Editing Deng Xiaoping (section)

== Political rise ==
{{More citations needed section|date=July 2020}}
Although Deng got involved in the Marxist revolutionary movement in China, the historian Mobo Gao has argued that "Deng Xiaoping and many like him [in the Chinese Communist Party] were not really Marxists, but basically [[revolutionary nationalist]]s who wanted to see China standing on equal terms with the great global powers. They were primarily nationalists and they participated in the Communist revolution because that was the only viable route they could find to [[Chinese nationalism]]."<ref>[[#Gao08|Gao 2008]]</ref>

=== Activism in Shanghai and Wuhan ===
After leaving the army of Feng Yuxiang in the northwest, Deng ended up in the city of [[Wuhan]], where the Communists at that time had their headquarters. At that time, he began using the nickname "Xiaoping" and occupied prominent positions in the party apparatus. He participated in the historic emergency session on 7 August 1927 in which, by Soviet instruction, the Party dismissed its founder [[Chen Duxiu]], and [[Qu Qiubai]] became the [[General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party|general secretary]]. In Wuhan, Deng first established contact with [[Mao Zedong]], who was then little valued by militant pro-Soviet leaders of the party.

Between 1927 and 1929, Deng lived in Shanghai, where he helped organize protests that would be harshly persecuted by the [[Kuomintang]] authorities. The death of many Communist militants in those years led to a decrease in the number of members of the Communist Party, which enabled Deng to quickly move up the ranks.

Deng married Zhang Xiyuan, who died in 1930 during childbirth.<ref name=":11" />{{Rp|page=38}} The couple's daughter also died during her birth.<ref name=":11" />{{Rp|page=38}}

=== Military campaign in Guangxi ===
From 1929 to 1931, Deng served as the chief representative of the Central Committee in Guangxi, where he helped lead the [[Baise Uprising|Baise]] and [[Longzhou Uprising]]s. Both at the time and later, Deng Xiaoping's leadership during the rebellion has come under serious criticism. He followed the "Li Lisan Line" that called for aggressive attacks on cities. In practice, this meant that the rural soviet in Guangxi was abandoned and that the Seventh Red Army under Deng's political leadership fought and lost several bloody battles.{{sfn|Franz|1988|pp=83-84}}{{sfn|Yang|1997|pp=66-67}} Eventually, Deng and the other Communist leaders in Guangxi decided to retreat to Jiangxi to join Mao Zedong. However, after a costly march across rough terrain, Deng left the army leaderless without prior authorization to do so.{{sfn|Franz|1988|pp=86-87}} A Central Committee post-mortem in 1931 singled out Deng's behavior as an example of "rightist opportunism and a rich peasant line".{{sfn|Yang|1997|pp=66-67}} In 1945, several former commanders of the Seventh Red Army spoke out against Deng for his actions during the uprising, although Mao Zedong protected Deng from any serious repercussions.{{sfn|Goodman|1994|p=34}} During the [[Cultural Revolution]], [[Red Guards]] learned about the events of the Baise Uprising and accused Deng of desertion.{{sfn|Franz|1988|p=87}} Deng admitted that leaving the army was one of the "worst mistakes of [his] life" and that "although this action was allowed by the party, it was politically horribly wrong."{{sfn|Deng|1968}} Modern historians and biographers tend to agree. Uli Franz calls leaving the army a "serious error".{{sfn|Franz|1988|p=87}} Benjamin Yang calls it a "tragic failure and dark period in [Deng's] political life."{{sfn|Yang|1997|p=70}} On the other hand, Diana Lary places blame for the disaster more broadly on the "ineptitude" of both the local leaders and the CCP Central Committee.{{sfn|Lary|1974|pp=107}}

=== At the Jiangxi Soviet ===
The campaigns against the Communists in the cities represented a setback for the party and in particular to the Comintern Soviet advisers, who saw the mobilization of the urban proletariat as the force for the advancement of communism. Contrary to the urban vision of the revolution, based on the Soviet experience, the Communist leader Mao Zedong saw the rural peasants as the revolutionary force in China. In a mountainous area of Jiangxi province, where Mao went to establish a communist system, there developed the embryo of a future state of China under communism, which adopted the official name of the [[Chinese Soviet Republic]] (CSR) and which included the [[Jiangxi Soviet]].

In August 1931, Deng went to [[Ruijin]], which became the capital of the CSR,<ref name=":11" />{{Rp|page=94}} and became secretary of its Party Committee in the summer of 1931. In the winter of 1932, Deng went on to play the same position in the nearby district of [[Huichang County|Huichang]]. In 1933 he became director of the propaganda department of the Provincial Party Committee in Jiangxi.

As a supporter of Mao, Deng was criticized by elements of the Party which opposed Mao and was removed from his position in 1933.<ref name=":11" />{{Rp|page=94}} During Deng's 1933 political setbacks, his wife Jin Weiying deserted him for one of his political opponents.<ref name=":11" />{{Rp|page=38}}

The CSR reached its peak in 1933.<ref name=":06">{{Cite book |last=Opper |first=Marc |url=http://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/23824 |title=People's Wars in China, Malaya, and Vietnam |date=2020 |publisher=[[University of Michigan Press]] |isbn=978-0-472-90125-8 |location=Ann Arbor |pages= |doi=10.3998/mpub.11413902 |hdl=20.500.12657/23824 |jstor=10.3998/mpub.11413902 |s2cid=211359950}}</ref>{{Rp|page=1}} The CSR had a central government as well as local and regional governments.<ref name=":06" />{{Rp|page=1}} It operated institutions including an education system and court system.<ref name=":06" />{{Rp|page=1}} The CSR also issued currency.<ref name=":06" />{{Rp|page=1}} It governed a population which exceeded 3.4 million in an area of approximately 70,000 square kilometers (although the isolated soviets were never connected into one contiguous piece of territory).<ref name=":06" />{{Rp|page=1}} The CSR was defeated by Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalists, leading to the Long March.

