¹ In his pioneering study of the PLA, Red China's Fighting Hordes, Harrisburg, Military Service Publishing Co., 1951Google Scholar, Chap. 3, Col. Robert B. Rigg gives a basic description of the geographic distribution and organization of the Field Armies in 1950. On p. 68, he emphasizes the point that few personnel changes had taken place within the high command; the Field Army commanders having literally grown up with their commands. More detailed research has confirmed that notion in its essentials. More to the point of this article, Rigg notes (p. 69) that the military “web of control” was probably stronger and more pervasive in 1950 than its civilian counterpart, a point which is symbolized in the three roles played by 1950 Field Army commanders: commander of a Military Region; commander of the occupying Field Army and member, if not chairman, of the ruling military and administrative committee. A brief outline of the situation is provided in John, Gittings, The Role of the Chinese Army, London: Oxford University Press, 1967Google Scholar, p. 307. Various recent (1967) analyses in Fei-ch'ing Yen-chiu (Chinese Communist Studies, Taipei: Institute of International Relations)Google Scholar have ref0lected a traditional Nationalist focus on Field Armies, at least for their significance in inter-personal relations within the PLA. Jurgen, Domes in “The Cultural Revolution and The Army,” Asian Survey, Vol. VIII, No. 5, May 1968, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968, makes brief ref0erence to their possible contemporary significance for what he calls “loyalty groups.”Google Scholar

² As the basis for the author's 1968 survey of about 500 PLA military elite biographies, the following materials have been of fundamental importance: Red Flags Flying (Hung Ch'i P'iao P'iao), Peking: China Youth Publishing Co., 1957, 1958, 16 Vols.Google Scholar; A Single Spark May Start a Prairie Fire (Hsing Huo Liao Yuan), Hong Kong: 1960, 7 Vols.; Chang, Ta-chun, A Dictionary of Chinese Communist Personalities (Chung-fei Jen-ming Txien), Hong Kong: Freedom Press, 1956Google Scholar; Chinese Communist Personalities (Chung-kung Jen-ming Lu), Taipei: Institute of International Relations, 1967Google Scholar, Huang, Chen-hsia; Mao's Generals (Chung-kung Chün-jen Chi), Hong Kong: Research Institute of Contemporary History, December 1968.Google Scholar

³ Chart A is necessarily an oversimplification of a complex evolutionary process. In its essentials, however, like the map, it portrays accurately the five mainstreams of Field Army evolution through largely independent experiences, from which only the Korean War brought a major departure. Sources for this chart, in addition to those cited earlier, include many unit histories and popular accounts which appeared on the market after 1956. A valuable, if somewhat inaccurate collection of unit histories may be found in History of Chinese Communist Infantry Units (Kung-fei Lu-chün Pu-ping Pu-tui Li-shih Yuan-ko Tiao-ch'a), Taipei: MND, Military Intelligence Bureau, 1965.Google Scholar

⁴ Varying accounts of Red Army strength at this time are available. Warren, Kuo (“The United Front, Part II” Issues and Studies, Taipei: Institute of International Relations, Vol. IV, No. 9, June 1968, p. 39) estimates that only 20,000 men survived the Long March. Chang Kuo-t'ao (interviewed in Hong Kong, autumn, 1967) has estimated that perhaps 30,000 survived. The latter figure seems to be the most reasonable when compared with other sources.Google Scholar

⁵ Both Chang Kuo-t'ao and Liu Po-ch'eng received education in the Soviet Union. Liu's fascination with strategy and tactics later was rewarded with decisive victories, notably the Huai-Hai Campaign of October 1948. His attitudes towards Mao's military thought, after he returned from the Soviet Union in late 1930, were common knowledge among the High Command in Kiangsi. In interviews, Kung Ch'u has confirmed the thesis expressed on p. 616 of Chung-Kung Jen-ming Ju, Taipei: Institute of International Studies, 1967. Liu accused Mao of being an obstinate diehard who “insisted on using the ancient method of a copper teapot dripping water to measure time …” “a bookish pedant like Chu Ko-liang, an antique from a museum.” Despite these evaluations of Mao's military thought, it is remarkable that Liu has remained the guiding spirit behind Chinese Communist advanced military education since his appointment to the Nanking Military Institute in 1951 and his later appointment to the Advanced Institute in Peking.Google Scholar

⁶ It is a popular misconception that the “New Fourth Corps Incident” of January 1941 “wiped out” Ch'en Yi's force. See, for example, John, Gittings, The Role of the Chinese Army, p. 53, “This Army was shattered in the South Anhwei incident, and was painfully assembled and reconstituted by Liu Shao-ch'i in the following years.” In fact, by May 1940, the bulk of the New Fourth Corps (4th, 5th and 6th Detachments) had already moved to North Kiangsu. In October this force, supported by Huang K'o-ch'eng's 344th Brigade, soundly defeated 25,000 KMT troops under the Governor of Kiangsu and established the Central China Command at Yenchen, Kiangsu. Partly in retaliation, the KMT attacked the 3rd Detachment of the New Fourth Corps, the last Communist unit south of the Yangtze River and, ironically, the only such force under leaders still sympathetic to the United Front: Hsiang Ying and Yeh T'ing.Google Scholar

⁷ This general review of the post-Korean War assignments of Corps is based on History of Chinese Communist Infantry Units, op. cit.Google Scholar

⁸ The notion of “military generation,” treated by the author in another article, posits 10 separate age-groups of PLA officers who may be distinguished by the political crisis, military ethic or military style prevailing when they first entered the Red Army. See “The Concept of Military Generation: The Chinese Communist Case,” Asian Survey, November 1968. In that study, it was determined that 96 per cent. of the elite, whether speaking of the August 1966, the December 1967, or the October 1968 hierarchy, had entered the Red Army before December 1936.Google Scholar

