Inspiring Officers and Soldiers to Strive for Excellence: How This Company Made the Rotating Red Banner Truly "Rotate"

Making the Rotating Red Banner Truly "Rotate"

■ PLA Daily Special Correspondent Shi Wei

"The units receiving this week's Rotating Red Banners for 'Military Training' and 'Conduct and Discipline' are First Platoon!"

Not long ago, at a routine administrative meeting of a certain company under a certain brigade of the 74th Group Army, Company Commander Wu solemnly presented two bright red banners to a representative of First Platoon before the eyes of the entire company's officers and soldiers. The soldiers' gazes toward the red banners were filled with longing and eagerness.

At the start of this year, in order to cultivate a sense of collective honor among officers and soldiers and stimulate enthusiasm for training, the Party branch decided to establish three Rotating Red Banners—for "Military Training," "Conduct and Discipline," and "Barracks Hygiene"—to be comprehensively assessed and formally awarded each week based on training results and daily performance.

When this mechanism was first implemented, each platoon competed fiercely on the training ground and in the barracks at every turn, with a vigorous spirit of comparing, learning, catching up, helping, and surpassing one another.

However, this practice gradually began to drift off course. On one occasion, the company was preparing as usual to post the week's Rotating Red Banner recipients. As Company Commander Wu passed by the notice board, he happened to overhear several soldiers muttering quietly: "Don't worry—there are only three platoons in the whole company and three Rotating Red Banners, so every platoon is bound to get one in the end"; "Even if we don't get the 'Military Training' banner this week, we'll make it up in the next two weeks" . . .

This exchange weighed on Company Commander Wu. Thinking about how training results across the platoons had slipped somewhat recently and how inspections by higher-level organs had flagged multiple problems, he wondered: could the problem lie with these banners that were supposed to be "rotating"?

Looking back through earlier records, he found that the three banners would "coincidentally" end up with different platoons each time, so that every platoon received one banner every week.

Company Commander Wu immediately sought out the company duty officer and several Party member cadres to find out what was happening. It turned out that after the first few rounds of assessments, officers and soldiers had noticed that any unit that failed to receive a Rotating Red Banner in a given week would be singled out for criticism at the administrative meeting. So the platoon cadres gradually and tacitly developed an unspoken "understanding" among themselves: to avoid finishing last, duty officers would consciously or unconsciously seek balance when reporting on work—a platoon with mediocre training results would have a few fewer problems recorded in the barracks inspection; one with poor barracks hygiene would receive a few extra words of praise for its formation and bearing . . . In this way, the Rotating Red Banners were distributed "evenly" among the platoons.

The Rotating Red Banners had been established precisely to inspire officers and soldiers to strive for excellence, yet the result was that performing well and performing poorly amounted to the same thing. The attitude of "we'll get a red banner no matter what" wore away at the motivation and drive of some officers and soldiers.

Once the root of the problem had been identified, the company commander and political instructor used education time to organize the entire company's officers and soldiers in discussion and analysis around such questions as "Why do we assess for Rotating Red Banners?" and "How should Rotating Red Banners be assessed?"

At the meeting, Company Commander Wu began with self-criticism: as the company's primary officer, he had not kept a close enough grasp on day-to-day work, and after assigning tasks he had not followed up with sufficient supervision and guidance, causing the inspection and assessment process to become a formality. The political instructor followed immediately by pointing out that Party member cadres in particular must take the lead in being truthful and pragmatic, and must not allow assessments to become occasions for going through the motions, seeking workarounds, or striking balances.

"I really did have the problem of trying to please everyone"; "There was a formalism problem in how I completed tasks" . . . The cadres reflected one after another, earnestly identifying their own shortcomings.

Company Commander Wu told this reporter that during one assessment, given that the company's overall training results had declined and the platoons had exposed quite a few problems, he announced on the spot on behalf of the Party branch: "This week, not a single one of the three Rotating Red Banners will be awarded."

When the news spread, the officers and soldiers were not discouraged. "Let's make serious corrections and fight to keep all three Rotating Red Banners in our platoon next week!" In the barracks, cadres from each squad and platoon set the goal for everyone.

In the days that followed, the drive on the training ground was stronger, barracks standards were higher, and every person in the company had a fire burning inside. Then came another administrative meeting, and the entire company's officers and soldiers fell into neat formation early. And so the scene described at the opening of this article came to pass.

Back in the barracks, the platoon leaders gathered together and made a pact to keep comparing, learning, catching up, helping, and surpassing one another, and to compete again in the next assessment.

Watching this scene, Company Commander Wu turned to the political instructor and said: "Now, the Rotating Red Banner is truly 'rotating.'"