Looking Back on the People's Army's Struggle Through History's "Telescope"
Why We Have Always Been Able to Press Forward Without Hesitation — Looking Back on the People's Army's Struggle Through History's "Telescope"
■ Sun Xiaoqing
History is a mirror, and also a telescope through which to observe the present.
Mao Zedong — great leader of the Chinese Communist Party. Zhang Side — an ordinary soldier of the Eighth Route Army.
On September 8, 1944, at a memorial service held in Yan'an for Zhang Side, who had died in the line of duty, Mao Zedong delivered his famous speech "Serve the People," stating at the outset the one and only purpose of the Party and the army: "Our Communist Party and the Eighth Route Army and New Fourth Army led by our Communist Party are revolutionary troops. Our entire army is absolutely at the service of liberating the people and works entirely in the people's interests."
"Serve the People" — five concise characters that are both a precise summation of the twenty-three years of Party-building and seventeen years of army-building that had come before, and a fundamental requirement for the entire Party and the entire army. Looking across the People's Army's nearly one hundred years of struggle, holding fast to the nature of the army as defined by the word "people," and upholding the principle of the Party commanding the gun and the purpose of serving the people — this is the soul and the root that has kept our army forever undefeated.
(I)
Looking back through history's "telescope," old China more than one hundred years ago presented a scene of shattered mountains and rivers and untold suffering.
"The long night darkens the land of the red county; for a hundred years monsters and demons have danced; five hundred million people are not reunited." Patriotic men of vision who sought to save the nation either pursued reform and self-strengthening or rose in armed revolt, yet all ended in failure — including the Revolution of 1911, which overthrew the imperial system, which also suffered severe setbacks. In those turbulent times, who could seek happiness for the people and rejuvenation for the nation?
In the early 1920s, the Chinese Communist Party was born amid the nation's internal troubles and external threats, carrying a burning founding aspiration, and began the arduous struggle to unite and lead the Chinese people in winning national independence and the liberation of the people. During the First Revolutionary Civil War, the still-young Communist Party first engaged with military affairs through its cooperation with the Kuomintang — including participating in the founding of the Whampoa Military Academy, establishing and leading political work within the National Revolutionary Army, cultivating its own military cadres, controlling a portion of the revolutionary armed forces, and at the same time actively organizing worker-peasant armed forces and participating in the Northern Expedition, where it effectively led political work.
Then the situation changed dramatically. In 1927, Chiang Kai-shek launched the April 12 counter-revolutionary coup, massacring Communists on a massive scale; within barely a year, more than 310,000 Communist Party members and revolutionary masses had been killed, and the surging Great Revolution was cut short. The bloody lesson taught Communists a truth: "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun."
From August 1927 to the first half of 1928, the Chinese Communist Party organized and led nearly one hundred armed uprisings across the country. Among these, the Nanchang Uprising fired the first shot of armed resistance against the Kuomintang reactionaries, marking the beginning of the Chinese Communist Party's independent leadership of revolutionary war, the founding of the People's Army, and the seizure of political power through armed struggle. "The army is called the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army, its banner the sickle and the axe" — the Autumn Harvest Uprising was the first time the banner of the Chinese Communist Party was openly raised in armed struggle. The Guangzhou Uprising directly proclaimed the establishment of the Guangzhou Soviet Government.
The founding aspiration of the Chinese Communist Party, projected onto military affairs, was to build a revolutionary army and fight for the people's world. It was like a ray of light in the dark night, piercing through the fog, illuminating the path ahead, and awakening in countless people their longing for the future.
The leaders of the Nanchang Uprising were mostly senior commanders from the old armies. Dissatisfied with the darkness of society and unattached to high office and generous salaries, they wholeheartedly yearned for revolution; Zhu De had even traveled to Europe in pursuit of the Communist Party. After the Nanchang Uprising failed, the troops split at Sanheба, with Zhu De leading his forces as the rear guard to cover the main force's southward withdrawal. In the fierce fighting, the troops suffered more than fifty percent casualties, and then came news that the main force had been defeated at Chaoshan. The military situation was critical, and morale had collapsed. Zhu De stepped forward, steadied the troops, and declared with iron resolve: the darkness is temporary; those who want to make revolution, follow me — final victory will surely be ours. He reorganized the remaining eight hundred or so men and led them up to Jinggang Mountain, achieving the great juncture with the Autumn Harvest Uprising forces led by Mao Zedong.
The surviving forces of the Nanchang Uprising became the backbone of the People's Army's founding; the revolutionary spark ignited by the Party's founding aspiration became the loyalty inscribed in the bones of this army: loyal to the revolution and loyal to the Party, loyal to the people is our true character.
(II)
Looking through history's "telescope," Gutian ninety-seven years ago was the critical turning point at which the People's Army remade itself.
"Looking back, the Gutian Conference enabled this army of ours to be reborn through fire, like a phoenix rising from the ashes." On October 31, 2014, Chairman Xi delivered an important speech at the All-Army Political Work Conference. The conference was held at the site of the Gutian Conference — reflecting and looking forward from the place where the new-type People's Army took its definitive shape made the occasion all the more thought-provoking. How to firmly establish ideals and convictions throughout the entire army, how to firmly establish the principle of Party character throughout the entire army, how to firmly establish the standard of combat effectiveness throughout the entire army, and how to firmly establish the authority of political work throughout the entire army — these became the major subjects of army-building in the new era.
