Since their formal organization in February 1949, the “Field Armies” of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) have fascinated various students of the Chinese Communist political process. Unfortunately their roles, other than those associated with combat, have never been carefully studied or defined. One of the consequences has been that most observers, especially Western observers, have neglected these institutions in their search for the origins and parameters of contemporary formal and informal power, collective and individual. In part, this neglect has reflected a dearth of essential research on Chinese Communist military biography and military history, without which neither the 1949 nor the 1968 military-political significance of the Field Armies could emerge from the superficial picture of them as triumphant masses of combat forces sweeping across the Mainland in 1950.

The outbreak of the Fukien Rebellion on 20 November 1933 brought to a halt the first phase of Chiang Kai-shek's Fifth Encirclement Campaign against the Central Soviet area. Just as the Kuomintang (KMT) economic blockade was becoming effective and Nationalist troops were inflicting important losses on the Red Army, Chiang was forced to curtail operations and divert sizeable units eastward to defend against a possible rebel invasion from Fukien. For the beleaguered Red armies defending the Kiangsi Soviet base, this allowed a much-needed rest and a chance to turn with safety from the Fukien front to regroup for action in more critical sectors. The rebellion broke the KMT encirclement in the east, at least temporarily, and seemingly gave the Communist leadership at Juichin grounds for hope that a friendly rebel regime in Foochow might open up new channels for supply of food and munitions.

From its inception until at least the Cultural Revolution, the Communist regime in China has had a twofold aim for its intellectuals: it has sought to indoctrinate them with the exclusive ideologies of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, and it has tried to utilize their skills to develop an industrialized and modernized society. The Chinese Communist Party has attempted to implement these two policies by an insistence on the strict orthodoxy of thinking individuals, on the one hand, and by the encouragement of intellectuals to work creatively at their jobs on the other. This contradictory approach has resulted in a policy toward the intellectuals that has been alternatively severe and relaxed. Though the main trend is usually in one direction or the other, there have always been counter-currents present which can be revived when necessary.

A Communist party is not a mass party. It is rather, by its own definition, a party of elites, the most advanced members of a single class. The Communist Party in China is proportionally the smallest of all ruling Communist parties, never having comprised as much as three per cent. of the population. Such a small leadership group, lacking the direct involvement of the masses in its membership, must rely on other organs to engage the bulk of the population on its behalf. These are the mass organizations. Operating through these mass organizations, the Party maintains leadership and control over the various sectors of society; at the same time, the organizations, staffed by Party members, educate the masses in communism and provide grass roots listening posts which help the Party to maintain its legitimacy.

“Fight no battle unprepared, fight no battle you are not sure of winning.…” These words of Mao's, written just over 20 years ago, are an apt reminder of the fact that in the conduct of war, as in the control of the Party or the elimination of opposition, Mao makes no confrontation without intensive preparation. They set the mood of this short study of the dismissal of P'eng Te-huai; a study in which my thesis is that P'eng was eliminated as a real or potential threat to Mao some months prior to the 8th Plenum.