's Defense Minister from 1954 to 1959. Peng was born into a poor peasant family, and received several years of primary education before his family's poverty forced him to suspend his education at the age of ten, and to work for several years as a manual laborer. When he was sixteen, Peng became a professional soldier. Over the next ten years Peng served in the armies of several Hunan-based warlord armies, raising himself from the rank of private second class to major. In 1926, Peng's forces joined the Kuomintang, and Peng was first introduced to communism. Peng participated in the Northern Expedition, and supported Wang Jingwei's attempt to form a left-leaning Kuomintang government based in Wuhan. After Wang was defeated, Peng briefly rejoined Chiang Kai-shek's forces before joining the Chinese Communist Party, allying himself with Mao Zedong and Zhu De.


title: Peng Dehuai

text: Peng was one of the most senior generals who defended the Jiangxi Soviet from Chiang's attempts to capture it, and his successes were rivaled only by Lin Biao. Peng participated in the Long March, and supported Mao Zedong at the Zunyi Conference, which was critical to Mao's rise to power. During the 1937–1945 Second Sino-Japanese War, Peng was one of the strongest supporters of pursuing a ceasefire with the Kuomintang in order to concentrate China's collective resources on resisting the Japanese Empire. Peng was the senior commander in the combined Kuomintang-Communist efforts to resist the Japanese occupation of Shanxi in 1937; and, by 1938, was in command of two-thirds of the Eighth Route Army. In 1940, Peng conducted the Hundred Regiments Offensive, a massive Communist effort to disrupt Japanese logistical networks across northern China. The Hundred Regiments Offensive was modestly successful, but political disputes within the Communist Party led to Peng being recalled to Yan'an, and he spent the rest of the war without an active command. After the Japanese surrendered, in 1945, Peng was given command of Communist forces in Northwest China. He was the most senior commander responsible for defending the Communist leadership in Shaanxi from Kuomintang forces, saving Mao from being captured at least once. Peng eventually defeated the Kuomintang in Northwest China, captured huge amounts of military supplies, and actively incorporated the huge area, including Xinjiang, into the People's Republic of China.


title: Peng Dehuai

text: Peng was one of the few senior military leaders who supported Mao's suggestions to involve China directly in the 1950–1953 Korean War, and he served as the direct commander of the Chinese People's Volunteer Army for the first half of the war (though Mao and Zhou Enlai were technically more senior). Peng's experiences in the Korean War convinced him that the Chinese military had to become more professional, organized, and well-equipped in order to prepare itself for the conditions of modern technical warfare. Because the Soviet Union was the only communist country then equipped with a fully modern, professional army, Peng attempted to reform China's military on the Soviet model over the next several years, making the army less political and more professional (contrary to the political goals of Mao). Peng resisted Mao's attempts to develop a personality cult throughout the 1950s; and, when Mao's economic policies associated with the Great Leap Forward caused a nationwide famine, Peng became critical of Mao's leadership. The rivalry between Peng and Mao culminated in an open confrontation between the two at the 1959 Lushan Conference. Mao won this confrontation, labeled Peng as a leader of an "anti-Party clique", and purged Peng from all influential positions for the rest of his life.


title: Peng Dehuai

text: Peng lived in virtual obscurity until 1965, when the reformers Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping supported Peng's limited return to government, developing military industries in Southwest China. In 1966, following the advent of the Cultural Revolution, Peng was arrested by Red Guards. From 1966–1970, radical factions within the Communist Party, led by Lin Biao and Mao's wife, Jiang Qing, singled out Peng for national persecution, and Peng was publicly humiliated in numerous large-scale struggle sessions and subjected to physical and psychological torture in organized efforts to force Peng to confess his "crimes" against Mao Zedong and the Communist Party. In 1970, Peng was formally tried and sentenced to life imprisonment, and he died in prison in 1974. After Mao died in 1976, Peng's old ally, Deng Xiaoping, emerged as China's paramount leader. Deng led an effort to formally rehabilitate people who had been unjustly persecuted during the Cultural Revolution, and Peng was one of the first leaders to be posthumously rehabilitated, in 1978. In modern China, Peng is considered one of the most successful and highly respected generals in the history of the Chinese Communist Party.


title: Peng Dehuai

text: Peng was born on October 24, 1898, in the village of Shixiang, Xiangtan County, Hunan. His birth name was ""Peng Dehua"". Peng's family lived in a thatched-straw hut and owned approximately 1.5 acres of irrigated land on which the family grew bamboo, sweet potatoes, tea, cotton, and various vegetables. His father also operated a bean curd shop. The income from the land and shop supported an extended family of eight people, including Peng, his three brothers, his parents, his grandmother, and a grand-uncle. Peng's grand-uncle had joined and fought for the Taiping rebellion and used to tell Peng about the old Taiping ideals: everyone should have enough food to eat, women should not bind their feet, and land should be redistributed equally. Peng later described his own class background as "lower-middle peasant."


title: Peng Dehuai

text: From 1905 to 1907, Peng was enrolled in a traditional Confucian primary school. In 1908, Peng attended a modern primary school but at the age of ten was forced to withdraw from this school because of his family's deteriorating financial situation. In 1905 to 1906, there was a severe drought in Hunan. Peng's mother died in 1905, and Peng's six-month-old brother died of hunger. Peng's father was forced to sell most of his family possessions for food and to pawn most of his family's land. When Peng was withdrawn from school in 1908, he and his brothers were sent to beg for food in their village. From 1908 to 1910, Peng took work on looking after a pair of water buffaloes.


