Chapter 49 Four or eight Zhou Enlai and our army's planning and modernization

After the founding of New China, the national situation has undergone fundamental changes, and the focus of the work of the whole party has shifted from rural areas to urban areas. The military is no exception. With the political and economic foundations of the national regime, our military construction will correspondingly develop from a low-level stage to a high-level stage, that is, to standardize and modernize. At this moment of great transformation, Comrade Zhou Enlai presided over the daily work of the Military Commission as the head of the government and vice chairman of the Military Commission.He saw the right time, seized the key, led our army to realize this great transformation, and laid the foundation for the regularization and modernization of our army.

During this period, I presided over the military training work under his leadership, and heard and witnessed his hard work and achievements. In February 1950, I received an order from the Military Commission to go to Beijing to serve as the head of the Military Training Department of the Military Commission.I explained my work, left the Fourth Field Army, and returned to Beijing.As soon as I arrived in Beijing, I asked Premier Zhou, Boss Zhu, and Nie Shuai for instructions.They told me that the central government has decided to build a regularized and modernized national defense force, not only with a strong army, but also with a strong navy and air force.All armies must implement unified command, unified system, unified organization, unified training, and unified discipline.They instructed me to do three major things right away. First, to set up regular schools for all armies and arms at all levels (some schools have been established or are being established), and to train a large number of cadres who are suitable for regularization and modernization.Second, formulate common military regulations, namely queue regulations, internal affairs regulations, and discipline regulations, so as to unify the military life, discipline and system of the entire army.Third, do a good job in troop training.Because at this time the new naval, air, artillery, and armed forces were being established, and they were all setting up translation agencies to compile relevant teaching materials, and with the help of Soviet consultants, they formulated training plans and started training.

After this conversation, I have clarified the direction of my work and also increased my confidence and strength.He was ordered to use the original Fourth Bureau of the Military Commission - the Military Publishing Bureau as the basis, and transferred nearly a hundred cadres from the North China Military University to form a military training department and start working.A few days after the establishment of the Military Training Department, the Military Commission held a meeting, chaired by Zhou Enlai, to discuss the issue of running schools by the military.It was immediately decided to reorganize many schools and teaching teams run by various troops during the war years into regular schools for training modern warfare (some of them were changed to professional schools), and those without existing institutions were established.And decided to establish an Army University (officially opened in January of the following year, renamed the Military Academy), and I also served as the preparatory director.The future host of the Army University, everyone thinks that Marshal Liu Bocheng is the most suitable candidate.

Indeed, Old Marshal Liu, a well-known military strategist both at home and abroad, not only can serve as a model for others with his knowledge, morality and war experience, but he himself is also very enthusiastic about training senior cadres.During the summer and autumn, he came to Beijing for a meeting. When people told him that he was "the most anticipated" candidate for the Army University, he expressed to Premier Zhou that he was willing to take up this job.During the preparatory process, Zhou Enlai had three talks with him and other comrades in charge of the preparatory work, and made a series of specific issues such as the significance of establishing a military academy, the principles and principles of running the school, the establishment of the academy, the allocation of main leading cadres, and the employment of Soviet experts. Detailed instructions.Premier Zhou especially emphasized and pointed out that the school-running policy of the Military Academy is still the policy of the Anti-Japanese War. It is necessary to study Mao Zedong’s military works, sum up the experience of our army, inherit the glorious tradition of the people’s war of the people’s army, study the characteristics of modern warfare, and learn from modern wars. Science and technology, and hope that within five years, all cadres above the division level will be trained in general.These instructions of Premier Zhou are not only extremely important to military academies, but also have important guiding significance for the work of academies and troop training in the whole army.

Since the Military Commission has a clear policy for the construction of military schools, in only two or three years, the vertical aspects from grassroots schools to the highest institutions of learning, the horizontal aspects from military to military, from contract tactical schools to professional schools, are almost complete. In terms of formalization, it is mainly to formulate various regulations and rules to unify the rules and regulations. In the summer of 1950, we organized a team to draft three common regulations.Before drafting, I wrote four principles, mainly based on the glorious tradition of our army and referring to the experience of the Soviet Red Army, and approved by the Prime Minister. Comrade Bo Cheng came to Beijing in December, Premier Zhou immediately appointed him to review. At the beginning of 1951, the Military Commission promulgated the draft for trial implementation in the entire army.Zhou Enlai believed that the most important thing in the combat operations of modern arms is coordinated action, and coordinated action requires planning, organization, accuracy, and discipline. To achieve these points, it is necessary to formulate various regulations.He once said figuratively that the People's Liberation Army is like a big machine, and this gear and that gear must operate accurately in order to truly cooperate.Regulations are one of the fundamental conditions to ensure regularization.He severely criticized individual senior cadres for not abiding by internal affairs regulations in foreign affairs activities.He said: "If you don't abide by the regulations issued by you, you have not yet finished welcoming guests, and you have left lazily before I leave. This has a bad influence. Why do the army need regulations!" The principled attitude of cadres to strictly criticize has played a great role in the regularization of our army.

Regarding modernization, Zhou Enlai started from two aspects.On the one hand, it is to improve the equipment and technology of the army, and pay attention to three problems. First, make full use of the American-made weapons and equipment seized during the war, and instruct us to use more of these ammunition in training, because they may not be used on the battlefield in the future, and they have been stored for a long time. will be outdated.Second, import ships, aircraft, tanks, and equipment for 60 infantry divisions from socialist countries. These equipment quickly played a role in the battlefield to resist US aggression and aid Korea.Thirdly, the establishment of a modern conventional weapons industry should be made first, followed by the establishment of cutting-edge weapons industries such as atomic bombs and missiles.In order to speed up the construction of military industry, the Central Ordnance Industry Committee was established, with him as the director, and Li Fuchun and Nie Rongzhen as the deputy directors.He used to say that a country without its own military industry is a mollusk.In this way, the ammunition and conventional weapons to resist U.S. aggression and aid Korea will be replenished in time, and the foundation will be laid for the development of the atomic bomb and missile industry under completely blank conditions.Another aspect of the modernization of the army is that in addition to the school training of cadres, it is also necessary to focus on the training of the troops.Troop training is mainly to focus on the troops preparing to participate in the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea, especially the newly-built technical troops.He paid great attention to the selection and training of pilots, right to the supply of fuel.He even asked about the training plan and handover procedures of the newly built tank division stationed in Nankou.

