Grassroots 'Construction Guide' Bears Abundant Fruit,激发官兵内生动力 Igniting the Intrinsic Motivation of Officers and Soldiers

An Army Regiment Transforms Its Construction Model to Ignite the Intrinsic Motivation of Officers and Soldiers——

Grassroots Self-Construction: Making Good Use of the 'Guide'

■ Yang Xin

In early summer, deep in the plateau hinterland, an engineer and chemical defense company of an Army regiment organized a professional training exercise. Engineering machinery and equipment roared to life, rapidly clearing obstacles from the road surface; an explosive ordnance disposal robot quickly advanced, climbing slopes and surmounting obstacles, precisely grasping and transferring 'unexploded ordnance'… At the training site, personnel and equipment were smoothly integrated and worked in seamless coordination, successfully completing one professional subject after another.

"War will not let us choose our opponents; peacetime training must be conducted from a position of difficulty and strictness." Stepping off the training ground, Company Commander Yao of the unit said that since undertaking the plateau garrison training mission, they had tailored training content for multiple specialties across the entire company based on the weak points and shortcomings of specialist personnel, scientifically set training cycles, and effectively improved the targeted nature and practical effectiveness of professional training.

The regiment's leadership introduced that the grassroots companies' autonomous management of training and scientific organization of training stemmed from a shift in the guiding thinking of the Party committee and headquarters organs. Previously, during in-depth grassroots investigations, they discovered that because the headquarters organs had insufficient overall coordination and intervened excessively in grassroots affairs, many units were exhausted coping with inspections and assessments and had little time or energy to properly conduct their own all-round construction. Over time, individual units developed a mentality of waiting, relying on, and depending on others.

"Respecting the principal status and pioneering spirit (首创精神) of officers and soldiers, and continuously igniting their intrinsic motivation (内生动力), is the core of grassroots construction." The regiment's leadership introduced that headquarters organ guidance should focus on 'building capacity from within' (造血): it must help grassroots units improve their ability to autonomously manage their own construction by teaching methods, clarifying thinking, and strengthening capabilities. To this end, they closely adhered to the requirements of the Outline for Military Grassroots Construction (《军队基层建设纲要》), grounded themselves in the realities of dispersed plateau garrison training positions and heavy training tasks, refined the boundaries of powers and responsibilities, clarified the chain of responsibility, and promulgated a 'list of powers for grassroots autonomous construction' (基层自主抓建权力清单), giving rise to a vivid situation in which headquarters organs dare to 'let go' and grassroots units diligently 'get to work.'

In practice, they clarified the scope of grassroots autonomous authority in areas including ideological education, training coordination, use of funds, and daily management; sorted out and standardized more than 20 specific matters across 5 categories for which grassroots units are independently responsible; and provided grassroots units with a clear and explicit 'construction guide' (抓建指南). Not long ago, several prefabricated buildings in one company developed leaks. Acting on the authority granted by the list, the company filed a record with the headquarters organ's functional section and carried out repairs independently, with the grassroots discipline inspection commission supervising the entire process; the roof renovation was completed in less than two days.

Entering the armored driving training ground of a certain battalion of the regiment, a scene of intense activity came into view: on the western side of the ground, one group of officers and soldiers took turns training on basic subjects such as slope starts and steering gear changes; on the eastern side, another group conducted continuous skills improvement training between steep slopes and restricted roads; not far away, officers and soldiers participating in assessments drove into a complex assessment section, where examiners strictly scored each item against the standard.

Why did the same subject present different training scenarios? Battalion Commander Lü of the battalion explained that after the spring soldier replacement and discharge work concluded this year, driver positions in each company faced a transition between old and new personnel, and the problem of uneven training foundations was quite pronounced. To address this, they divided all drivers in the battalion into a basic group, an advanced group, and an assessment group, corresponding respectively to basic subject reinforcement, continuous skills improvement, and combat-realistic assessment and testing, dynamically adjusting and progressively advancing through a 'pass to advance' (过关升级) approach.

Discussing the shift in training organization methods, Battalion Commander Lü showed this reporter a weekly training schedule: "The headquarters organs specify the overall training objectives and safety bottom lines for each phase during the garrison training mission; specific training content is independently determined by battalions and companies based on the training syllabus and the baseline assessment of personnel capabilities; each company can flexibly adjust its training organization methods according to its own training progress and weak points."

Thanks to the optimization of the construction approach, remote positions have also taken on many new aspects. Not long ago, a battalion located more than 400 kilometers from the regiment headquarters independently organized a day-and-night live-fire shooting assessment. During the assessment, they independently formulated coordination plans, explored multiple tactical methods and approaches (战术战法), and the rate of good and excellent scores improved markedly compared to previous years. Looking at the score statistics sheet, Battalion Commander Qiu of that battalion said with deep feeling: "After the headquarters organs boldly let go, we threw away our 'crutches,' made good use of the 'guide,' and learned on our own to manage training across the entire chain; the overall quality of battalion and company cadres has been effectively tempered."

"Letting go does not mean washing one's hands of the matter. To ignite the vitality of grassroots autonomous construction, headquarters organs must not only properly delegate authority but also properly serve as the backstop." The regiment's leadership introduced that in order to create favorable conditions and provide institutional support for grassroots autonomous construction, they studied and promulgated a 'three unifications' (三统) mechanism: unified training (统训练)—uniformly standardizing the regiment-wide combat-realistic training standards, ground use norms, and supervision and inspection criteria to ensure training is standardized and orderly; unified education (统教育)—integrating high-quality educational resources, organizing outstanding political instructors to conduct circuit lectures and concentrating efforts on developing model courses, to ensure education more closely meets the needs of officers and soldiers and fits grassroots realities; unified support (统保障)—focusing on the urgent, difficult, and pressing concerns of officers and soldiers such as uniform and equipment distribution and medical treatment, establishing a problem ledger, specifying rectification deadlines, and regularly publicizing progress, to ensure officers and soldiers can devote themselves wholeheartedly to training and war preparation.

Letting go ignites vitality; construction bears abundant fruit. Recently, a company of the regiment underwent a spot assessment by a higher-level authority. The company's officers and soldiers worked in concert and in seamless coordination, achieving outstanding results in multiple subject assessments including the tactical and technical employment of a certain type of unmanned aerial vehicle and light weapons shooting.