The political demise of Politburo member P'eng Chen in 1966 is one of the most significant political events in the Chinese Communist movement since Mao Tse-tung gained control of the Party in the late thirties and early forties.

The 64-year-old native of Shansi is a tall, robust man who worked in north China in the labour movement during the twenties and early thirties. He has been a Party member since 1926. P'eng allegedly spent some time in jail in the early thirties, but by the mid-thirties he was a top Party operative in the Peking area where he played a major role in contacting and recruiting students into the CCP. In these endeavours he seems to have been working directly under Liu Shao-ch'i.