In early and mid-November 1950, under the personal guidance of Zhou Enlai and Zhu De, a military academy and troop training conference was held in Beijing.After the meeting, a report on "Construction of Military Schools and Military Training" was drafted for approval by the Military Commission.One day, the Prime Minister's Office informed me to go to a meeting after dinner.The meeting was attended by responsible comrades from the State Council and some central ministries and commissions.Solve the problems in order.When it was the last turn, it was past 11 o'clock, and the people in front also left one after another, so he began to review our report.He read paragraph by paragraph, pondered paragraph by paragraph, and repeated the important parts several times.What impressed me most was that when he read the two sentences "Master new technology, learn joint operations", he discussed with me in a comradely manner.Because in the past we often talked about modernization and combined arms, which is of course correct.In this meeting, we further combined modern technology with modern command and summed it up into two clear sentences, which will be easier to understand and remember (Comrade Liu Bocheng later changed the term combined arms to contract tactics of all arms, which is more appropriate) .The Prime Minister agreed after careful consideration.He finished revising the report of six or seven thousand words, and it was already 4 o'clock the next day.When revising, he said that this is a comprehensive document of guidelines for military schools and troop training.He attached great importance to it, so he worked tirelessly to revise it seriously. Under his spiritual inspiration, even though it was the cock crowing time, I didn't feel tired at all.How happy I am to be the head of a department during this period of great transition!At this time, the struggle to resist U.S. aggression and aid Korea was very tense, domestic waste was waiting to be done, the international situation was changing, and the diplomatic struggle was extremely busy. Zhou Enlai took care of everything, but he still revised the report word by word.His serious and responsible revolutionary spirit is a very profound education for us.Indeed, after this meeting, on the basis of inheriting and carrying forward our army's revolutionary tradition, it was determined that learning modern military technology and coordinating the command of various services and arms as the long-term training policy of our army.This is the general requirement for building an army in the new era.Therefore, in the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea, our army could easily become a new hero against the highly modernized U.S. aggressor army on the Korean battlefield.From a military point of view, this major transformation was implemented in time. After the autumn of 1954, Comrade Imaba Jianying from the central government came to lead the training of the whole army, and the regularization and modernization of the army continued to be strengthened.It is a pity that since the late 1950s, the political work of our army has gradually been influenced by the guiding ideology of the "Left", and the anti-dogmatic struggle and criticism of the "bourgeois military line" have been wrongly carried out, which has caused great harm to our army's construction and political work. big damage.This is a major twist and turn in our army's progress since liberation, and it is a painful historical lesson.

After the summer of 1952, Premier Zhou did not directly manage the daily work of the army.One year later, the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea came to an end, but our country's strategic policy, national defense construction, land and sea frontier defense struggles, military equipment supply, from conventional weapons to sophisticated weapons, as well as military deployment and military training, have always been inseparable from his guidance; important He visited military exercises; major military construction projects were reviewed and approved by him.After Lin Biao defected, although he was still busy with daily affairs, was in a difficult situation, and his health was not as healthy as before, he still paid close attention to the regularization and modernization of the army.When I was transferred from the May 7th Cadre School of the Jiangxi Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry to my post at the PLA Military and Political University in Beijing, he often guided the military university's rectification, recruitment and training plans.What moved me the most was that in the early days of the criticism of Lin Piao and Confucius, Jiang Qing made a speech against the army in a unit.Zhou Enlai instructed us not to disseminate documents that have not been reviewed by the central government, and to stabilize the Military and Political University.This time the prime minister's handling is very unusual.We know that criticism of Lin Biao and Confucius was used by the "Gang of Four" under the Party's long-term "Left" ideological rule to disrupt the party and the army. They made a surprise attack on Ye Shuai, who was in charge of military work, and the prime minister who was in charge of government work.Zhou Enlai and other comrades calmly handled relations within the party, and tactfully dealt with the perverse actions of the "Gang of Four".When we were in trouble, Zhou Enlai supported us and had a great influence on the whole army.Because there are more than 900 students in the military university, most of them are cadres above the regiment and have close ties with the troops. If their thinking is correct, they can also influence the thinking of the troops, thus ensuring the stability of our army under the special circumstances at that time. Stable and build.

Zhou Enlai had a far-reaching strategic vision in his long-term military work. During the period of the Great Revolution, he participated in the creation of the National Revolutionary Army.After the Kuomintang betrayed the revolution, he led the Nanchang Uprising and organized guerrilla warfare in many areas.He was one of the earliest explorers of the theory of armed struggle in the early days of our party, and he was also the first leader of our party to engage in military movements and the pioneer of political work.During the war, he participated in high-level leadership and command, and in peacetime, he focused on the construction of national defense and the army.As long as he participates in any aspect of work, he is good at combining the party's principles with the actual situation of military work and making innovations.

Zhou Enlai combined the principles of Marxism-Leninism with the reality of our country's revolution, mastered military laws to guide warfare, and led the regularization and modernization of our army, making great contributions. Zhou Enlai was a great Marxist-Leninist, a famous strategist and military strategist, and one of the main founders of our army. We will miss him forever.