title: Peng Dehuai

text: When Peng's grand-uncle died in 1911, Peng left home and worked at a coalmine in Xiangtan, where he pushed carts of coal for a wage of nine yuan a month. In 1912, shortly after the founding of the Republic of China, the mine went bankrupt and the owners fled, which cheated Peng out of half his annual wages. Peng returned home in 1912 and took a number of odd jobs. In 1913, Hunan suffered another drought and famine, and Peng participated in a public demonstration that escalated into the seizure of a grain merchant's storehouse and the redistribution of grain among the peasants. Village police issued a warrant for Peng's arrest, and he fled to northern Hunan, where he worked for two years as a construction laborer for the construction of a dam near Dongting Lake. When the dam was completed in 1916, Peng assumed that he was no longer in danger of being arrested and returned home and joined the army of a local Kuomintang-aligned warlord, Tang Xiangming.


title: Peng Dehuai

text: Peng enlisted as a private second class soldier, with a monthly wage of 5.5 yuan, 2 yuan of which he sent back to support his family. Within seven months, he was promoted to private first class, with a monthly wage of 6 yuan, 3 yuan of which he sent to his family. One of Peng's commanding officers was an idealistic Nationalist who had participated in the 1911 Xinhai Revolution and influenced Peng to sympathize with the Kuomintang's goals of social reform and national reunification. After another civil war broke out in 1917, Peng's regiment split from the rest of its army and joined the forces of Tang Shengzhi, who was aligned with Tan Yankai and Sun Yat-sen against those aligned with the northern warlord Wu Peifu. Peng received training in formal tactics from an officer in his brigade. In July 1918, Peng was captured on a reconnaissance mission behind enemy lines, but he was released after two weeks. In April 1919, Peng was promoted to master sergeant and acting platoon commander. Tang Shengzhi's forces drove enemy troops out of Hunan in July 1920 and captured the provincial capital of Changsha.


title: Peng Dehuai

text: Peng participated in a failed mutiny over pay but was pardoned. In August 1921, Peng was promoted to the rank of second lieutenant and became acting company commander several weeks later. Stationed in a village in Nanxian, Peng noticed that the poor were being mistreated by a local landlord, and he encouraged them to establish an "association to help the poor." When the local villagers hesitated, Peng ordered his soldiers to arrest the landlord and execute him. Peng was reprimanded for his actions but not demoted or reassigned. After that incident, Peng began to consider seriously leaving the service of his provincial warlord army. In February 1922, after applying for extended unpaid leave, Peng and several other officers traveled to Guangdong to seek employment in the army of the Kuomintang.


title: Peng Dehuai

text: Peng's impression of the Kuomintang in 1922 was not favorable, and he left Guangzhou with the intention of settling back in Hunan as a farmer. Peng returned to his home village by sea via Shanghai, the farthest that he had ever been from his home village, and farmed with his father for three months on land that his father had bought with money sent home by Peng, but Peng did not find that occupation to be satisfying.


title: Peng Dehuai

text: After one of Peng's old comrades had suggested that Peng apply to the local Hunan Military Academy to seek employment as a formally-trained professional officer, Peng accepted. Peng successfully gained admission in August 1922 and used the personal name "Dehuai" for the first time. In August 1923, after nine months of training, Peng graduated from the academy and rejoined his old regiment with the rank of captain. He was promoted to acting battalion commander in April 1924.


title: Peng Dehuai

text: In 1924, Tang Shengzhi aligned himself with northern warlords against the warlord controlling Guangdong, who was aligned with the Kuomintang. Peng conducted skirmishes along the Hunan-Guangdong border for nine months, but reorganized his battalion along pro-Kuomintang political lines in 1925. In late 1925, Chiang Kai-shek established the National Revolutionary Army (NRA) and led the Kuomintang to take control of Guangdong. Tang then aligned himself with Chiang and joined him in the Northern Expedition, an effort to unify China by defeating the northern warlords. The Hunanese army was reorganized, and Peng was promoted to the rank of major. When Wu Peifu invaded Hunan and occupied Changsha, Chiang sent the NRA to Hunan and began the Northern Expedition. Peng's forces then joined the Kuomintang, but Peng never joined it as a formal member. It was only after Peng joined the Kuomintang, in 1925, that he first heard of the Communist Party.


title: Peng Dehuai

text: Between July 1926 and March 1927, Peng campaigned in Hunan, participating in the capture of Changsha and Wuhan. Under General He Jian, Peng participated in the Battle of Fengtai in which Kuomintang forces decisively defeated the warlord Wu Peifu. In 1927, Wang Jingwei attempted to establish a left-leaning Kuomintang government in Wuhan that threatened Chiang Kai-shek's leadership. Tang Shengzhi, who Peng served under, aligned himself with Wang, and Peng was promoted to lieutenant-colonel and regimental commander. After Tang's forces had bern decisively defeated by Chiang, Peng commanded the rear guard and protected the retreat of Tang's forces into Hunan.


title: Peng Dehuai

text: In 1927, Peng was approached several times by Communist Party members, some of which were old friends, who attempted to recruit him into the party. In August 1927, Peng was approached by an old military comrade, : he was sympathetic but could not decide on joining the party. On October 12, Peng was approached by Duan Dechang, a party representative: Peng again expressed sympathy and interest but still considered himself a member of the "Kuomintang left wing" and could not yet bring himself to break with the party. Peng considered joining the Communist Party for some time, met Duan again later that October, and began to study basic communist theory. Peng secretly joined the Chinese Communist Party in mid-February 1928.


title: Peng Dehuai

text: In February 1928, Peng joined general Ho Chien when Ho defected back to Chiang's forces and gained a promotion to full colonel after rejoining Chiang. After rejoining Chiang's Nanking government, Peng was stationed in the mountainous Pingjiang County, northwest of Changsha. His orders were to eliminate local groups of communist guerrillas who had fled to the area following the Shanghai massacre of 1927. Because Peng had secretly joined the Communist Party, he kept his unit passive and began to organize local party branches. Peng made contact with local communist guerrillas, who were nominally attached to the forces of Mao Zedong and Zhu De, and decided to issue a pronouncement for the communists on July 18, 1928.