=== Long March ===
{{Main|Long March}}
{{Unreferenced section|date=November 2023}}[[File:1937 Deng Xiaoping in NRA uniform.jpg|thumb|upright|Deng Xiaoping in NRA uniform, 1937]]
Surrounded by the more powerful nationalist army, the Communists fled Jiangxi in October 1934. Thus began the epic movement that would mark a turning point in the development of Chinese communism. The evacuation was difficult because the Army of the nationalists had taken positions in all areas occupied by the Communists. Advancing through remote and mountainous terrain, some 100,000 men managed to escape Jiangxi, starting a long strategic retreat through the interior of China, which ended one year later when between 8,000 and 9,000 survivors reached the northern province of [[Shaanxi]].

During the [[Zunyi Conference]] at the beginning of the Long March, the so-called 28 Bolsheviks, led by [[Bo Gu]] and [[Wang Ming]], were ousted from power and Mao Zedong, to the dismay of the Soviet Union, became the new leader of the Chinese Communist Party. The pro-Soviet Chinese Communist Party had ended and a new rural-inspired party emerged under the leadership of Mao. Deng had once again become a leading figure in the party.

The confrontation between the two parties was temporarily interrupted, however, by the Japanese invasion, forcing the Kuomintang to form an alliance for the second time with the Communists to defend the nation against external aggression.

=== Japanese invasion ===
The invasion of Japanese troops in 1937 marked the beginning of the [[Second Sino-Japanese War]]. During the invasion, Deng remained in the area controlled by the Communists in the north, where he assumed the role of deputy political director of the three divisions of the restructured Communist army. From September 1937 until January 1938, he lived in Buddhist monasteries and temples in the [[Wutai Mountains]]. In January 1938, he was appointed as Political Commissar of the 129th division of the [[Eighth Route Army]] commanded by [[Liu Bocheng]], starting a long-lasting partnership with Liu.

Deng stayed for most of the conflict with the Japanese in the war front in the area bordering the provinces of [[Shanxi]], Henan and [[Hebei]], then traveled several times to the city of [[Yan'an]], where Mao had established the basis for Communist Party leadership. While in Henan, he delivered the famous report, "The Victorious Situation of Leaping into the Central Plains and Future Policies and Strategies", at a [[Gospel Hall]] where he lived for some time.<ref>{{Cite web |title=豫西革命纪念馆和鲁山邓小平旧居扩建工程竣工 |url=http://www.gov.cn/jrzg/2008-04/25/content_954586.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220711211823/http://www.gov.cn/jrzg/2008-04/25/content_954586.htm |archive-date=11 July 2022 |access-date=11 July 2022}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=西关大街，从历史中走来 |url=https://www.pds.gov.cn/contents/5380/181.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220711211824/https://www.pds.gov.cn/contents/5380/181.html |archive-date=11 July 2022 |access-date=11 July 2022}}</ref> In one of his trips to Yan'an in 1939, he married, for the third and last time in his life, Zhuo Lin, a young native of [[Kunming]], who, like other young idealists of the time, had traveled to Yan'an to join the Communists.

Deng was considered a "revolutionary veteran" because of his participation in the [[Long March]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Cheng Li |url=https://archive.org/details/chinasleadersnew00lich |title=China's leaders |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |year=2001 |isbn=9780847694976 |page=[https://archive.org/details/chinasleadersnew00lich/page/131 131] |access-date=6 March 2016 |url-access=registration}}</ref> He took a leading role in the [[Hundred Regiments Offensive]] which boosted his standing among his comrades.<ref name="jac">{{Cite web |last=GREGOR BENTON |title=Assessing Deng Xiaoping |url=https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/01/deng-xiaoping-china-mao-communist-party |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190129064154/https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/01/deng-xiaoping-china-mao-communist-party |archive-date=29 January 2019 |access-date=28 January 2019 |website=jacobinmag.com}}</ref>

=== Resumed war against the Nationalists ===
[[File:Liudeng.jpg|thumb|Deng with [[Liu Bocheng]] (right)]]

After Japan's defeat in World War II, Deng traveled to Chongqing, the city in which Chiang Kai-shek established his government during the Japanese invasion, to participate in peace talks between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party. The results of those negotiations were not positive and military confrontation between the two antagonistic parties resumed shortly after the meeting in Chongqing.

While Chiang Kai-shek re-established the government in Nanjing, the capital of the Republic of China, the Communists were fighting for control in the field. Following up with guerrilla tactics from their positions in rural areas against cities under the control of the government of Chiang and their supply lines, the Communists were increasing the territory under their control, and incorporating more and more soldiers who had deserted the Nationalist army.

Deng played a major part in the [[Huaihai Campaign]] against the nationalists.<ref name=jac/>

In the final phase of the war, Deng again exercised a key role as political leader and propaganda master as Political Commissar of the [[2nd Field Army]] commanded by Liu Bocheng where he was instrumental in the PLA's march into Tibet. He also participated in disseminating the ideas of Mao Zedong, which turned into the ideological foundation of the Communist Party. His political and ideological work, along with his status as a veteran of the Long March, placed him in a privileged position within the party to occupy positions of power after the Communist Party managed to defeat Chiang Kai-shek and founded the People's Republic of China.

[[File:Deng Xiaoping, He Long and Zhu De.jpg|thumb|Deng Xiaoping with [[He Long]] (middle) and [[Zhu De]] (right) (1949)]]