⁹ For a discussion of PLA reactions to the Korean War, see the revealing study by Alexander, George, The Chinese Communist Army in Action, New York: Columbia University Press, 1967. Note that the figure of 40 per cent, elite participation applies only to the sampling of about 500 of the military leaders in 1967 whose careers were surveyed by the author.Google Scholar

¹⁰ With the exception of a few senior officers who were moved from the Front Army (see Chart A) in which they first served to a different force in 1937, the majority of these changes occurred during the Civil War (1945–1950).Google Scholar

¹¹ John, Gittings in his excellent study The Role of The Chinese Army, p. xiv, notes that “China has not been dominated by the militarists at any time since 1949 and there is apparently little fear of military regionalism.” In Chap. 13, Gittings describes the take-over by the military in 1950 and notes (p. 269) that many observers regarded the situation as a de facto division of China into military satrapies.Google Scholar

¹² In contrast with Gittings' view that military regionalism has not been feared, we may speculate that one of Mao's motives in entering the Korean War was to drain off military power from the so-called “mountaintops”: the relatively independent regions into which China has been divided. In the context of the Cultural Revolution, and recalling Mao's 1944 (and 1968, anti-Yang Ch'eng-wu) invectives against Border Region independence, as well as his earlier fear in 1937 that Chiang Kai-shek would deliberately attempt to destroy the Red Army by offering it up to the Japanese, such a thesis is not too Machiavellian. Unfortunately, it lacks hard evidence.Google Scholar

¹³ The “5th Field Army” is an unofficial title for the North China Field Army, which never received a numbered designation.Google Scholar

¹⁴ For these arguments and excellent economic data in support of this paper's fundamental thesis of regional power centres, see Audrey, Donnithorne, China's Economic System, London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1968.Google Scholar

¹⁵ The disappearance of 200 names from available elite lists between August 1966 and December 1967 does not mean that they were all “purged.” Certainly some of these people suffered apparent disgrace, reportedly because of their association with such figures as P'eng Teh-huai, Lo Jui-ching and Ho Lung. But others have moved to more obscure offices in higher headquarters, a phenomenon which troubles all systems of elite listing; e.g., is a Political Commissar of a Corps (listed among the elite) no longer worthy of mention when he is promoted to become third Political Commissar of a Military District (not listed among the elite)?Google Scholar

¹⁶ At least two recent analyses have concluded that Lin Piao and his “Party-soldiers” had effectively “taken over” the PLA hierarchy before the Cultural Revolution began. See Ralph, Powell“The Increasing Power of Lin Piao and the Party Soldiers, 1959–1966” in The China Quarterly, No. 34 (April-June 1968), pp. 38–66.Google Scholar Also see Liu, Yuen-sun“The Current and the Past of Lin Piao,” translated from Studies on Chinese Communism, January 1967, published as a monograph by RAND Corporation. But there are good reasons for arguing that the events of the Cultural Revolution fail to support the conclusions of these articles.Google Scholar

¹⁷ October 1968 figures are for military members on Revolutionary Committees only. The principal source for listing the key personalities on Revolutionary Committees is China News Summary (C.N.S.) Hong Kong; British Regional Information Office No. 239, October 1968. In addition, see C.N.S. Nos. 193, 196, 197, 200, 206, 209, 211, 213, 214, 216, 217, 221, 223, 234, 236 and 238 for detailed evaluations of revolutionary committees.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Figures on Charts B and C for each Military Region include all elite members at Military Region headquarters as well as Military District and Corps levels. For example, figures for the Nanking Military Region include that headquarters, the elite members in the Kiangsu, Anhwei and Chekiang Military Districts and those in Corps stationed within the Military Region.Google Scholar

¹⁹ For the semi-official Communist phasing of the Cultural Reovlution, see the Shanghai Wen Hui Pao, 30 September 1967, which notes that the Cultural Revolution “began” in September 1965.Google Scholar

²⁰ Two of the most important recent treatments of the political process in Mainland China have been written by Doak, Barnett, Cadres, Bureaucracy and Political Power in Communist China, New York: Columbia University Press, 1967Google Scholar, and Franz, Schurmann, Ideology and Organization in Communist China, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966. In the context of Cultural Revolution developments, it is to be regretted that these perceptive political scientists lacked the reliable data required for an examination of the traditional, especially the post-1950, internal bonds shared by PLA and Party elites.Google Scholar

²¹ In his analysis of provincial Party personnel between 1956 and 1966 Provincial Party Personnel in Mainland China, 1956–1966, New York: Columbia University, East Asian Institute, 1967, Frederick C. Teiwes concludes that there is no consistent pattern of placement of Party officials based on personal ties, nor is “an individual's political fortunes … directly dependent on personal ties to provincial or national leaders.” Although Teiwes comments on the limited interchange of officials between Party and Army posts (pp. 46–48), he gives only brief consideration to the evolution of Party-military relationships before 1949 as the basis for “personal ties.” In one instance (p. 29) where he analyses P'eng Teh-huai's associates in the 1st Field Army, while the knowledge probably would not have altered the validity of his conclusions, the fact that the 1st Field Army was the creation of Ho Lung, not P'eng Teh-huai, helps explain the curious removal of P'eng in 1959 without serious reverberations through the 1st Field Army elite. Teiwes's study is one of the most detailed Party-elite analyses available today. However, while available biographical data may not have permitted a reasonable assessment of each provincial official's historic association with the evolving Field Armies, where possible, the employment of the Field Army criterion for determining informal bonds might have thrown light on changes in gross regional distribution of Party-military factional power over the decade, even if it failed to explain individual cases.Google Scholar