title: Peng Dehuai

text: On July 22, 1928 Peng's forces of approximately 2000 men occupied Pingjiang County and arrested and executed the county magistrate and over 100 landlords and local militia commanders. On July 23, Peng declared the establishment of the "Hunan Provincial Soviet Government" and formally aligned himself with Mao and Zhu. On July 29 Peng's former superior, General Ho Chien, attacked Peng's forces and inflicted heavy casualties. By September, Peng's forces were driven into the mountains, and by October, only several hundred men had remained. Peng abandoned his bases and left to join Mao and Zhu at their base in the Jinggang Mountains. Peng's forces successfully joined Mao and Zhu in November 1928. Some of Peng's subordinates in the rebellion survived and became important military figures themselves, including generals Huang Kecheng and Peng Shaohui.


title: Peng Dehuai

text: After joining forces with communist guerrillas, one of Peng's first actions was to save Mao, whose forces were being encircled by Kuomintang units. Peng broke the encirclement and drove the enemy off. Peng then met with Zhu and Mao, and they reorganized their forces and decided to form a base area around the Ruijin, Jiangxi, an agricultural city that was defended only by weak warlord units. Zhu and Mao occupied the area, which informally began the Jiangxi Soviet in January 1929.


title: Peng Dehuai

text: Peng remained behind to guard Jinggangshan with a force of 800 soldiers but withdrew from the area after an attack by a Hunanese Kuomintang force of 25,000 soldiers. He joined Zhu and Mao in Ruijin in March. Although he had saved his force from destruction, he was criticized by Mao for withdrawing. Peng returned to Jinggangshan with a force of 1,000 men later that year and occupied the area after the Kuomintang withdrew. In mid-1929, Peng's forces merged with the forces of two local bandit groups, but conflicts arose over supplies and the command structure, and both groups rebelled against Peng in July 1929. One of the bandit leaders was captured and executed by Peng, and the other committed suicide. The remaining forces were incorporated into Peng's unit and brought its strength up to 2,000 men. Peng then organized a series of increasingly-ambitious raids into southern Hunan throughout 1929 and 1930, captured an increasing amount of supplies, and attracted more recruits.


title: Peng Dehuai

text: On July 13, 1930, the "de facto" leader of the Chinese Communist Party, Li Lisan, issued a general order for communist units around China to "conquer one provincial capital" as a signal for a "nationwide revolutionary storm." Peng took those general orders seriously and launched an attack on Hunan's capital, Changsha, on July 25 with 17,000 soldiers under his command and with the support of another 10,000 guerillas. Changsha was then defended by general Ho Chien, Peng's former superior. Peng's forces broke through the Kuomintang lines on July 28 and occupied Changsha proper on July 30, which Ho hastily evacuated. On August 1, Peng declared the establishment of a "Hunan Provincial Soviet Government," with Li Lisan, who lived in the French concession area in Shanghai, named chairman and Peng himself as vice-chairman. On August 5, Ho counterattacked with a force of 35,000 men. Peng suffered 7,500 casualties, and was forced to withdraw to Jinggangshan. On September 1, Peng again attempted to capture Changsha, but the attack was halted on the outskirts of the city with heavy casualties. Mao and Zhu kept their own forces from assisting Peng during his attempts to take Changsha, and Peng withdrew his forces into the Jiangxi Soviet in late 1930.


title: Peng Dehuai

text: Peng was one of the most important generals active in defending the Jiangxi Soviet by taking a leading role in defeating Chiang Kai-shek's first three Encirclement Campaigns from December 1930 to May 1931. His successes were outmatched only by Lin Biao. On November 7, Peng was named to the Central Military Commission and to the Central Executive Committee of the Jiangxi Soviet, the first time that he had been named to a position of political leadership in the communist movement. After the consolidation of the Jiangxi Soviet, a number of Soviet-trained Communist Party leaders arrived and took power in the Soviet. Peng, like most other communist military leaders, supported their leadership until the Jiangxi Soviet was eventually overrun. In August 1933, Peng was named Vice-Chairman of the Central Military Commission, and in January 1934, Peng was appointed as an alternate member to the Sixth CCP Central Committee. Peng continued the defense of the Jiangxi Soviet throughout the early 1930s. In August 1933, after the indecisive Fourth Encirclement Campaign, Peng broke through Kuomintang defenses, conquered a large area of western Fujian, and captured great quantities of arms and ammunition.


title: Peng Dehuai

text: In October 1933 Chiang Kai-shek took command of nearly 800,000 soldiers and led the Fifth Encirclement Campaign against the Red Army's force of 150,000 men. By September 1934, the Fifth Encirclement Campaign had been largely successful, and Peng's own units suffered heavy casualties defending the soviet and shrank from 35,000 to around 20,000 men. On October 20, 1934, the communists broke out of Chiang's encirclement and began the Long March. Of the 18,000 men under Peng's command when the March began, only about 3,000 remained when Peng's forces reached their eventual destination in Shaanxi on October 20, 1935.


title: Peng Dehuai

text: Peng was a strong supporter of Mao's rise to power during the January 1935 Zunyi Conference. Peng continued to consolidate the communists' base area after arriving in Shaanxi by campaigning in neighboring Shanxi and Gansu. In April 1937, Peng was named vice commander-in-chief of all Chinese communist forces, outranked only by Zhu De, who was named commander-in-chief. Peng's promotion was supported by Lin Biao, who had been actively supporting Peng for promotions to senior leadership as early as May 1934. In early 1935, Lin responded to widespread discontent within the Red Army over Mao's evasive tactics, which it perceived as unnecessarily exhausting, by publicly proposing for Peng to take overall command of the Red Army, but Mao, who had recently been promoted to the position, attacked Peng and Lin for challenging him and successfully retained his position.


title: Peng Dehuai

text: In October 1935, following the last major battle between the Kuomintang and the Red Army, Mao wrote and dedicated a poem to Peng. (The poem was not published until 1947.)


