Peng Pai

Born Oct. 22, 1896, in the district of Hai-feng, Kwangtung Province; died Aug. 30, 1930, in Shanghai. Leader in the Communist Party of China (CPC).

P’eng Pai was the son of a large landowner. He studied at Waseda University in Tokyo from 1917 to 1920 and became a member of the CPC in 1921. In 1921 and 1922 he studied at the Communist University for Workers of the East in Moscow. He organized and headed a peasant union in Hai-feng in 1923. In 1924 he became secretary of the peasant division of the Kuomintang’s Central Executive Committee, and in 1925 of the CPC’s committee for the districts of Hai-feng and Lu-feng. In 1927 he became a member of the Central Committee of the CPC.

P’eng Pai took part in the Nanch’ang Uprising of 1927. In the autumn of 1927 he organized the first Soviet region in China, Hai-lu-feng. In December of that year he became people’s commisar of agriculture for the Kuang-chou Commune, and in 1928 he performed party work in Shanghai and became a member of the Politburo of the CPC’s Central Committee. On Aug. 24, 1929, P’eng Pai was arrested by members of the Kuomintang; he was killed in prison.