On July 14, 1959, at the Lushan Conference, Marshal Peng Dehuai wrote a letter to Mao Zedong about the problems of the Great Leap Forward. On July 16, Mao had it printed for all participants under the title “Comrade Peng Dehuai’s Statement of Opinion,” with the note “printed for comrades’ reference.”
Peng protested that it was a personal letter to Mao. “How did it become a ‘statement of opinion’? Why is it to be discussed?” He asked to take the private letter back. In August, a plenum condemned the “anti-Party clique headed by Comrade Peng Dehuai,” and a campaign against “right deviation” began.