title: Peng Dehuai

text: In 1936, the American journalist Edgar Snow stayed for several days at Peng's compound in Yuwang while Peng was campaigning in Ningxia. Snow had long conversations with him and wrote two whole chapters about Peng in his book "Red Star Over China". He wrote more about Peng than any other individual, except for Mao.


title: Peng Dehuai

text: After the 1937 Marco Polo Bridge Incident, China and Japan went to war. When the Kuomintang and communists declared a united front to fight the Japanese, Peng was confirmed as a general in the unified command structure of the NRA. At the August 20, 1937 Luochuan Conference (), Mao believed that the united front should be used as a feint by giving token resistance to the Japanese but saving the strength of the Red Army for the eventual confrontation with the Kuomintang. However, Peng, along with most other senior military and political leaders, disagreed and believed that the Red Army should genuinely focus on fighting the Japanese. Mao was not able to force his position, and the communists co-operated with the Kuomintang and fought the Japanese.


title: Peng Dehuai

text: When the Japanese invaded Shanxi, the Red Army (renamed the Eighth Route Army) assisted the Kuomintang warlord, Yan Xishan, in resisting the Japanese, and Peng traveled to the provincial capital, Taiyuan, with Zhou Enlai to co-ordinate tactics. After the Japanese advanced towards Taiyuan on September 13, 1937, Peng directed overall operations from a base in Wutaishan but was called from duty to attend a Politburo meeting on December 13. At the meeting, Peng advocated a greater material commitment to the defense of Shanxi, but Mao disagreed and wanted the Red Army to reduce its commitment to fighting the Japanese. In 1938, after Mao's rival, Zhang Guotao, defected to the Kuomintang, Peng moved closer to Mao's position. In late 1938, Peng set up a base in Taihangshan, on the borders of Shanxi and Hebei, and directed guerrilla operations in both provinces. From Taihangshan, Peng commanded two thirds of the Eighth Route Army, approximately 100,000 soldiers.


title: Peng Dehuai

text: In July 1940, Peng was given overall command of the largest communist operation of the anti-Japanese war, the Hundred Regiments Offensive, when 200,000 regular troops from the Eighth Route Army participated in the operation and were supported by 200,000 irregular communist guerrillas. From August 20 to October 5, 1940, communist forces destroyed large numbers of bridges, tunnels, and railroad tracks in Japanese-occupied China and inflicted relatively heavy Japanese casualties. From October 6 to December 5, the Japanese counterattacked, and the communists mostly repelled the counterattack successfully. Peng's operation was successful in disrupting Japanese communication lines and logistics networks, which were not fully restored until 1942, but the communists suffered heavy losses, In communist sources, the Japanese casualties have two figures, one of which is 20,645 and the other 12,645. Foreign sources give figures of 20,900. In early 1941, the Japanese began a large-scale effort to drive Peng from his base in Taihangshan, and Peng relocated closer to the communist base in Yan'an in late 1941.


title: Peng Dehuai

text: After being recalled to Yan'an, Peng was subjected to a political indoctrination campaign in which he was criticized as an "empiricist" for his good relations with the Comintern and survived professionally only through an unconditional conversion to Mao's leadership. Mao ordered Peng to be criticized for 40 days for the "failings" of the Hundred Regiments Campaign (even though Mao had supported it and later praised its successes). Peng was not allowed to reply and was forced to make a self-criticism. Privately, Peng resented Mao's criticism of him, and in 1959 once told Mao: "At Yan'an, you fucked my mother for forty days."


title: Peng Dehuai

text: From 1942 to 1945, Peng's role in the war was mostly political, and he supported Mao very closely. In June 1944, Peng was part of a team that held conferences with American military personnel who visited Yan'an as part of the Dixie Mission, briefing the Americans about the military situation in Japanese-occupied China.


title: Peng Dehuai

text: The Japanese surrendered on September 2, 1945, ending China's war with Japan and beginning the final stage of the Chinese Civil War. In October Peng took command of troops in northern China, occupied Inner Mongolia, and accepted the surrender of Japanese soldiers there. In March 1946, communist forces (1.1 million soldiers) were renamed the "People's Liberation Army." Peng himself was placed in command of 175,000 soldiers, organized as the "Northwest Field Army," most of which had been under the command of He Long during the war against Japan. He then became Peng's second-in-command. Peng's notable subordinates in the Northwest Field Army included Zhang Zongxun and Wang Zhen.


title: Peng Dehuai

text: Peng's forces were the most poorly armed of the newly re-organized army but were responsible for the area around the communist capital, Yan'an. In March 1947, Kuomintang General Hu Zongnan, invaded the area with 260,000 soldiers. Hu's forces were among the best-trained and most well-supplied Nationalist units, but one of Zhou Enlai's spies was able to provide Peng with information about Hu's strategic plans, his forces' troop distributions, strength, and positions, and details about the air cover available to Hu. Peng was forced to abandon Yan'an in late March but resisted Hu's forces long enough for Mao and other senior party leaders to evacuate safely. Mao wanted Peng to provoke a decisive confrontation with Hu immediately, but Peng dissuaded him. By April, Mao agreed that Peng's objective was to "keep the enemy on the run... tire him out completely, reduce his food supplies, and then look for an opportunity to destroy him."


title: Peng Dehuai

text: On May 4 Peng's forces attacked an isolated supply depot in northeastern Shaanxi, arrested its commander, and captured food reserves, 40,000 army uniforms, and a collection of arms that included over a million pieces of artillery. Peng's forces were pushed back to the border of Inner Mongolia but finally managed to decisively defeat Hu's forces in August, in the Battle of Shajiadian(沙家店战役), which saved Mao and other members from the Central Committee from being taken prisoner. Peng eventually pushed Kuomintang forces out of Shaanxi in February 1948.


