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New Tensions in Army-Party Relations in China (1965–1966)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Morton H. Halperin  and
John Wilson Lewis
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Extract

In 1958, the Chinese Communist leadership agreed on a revised set of basic principles governing the relationship between the Party and the Army, These principles, which involved a move away from the professionalisation of the Army, became summarised in the slogans “politics in command” and “the Party commands the gun. The changes reflected a decision to continue to rely on a revolutionary strategy based on people's war despite the decision to devote substantial resources to nuclear weapons. After a bitter dispute between the Party and the Army, Mao decided to reject Khrushchev's proposals for a unified nuclear command and to rely on an expanded military force to deter an American attack. Moreover, the Party emphasised the need to put military units to work in the economy. It thus turned the Army away from increased professionalism and technical training towards organising the militia and participating in economic construction work. Like other salient features of the Maoist view revealed at that time the 1958 guide lines for Party-Army relations assumed that a satisfactory balance could be achieved between professional modernisation and the role of the expert, on the one hand, and political mobilisation or “revolutionisation” (ideological “redness”), on the other. It was the Army's resistance to these moves that led to the purge of major military leaders, including P'eng Teh-huai in 1959.

Type
Recent Developments
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 26 , June 1966 , pp. 58 - 67
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1966

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References

1 On the events of 1978–59, see Joffe, Ellis, Party and Army: Professionalism and Political Control in the Chinese Officer Corps 1949–1964 (Cambridge: East Asian Research Center, Harvard University, 1965), Chap. ICrossRefGoogle Scholar; Powell, RalphPolitico-Military Relationships in Communist China (Washington: Department of State, 1963), pp. 2–3Google Scholar; Ford, Harold P., “Modern Weapons and the Sino-Soviet Estrangement,” The China Quarterly, No. 18 (04–06, 1964), pp. 160–173CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Joffe presents a valuable preview of Army-Party relations from 1949–64.

2 See Lewis, John W., Chinese Communist Party Leadership and the Succession to Mao Tse-tung (Washington: Department of State, 1964)Google Scholar.

3 New China News Agency (NCNA), January 21, 1964.

4 As late as July 8, 1965 the Chinese stated that the U.S. “dares not and does not have the power to launch suddenly a large-scale war of aggression”; Radio Peking, July 8, 1965.

5 See, for example, The Historical Experience of the War against Fascism (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1965), p. 24Google Scholar; Commemorate the Victory against German Fascism (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1965), p. 28Google Scholar.

6 Piao, Lin, Long Live the Victory of the People's War (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1965), p. 62Google Scholar.

7 Radio Peking, January 18, 1966.

8 A list of the principal documents examined by the authors is attached to this paper as an Appendix.

9 Radio Pyongyang, October 25, 1965.

10 Radio Wuhan, November 16, 1965.

11 ‘Giving Prominence to Politics is the Foundation for Building Our Army,” Chieh-fang Chün Pao (Liberation Army Daily), June 10, 1965; Lung, Ho, “Democratic Tradition of the Chinese People's Liberation Army,” Hung Ch'i (Red Flag), in Peking Review, No. 32 (08 6, 1965), p. 14Google Scholar.

12 The text of these five points was widely broadcast after the release of the report by Hsiao Hua to the PLA Conference in January 1966, NCNA, January 24, 1966.

13 “Man is the Decisive Factor in War, Not Materials,” Red Flag, No. 7, 1965Google Scholar.

14 NCNA, November 26, 1965. See also the follow-up article on bayonets in NCNA, January 14, 1966.

15 See Lo Jui-ch'ing, Radio Peking, October 1, 1965; Radio Urumchi, November 22, 1965; and Radio Peking, September 21, 1965.

16 Liberation Army Daily, May 25, 1965.

17 Radio Peking, January 18, 1966, states that under the dual-leadership system the armed forces are subject to “the military chain of command as well as the local Party committees but under the overall leadership of the Party Central Committee.”

18 Ibid. Italics added.

19 Radio Peking, January 24, 1966.