title: Peng Dehuai

text: Between 1947 and September 22, 1949, Peng's forces occupied Gansu, Ningxia, and Qinghai. His forces repeatedly defeated but could not destroy the forces of Hu Zongnan and Ma Bufang, which retreated into Sichuan and were airlifted to Taiwan when the Kuomintang lost the Civil War in December 1949. In October Peng's forces, led directly by Wang Zhen, invaded Xinjiang. Most of Xinjiang's defenders surrendered peacefully and were incorporated as a new unit in Peng's army, but some ethnic guerrilla bands resisted Chinese control for several years. After the People's Republic of China was declared on October 1, 1949, Peng was appointed Chairman of the Northwest China Military and Administrative Commission and Commander-in-Chief and Political Commissar of Xinjiang, with Wang Zhen as his deputy. That appointment gave Peng responsibility over Shaanxi, Gansu, Ningxia, Qinghai, and Xinjiang, an area of over 5 million square kilometres (1.9 million square miles) but under 30 million people. Peng's forces continued their gradual occupation of Xinjiang, which they completed in September 1951.


title: Peng Dehuai

text: North Korea invaded South Korea on June 25, 1950. After receiving its endorsement from the United Nations, the United States landed its first troops in Korea on September 15. On October 1, the first anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic, UN forces crossed the 38th parallel into North Korea. There was some disagreement within China's leadership about how to react to the American push to the Chinese border. Mao and Zhou wanted direct military intervention, but most other Chinese leaders believed that China should not enter the war unless it was directly attacked. Lin Biao was Mao's first choice to lead the Chinese People's Volunteer Army (PVA) into Korea, but Lin refused, citing his bad health.


title: Peng Dehuai

text: Mao then sought the support of Peng, who had not yet taken a strong position, to lead the PVA. Peng flew to Beijing from Xi'an (where he was still administering northwest China and directing the incorporation of Xinjiang into the PRC), and arrived on October 4. Peng listened to both sides of the debate and on October 5 decided to support Mao. Peng's support for Mao's position changed the atmosphere of the meeting, and most other leaders changed their positions to support a direct Chinese intervention in the Korean War. On October 5, Peng was named the Commander and the Commissar of the People's Volunteer Army and held both titles until the in 1953. Mao directed China's general strategy, and Zhou was appointed general commander and co-ordinating Peng's forces with the Soviet and North Korean governments and the rest of the Chinese government. Over the next week, Peng established a headquarters in Shenyang, and prepared his invasion strategy with his officers.


title: Peng Dehuai

text: After Zhou and Lin had negotiated Stalin's approval, Peng attended a conference in Beijing with Mao, Zhou, and Gao Gang on October 18, and they ordered the first wave of Chinese soldiers, in total more than 260,000 men, to cross into Korea on the night of October 19. On October 25, the PVA had its first confrontation with UN troops at Onjong and Unsan, and pushed the UN forces south of the Chongchon River by November 4 in the aftermath of First Phase Campaign. From November 24 to December 24, Peng directed 380,000 PVA troops to confront UN forces in the Second Phase Campaign, and he successfully recovered the area north of the 38th parallel. However, on his watch, Mao's son Anying was killed in an air raid. Despite his personal reservations, Peng then began an ambitious campaign to take the area south of the 38th parallel to fulfill Mao's political objectives for the war. About 230,000 Chinese soldiers crossed into South Korean territory on December 31 and captured Seoul as part of the Third Phase Campaign but were forced to evacuate it with heavy losses on March 14, 1951 as the UN forces counterattacked during the course of Fourth Phase Campaign. Peng launched a final Fifth Phase Campaign from April 22 to June 10 to retake Seoul with 548,000 Chinese troops, but it failed, and the Korean War came to a standstill just north the 38th parallel. In the evaluation of US Army's official Korean War historian Roy Edgar Appleman, Peng's performances in the war were unremarkable in terms of military talents despite his aggressiveness and leadership skills. During the Cultural Revolution, Red Guards claimed that Peng's successful campaigns, from October to December 1950, were fought under Mao's direction but that his unsuccessful campaigns, from January to May 1951, were organized by Peng against Mao's instructions. Modern scholars reject that interpretation and credit Peng with both the successes and the failures of the war.


title: Peng Dehuai

text: PVA casualties during the first 12 months of the Korean War, from October 1950 to October 1951, were heavy. Soviet material support was slight, and because the only available means to transport supplies into Korea for the first year of the war was a force of 700,000 labourers, all available supplies were light and limited. The UN forces also had complete air superiority. The logistic constraints later caused 45,000 Chinese soldiers to freeze to death between November 27 and December 12, 1950 because of inadequate winter clothing. China's insufficient artillery, armor, and air support meant that Peng was forced to rely heavily on human wave tactics until the summer of 1951. Stealthy fireteams attacked in column against weak points in enemy defenses in the hope that surprise, attrition, and perseverance would break the enemy lines. Participants even drank large quantities of Kaoliang wine to improve their courage. Some of the worst Chinese battle losses occurred during the Second and the Fifth Phase Campaign. Up to 40% of all Chinese forces in Korea were rendered combat ineffective between November 25 and December 24, 1950, and about 12 Chinese divisions were lost in from April 22 to June 10, 1951. All in all, over a million Chinese soldiers became casualties during the course of the war. Peng justified the PVA's high casualty rate by his almost religious belief in communism and the party and his belief that the ends of the conflict justified the means. Some accounts even claimed that Peng invented the human wave tactic under the name "short attack" to exploit his manpower advantage.


title: Peng Dehuai

text: On November 19, 1951, Zhou called a conference in Shenyang to discuss improvements to China's logistical network, but they did little to resolve China's supply problems directly. Peng visited Beijing several times over the next several months to brief Mao and Zhou about the heavy casualties suffered by Chinese troops and the increasing difficulty of keeping the front lines supplied with basic necessities. By the winter of 1951–1952, Peng became convinced that the war would be protracted and that neither side would be able for achieve victory in the foreseeable future. On February 24, 1952, the Central Military Commission, presided over by Zhou, discussed the PVA's logistical problems with members of various government agencies involved in the war effort. After the government representatives emphasized their inability to meet the demands of the war, Peng, in an angry outburst, shouted, "You have this and that problem... You should go to the front and see with your own eyes what food and clothing the soldiers have! Not to speak of the casualties! For what are they giving their lives? We have no aircraft. We have only a few guns. Transports are not protected. More and more soldiers are dying of starvation. Can't you overcome some of your difficulties?" The atmosphere became so tense that Zhou was forced to adjourn the conference. He later called a series of meetings, and it was agreed that the PVA would be divided into three groups to be dispatched to Korea in shifts, to accelerate the training of Chinese pilots, to provide more anti-aircraft guns to the front lines, to purchase more military equipment and ammunition from the Soviet Union, to provide the army with more food and clothing, and to transfer the responsibility of logistics to the central government. Peng also became a zealous supporter of the Three-anti Campaign because of his belief that corruption and waste were the main causes of the PVA's hardship.


title: Peng Dehuai

text: Truce talks began on July 10, 1951 but proceeded slowly. Peng was recalled to China in April 1952 for a head tumor, and Chen Geng and Deng Hua later assumed Peng's responsibilities in the PVA.


title: Peng Dehuai

text: On July 27, 1953, Peng personally signed the armistice agreement in Panmunjom. At a mass rally in Pyongyang on July 31, Kim Il Sung awarded Peng his second North Korean "National Flag" Order of Merit, First Class (the first had been awarded to Peng in 1951) and awarded Peng the title of "Hero of the Korean Democratic People's Republic." Peng also received a hero's welcome in Tiananmen Square on August 11. Chinese troops remained in North Korea until 1958.


title: Peng Dehuai

text: Peng's experiences in the Korean War strongly affected his outlook over the next decade. The heavy losses sustained during the first year of the war convinced him that the Chinese Army needed to change by introducing modern equipment and standards of professionalism and by developing new tactics more suited to modern conventional warfare. He came to believe strongly that military training should never be reduced for of political indoctrination and that military commanders should enjoy seniority over commissars. Because the only communist country fully prepared for modern technical warfare was the Soviet Union, Peng grew to see the Red Army as a model for the development of China's PLA. Those perspectives and Peng's long-held conviction that the primary role of the Communist Party was to improve the welfare of the common people were contrary to Mao's political goals and so contributed to their eventual conflict in the late 1950s. Stalin once arbitrated in favor of Peng in a conflict with a Soviet diplomat by saying, "Trust him in everything; Peng is a long-tested, talented militarist."


title: Peng Dehuai

text: After being recalled to China in April 1952, Peng succeeded Zhou in managing the day-to-day affairs of the Central Military Commission in July 1952. In the spring of 1954, Peng was confirmed as the vice-chairman of the Commission (Mao was its chairman) and became effectively the most senior military leader in China. On September 24, 1954, the First National People's Congress confirmed Peng's position and appointed him Defense Minister and one of the ten vice-ministers of the State Council. Lin Biao was senior to Peng on the State Council. Soon after accepting those appointments, on October 1, 1954, Peng produced an ambitious plan for the modernization of the PLA on the model of the Soviet military.


title: Peng Dehuai

text: Peng had been an alternate member of the Central Committee since 1934, a full member since 1938, and a member of the Politburo since 1945, but it was not until he became the leader of the PLA and moved permanently to Beijing in November 1953 that he could attend regular political meetings and became active in domestic politics. Peng had been loyal to Mao's leadership since the 1935 Zunyi Conference and continued to support Mao for several years after he had moved to Beijing. Peng, like Lin Biao, was implicated in passively supporting Gao Gang's effort to replace Liu Shaoqi as the second most powerful person in China in 1953 but then opposed Gao in 1954 once Mao had made his own opposition clear. Mao did not take any action against Peng or Lin, but Peng's involvement alienated Peng from Liu and Liu's supporters.


title: Peng Dehuai

text: In 1955, Peng supported Mao's efforts to collectivize agriculture. Along with Liu Shaoqi, Zhu De, Lin Biao, Lin Boqu, and Luo Ronghuan, Peng opposed Mao's attempt to liberalize China's culture and politics in the first stages of the 1957 Hundred Flowers Campaign but then supported Mao's efforts to arrest and persecute Chinese citizens who had criticized the CCP later that year.


title: Peng Dehuai

text: During the late 1950s, Peng developed a personal dislike for Mao's efforts to promote his own image in Chinese popular culture as a perfect hero singularly responsible for the communist victories of his time. In 1955 to 1956, Peng was involved in a large number of efforts to moderate Mao's popular image by developing it into a personal campaign. Peng's preference for modesty and simplicity led Peng to oppose Mao's efforts to develop his personality cult. In 1955, a draft copy of a book, "The Military History of the PVA", was submitted to Peng so that he could edit and authorize it. The preface of the book stated that "the military victories of the PVA" were won "under the correct leadership of the CCP and of Comrade Mao Zedong." Peng authorized the text after he had removed "and of Comrade Mao Zedong." In 1956, an anonymous Chinese citizen wrote a letter to Peng to condemn the practices of hanging portraits of Mao in public places and singing songs in praise of Mao. Peng sent this letter to Huang Kecheng, his chief of staff, to be widely distributed. Peng successfully opposed efforts to place a bronze statue of Mao in the Beijing Military Museum by saying, "Why take the trouble to put it up? What is put up now will be removed in the future." When greeted by a group of soldiers who shouted, "Long Live Chairman Mao!" (literally "10,000 years for Chairman Mao"), Peng addressed the soldiers by saying, "You shout '10,000 years for Chairman Mao!' – does he, then, live for 10,000 years? He will not even live for 100 years! This is a personality cult!" When one of Peng's political commissars suggested that the Maoist hymn "The East is Red" should be widely taught throughout the PLA, Peng angrily rejected the suggestion, similarly by saying, "That is a personality cult! That is idealism!" Later in 1956, a group of soldiers visited Peng to request an audience with the Chairman, but Peng rejected them by saying, "He is an old man, what is so beautiful about him?"


title: Peng Dehuai

text: In preparation for the Eighth National Congress, held in September 1956, Peng attended a Politburo committee to redraft the new Party Constitution. At the meeting, Peng suggested for a section in the Constitution's preamble referring to Mao Zedong Thought to be removed. Liu Shaoqi, Deng Xiaoping, Peng Zhen, and most other senior CCP members present quickly agreed, and it was removed from the final version of the 1956 Party Constitution. At the Congress, Peng was reappointed to the Politburo and as a full member of the Central Committee.


title: Peng Dehuai

text: Peng resented Mao's personal lifestyle, which Peng considered decadent and luxurious. By the late 1950s, Mao had developed a lifestyle that was out of touch with Peng's preference for modesty and simplicity. Mao enjoyed a private pool in Zhongnanhai and had many villas around China built for him, which he would travel to on a private train. Mao enjoyed the companionship of an ever-changing succession of enthusiastic young women, whom he met either at weekly dances in Zhongnanhai or on his journeys by train. Mao had a costly office suite built for him in Beijing, including a private, book-lined study. When Peng's wife suggested for the couple to spend more free time visiting Mao's quarters, Peng was reluctant and stated that Mao's surroundings were "too luxuriously furnished" for him to tolerate. Throughout the 1950s, Peng continued to refer to the Chairman as "Old Mao," an egalitarian title that was used among senior CCP leaders in the 1930s and 1940s.


title: Peng Dehuai

text: Peng staged his first offensive after becoming Defense Minister in January 1955 by attacking and occupying a chain of islands, part of Zhejiang, which were still held by the Kuomintang from which it occasionally staged guerrilla raids as far as Shanghai. That operation led the United States to form a defense agreement with Taiwan, which effectively prevented the communists from completely defeating the Kuomintang.


title: Peng Dehuai

text: Peng participated in a number of foreign trips throughout the communist world after he had become Defense Minister, the first time that he had traveled outside of China and North Korea. In May 1955 Peng visited East Germany, Poland, and the Soviet Union and met with Wilhelm Pieck, Józef Cyrankiewicz, Nikita Khrushchev and Soviet Marshals Konstantin Rokossovsky and Georgy Zhukov. In September 1955, Peng traveled to Poland and the Soviet Union to attend the signing of the Warsaw Pact as an observer. From November 2 to December 3, 1957, Peng accompanied Mao on his second visit to the Soviet Union. From April 24 to June 13, 1959 Peng went on a "military goodwill tour" across the communist world and visited Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, the Soviet Union, and Mongolia.


title: Peng Dehuai

text: After Peng had returned from his first tour abroad in September 1955, he began to implement his "Four Great Systems" seriously: the implementation of standardized military ranks, salaries, awards, and rules of conscription. On September 23, 1955, the State Council named Peng one of the ten marshals of the PLA, China's highest military rank. (Before 1955, Chinese soldiers were assigned "functions" instead of ranks, such as "company commander", or "division commander"). PLA leaders were promoted into Peng's new system of military ranks and were awarded new orders of merit. Peng himself was awarded the First Class Medal of the Order of August 1 (for his achievements in the Chinese Civil War from 1927 to 1937), the First Class Medal of the Order of Independence and Freedom (for his achievements in the Sino-Japanese War), and the First Class Medal of the Order of Liberation (for his achievements in the Chinese Civil War from 1945 to 1949). Peng introduced military insignia for the first time and issued military uniforms modeled on those worn by Soviet soldiers. On January 1, 1956, Peng replaced conscription with voluntary service and standardized career soldiers' salaries on eighteen grades from private second class to marshal. In May 1956, Peng introduced a clear prioritization of rank favoring commanders over political commissars. By September 1956, Peng's doctrines of professionalism, strict training, discipline, and the mastery of modern equipment were entrenched within the structure of the PLA.


title: Peng Dehuai

text: Mao opposed all of those initiatives but at first focused his dissatisfaction on other marshals, Liu Bocheng and Luo Ronghuan, whom Mao accused of "dogmatism" (uncritically assimilating methods borrowed from the Soviet Union). In 1958, Mao convinced Peng of the need to maintain a balance between military professionalism and political indoctrination, and Peng co-operated in removing Liu and Luo from high positions. Peng's removal of Liu especially cost Peng the support of many other military leaders, and Mao used Liu's resulting criticism of Peng to criticize Peng before other senior Chinese leaders the next year, when Mao then sought to remove Peng.


title: Peng Dehuai

text: Peng was still in command of China's armed forces when Mao ordered the shelling of Kinmen (Quemoy) and Matsu, islands off the coast of Fujian that were still held by the Kuomintang, in the late summer and autumn of 1958. Peng developed a strategy with his chief of staff, Su Yu, to bombard the islands so intensely that the morale of their defenders would collapse, which would eventually lead to the islands' surrender. Then, the PLA would then use the islands to launch attacks against Taiwan. The saturated shelling of the islands included over half the artillery in China and began on August 28. The attack included a co-ordinated effort to cut off the islands' air and sea supply lines.


title: Peng Dehuai

text: The campaign ran into unexpected difficulties and did not achieve its objectives. The Soviets did not give explicit support to the operation, and the United States provided air and sea cover to Kuomintang supply ships up to within three miles of the Chinese coast. Kuomintang fighter jets shot down 37 PRC fighters but only lost only 3 themselves, and Nationalist artillery and naval bombardments destroyed 25 PRC ships. Peng had quietly opposed the operation from the beginning and gradually began to end hostilities after the PLA had encountered serious difficulties by announcing a series of intermittent ceasefires and eventually halting the campaign in late October. Su Yu was blamed for the disaster and replaced with another ally of Peng, General Huang Kecheng. Peng's position was not directly affected, but his personal prestige suffered, and the practical effects of his efforts to modernize China's armed forces were called into question within the PLA. Su was accused of directing the aborted attack on Matzu and withdrawing troops from North Korea without authorization, and of secretly taking orders from the Soviets. The conflict between Su and Peng lingered throughout Peng's life, and Su was not rehabilitated until after his death.


title: Peng Dehuai

text: In the autumn of 1957 Mao suggested a nationwide programme of mass collectivization, in which China's farmers would be forcibly relocated to large agricultural communes and all private property would be eliminated. Mao's theories on mass collectivization became the basis of the Great Leap Forward, a national economic plan that began in 1958 which caused a man-made famine across the country that lasted for several years. By 1959, tens of millions of people had starved to death. From October–December 1958, the economic system in the countryside broke down as farmers refused to go to work in the fields, raided government granaries for food, and in Guangdong, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Sichuan, and Qinghai, rebelled. In December 1958 China's leaders quietly decided to reverse the policies of the Great Leap.


title: Peng Dehuai

text: Peng did not oppose Mao's collectivizations in the first phase of the Great Leap, from late 1957– early 1958, but he increasingly opposed it from spring-winter 1958, as the problems which Mao's policies had caused became more evident. In February 1958 Peng gave a speech for the fortieth anniversary of the Soviet Red Army, in which he suggested increased military cooperation between China and the Soviet Union. Mao opposed this suggestion, and began grooming Lin Biao as a viable successor to Peng for the position of Defense Minister. As part of the Great Leap Forward, Mao ordered the formation of a national militia that was controlled by Party members and independent of the PLA, eventually training and arming tens of millions of civilians.


title: Peng Dehuai

text: Peng made regular inspection tours of the Chinese provinces after becoming Defense Minister in 1953. In a tour on Guangzhou in April 1958, he openly criticized Mao, saying "The Chairman talks all the time about more, faster, better, and more economical results. That is annoying. What does he want with chanting these liturgies all the time?" On an inspection tour through Gansu in October 1958, Peng observed many of the problems associated with the Great Leap Forward. Mature crops were left to die in the field because all of the young men had been drafted to operate primitive backyard furnaces. When Peng asked an old peasant why no one was collecting the harvest, he received the answer: "unless the centre sends down a great comrade, one cannot stand up against this storm." On the same tour Peng heard complaints that household utensils were being melted down for "steel", and that houses and orchards were cut and torn down in order to provide fuel for the backyard furnaces. In a subsequent tour through his native province of Hunan, later in 1958, Peng observed the same problems associated everywhere with the Great Leap Forward: serious food shortages; hungry children and babies; elders who expressed bitterness and anger; and arrogant, boasting Party cadres who administered local economic reforms. During his inspection tours through China in the fall of 1958, Peng composed a poem that summarized his attitude towards the Great Leap Forward:


title: Peng Dehuai

text: At an enlarged Politburo meeting in Shanghai, held from March 25 – April 1, Peng openly criticized Mao in the Chairman's presence for the first time, accusing him of "taking personal command" of national politics and disregarding the collective leadership of the Chinese government and the Party. Mao responded with vague criticisms of Peng, which Peng said was "provocative". From April 24 – June 15 Peng left on a goodwill military tour through Eastern Europe. Peng met with Khrushchev on May 24, and was criticized during the Cultural Revolution for having criticized Mao's leadership to the Soviet leader, but the evidence that Peng criticized Mao to Khrushchev is very circumstantial, and Mao did not mention this during his efforts to have Peng purged. Peng's absence from China during the seven weeks that he was abroad allowed Mao to freely spread negative rumors discrediting Peng within the Party, and to develop consensus among other senior Party leaders to oppose Peng when he returned.


title: Peng Dehuai

text: The Eighth Plenum of the Eighth CCP Central Committee was held in the scenic resort town of Lushan, Jiangxi, on July 2, 1959, to discuss Party members' positions on the Great Leap Forward. Mao opened the conference by encouraging Party members to "criticize and offer opinions" on the government's "mistakes and shortcomings", and he promised that he would not attack any member personally as a "rightist" or "counter-revolutionary" for any opinions expressed at the conference. Peng had returned to China just previous to the conference after spending seven weeks abroad and was not planning on attending the conference, but Mao personally phoned Peng and invited him to attend. Peng obeyed Mao and travelled to Lushan to participate in the conference.


title: Peng Dehuai

text: Peng participated in group meetings in the early portion of the conference, gaining consensus among his peers for criticizing the widespread practice of inaccurately reporting agricultural statistics, and emphasizing that "everybody had a share of responsibility, including Comrade Mao Zedong". Peng bluntly criticized the hesitation of senior Party members to disagree with the Party leadership, implying that many Party leaders were cowardly for following orders that they knew were not in the best interests of the Chinese people. After gaining the consensus of several of his peers, Peng developed his opinions more systematically, but was hesitant to bring up the full range of his criticisms in public. Peng discussed his thoughts with several other senior Party leaders (notably the CCP Secretary of Hunan, Zhou Xiaozhou (周小舟), and Peng's colleagues encouraged Peng to visit Mao privately in order to win Mao's support for a reversal of the policies of the Great Leap Forward. Peng visited Mao's quarters on the night of July 13, but found Mao asleep, and wrote Mao a "letter of opinion" articulating Peng's ideas instead. Peng delivered the letter to Mao on the morning of July 14, but Mao did not read the letter until July 17. Later on July 17 Mao had Peng's letter widely circulated among the other delegates at the conference. Peng did not intend his letter to be widely read and attempted to prevent its circulation, but was not successful. Most other senior leaders, including Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, and Deng Xiaoping, supported Peng's position before Mao began to attack it, indicating that they shared Peng's views and that they did not see Peng's letter as an attack on the Chairman.