Surveying Chinese military history from the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods onward, wars for supremacy over the Central Plains spanned every dynasty, producing no shortage of classic battles and legendary commanders. In terms of combat power, the tiger-and-wolf army forged over several generations by the state of Qin helped achieve the unification of China under "the King of Qin sweeping the six states"; the iron cavalry of the Western Han, commanded by Wei Qing and Huo Qubing, drove deep into the desert and struck directly at the Xiongnu royal court. In terms of military governance, the Han-dynasty general Zhou Yafu encamped at Xiliu with strict military discipline — even the emperor had to observe military regulations when entering the camp — and the Tang poem "the Willow Camp towers over the Han palace in spring" borrowed this allusion to praise Zhuge Liang's skillful command. In terms of loyalty and valor, the Yang family generals of the Northern Song, the Yue family army of the Southern Song, and the Qi family army of the Ming dynasty all bravely resisted foreign aggression and pledged their lives to defend their homeland, earning lasting admiration. Yet no matter how mighty and powerful these military forces were, even those that left their names in the historical record ultimately could not avoid leaving the stage of history.
The People's Army burst onto the scene, and its entirely new concepts of army-building and methods of military governance constituted a complete overturning of the traditional army.
On September 29, 1927, when Mao Zedong led the Autumn Harvest Uprising forces to Sanwan Village in Yongxin County, Jiangxi Province, he reorganized the force of fewer than one thousand men: Party organizations at every level and the Party representative system were established, ensuring that every company had a Party branch, every squad and platoon had a Party cell, every company and above had a Party representative, and every battalion and regiment had a Party committee; at the same time, soldiers' committees were established at every level, democratic systems were implemented, and equality between officers and soldiers was realized — this became known historically as the "Sanwan Reorganization."
Two years later, the Gutian Conference, held in Shanghang, Fujian, in December 1929, was another milestone in the history of our Party and our army. At that time, the newly founded Red Army was quite weak, its composition was complex, its thinking was diverse, and facing encirclement by reactionary forces, it urgently needed to correct and overcome various erroneous ideas. The resolution passed at the conference — the Resolution of the Ninth Congress of the Communist Party of China Representatives of the Fourth Army of the Red Army — solemnly declared: the Red Army of China is an armed body for carrying out the political tasks of the revolution. "The Red Army fights not merely for the sake of fighting but in order to conduct propaganda among the masses, organize them, arm them, and help them to establish revolutionary political power."
The series of basic principles for building the People's Army established by the Sanwan Reorganization and the Gutian Conference laid the foundation for building the Party through ideology and building the army through politics, forming the political character and fundamental advantages that distinguish the People's Army from all old-type armies.
In terms of political nature, the Red Army was not a private armed force serving any individual, but an armed body that obeyed Party command and carried out revolutionary political tasks. In terms of value orientation, the officers and soldiers who joined this army no longer used "soldiering for a meal" as a means of livelihood, but took serving the people as their purpose and were willing to sacrifice their own lives for the people's interests. In terms of internal management, the Red Army maintained strict discipline — not taking so much as a needle or thread from the people — while internally practicing political democracy, economic democracy, and military democracy, abolishing corporal punishment, standing in complete contrast to the image of the old armies, of whom it was said "bandits passing through are like a comb, soldiers passing through are like a fine-tooth comb."
Take the Long March as an example. As a great military expedition and a heroic epic of the human spirit, the Long March has moved countless people to admiration. Zhang Xueliang also touched on this point in his "oral history" in his later years: "Tens of thousands of li of Long March, surrounded, nothing to eat, such hardship — yet they stayed together; when scattered, they came back. Of course, their leadership was the Communist Party." Zhang Xueliang had himself been a commander of troops, and he often said to his subordinates: "This Long March of ten thousand li — who among you could lead it? Who could lead an army to stay with you no matter the circumstances? If it had been us, wouldn't we have lost all our soldiers long ago?"
The secret of how the Red Army led its troops was, in fact, what Mao Zedong said: "One reason the Red Army has been able to carry on in spite of such poor material conditions and such frequent engagements is that the Party branch is organized on the company level." During the Long March, the Red Army's General Political Department issued multiple directives emphasizing that company-level Party branches must be fully functioning, and that Party members must play an exemplary and leading role at moments of crisis. When the 3rd Company of the 28th Regiment of the 10th Division of the Fourth Front Army of the Red Army was crossing the grasslands, twenty-nine wounded and sick soldiers fell behind and found themselves in desperate straits. Deputy Company Commander Li Yusheng gathered the men and established a temporary Party branch by a campfire, serving as its secretary. He led everyone in mutual aid — digging for wild vegetables while marching by day, lighting campfires and huddling together for warmth at night — and in the end the entire group walked out of the grasslands and rejoined the main force.
The Party's leadership took root and flourished at the grassroots level of the army, transforming the Party's founding aspiration into the ideals and convictions of all officers and soldiers.
With lofty ideals and convictions came a life's purpose — knowing for whom one soldiers and for whom one fights. Looking back through military history, at every critical juncture of the revolution, the Party placed special emphasis on the army maintaining a firm and correct political orientation — from the Yan'an Rectification Movement's purification of thinking and unification of will, to the New-Style Army Consolidation Movement during the War of Liberation. Concretely implemented through educating and transforming people with correct thinking, the People's Army was like a great furnace, transforming countless peasants, soldiers from old armies, and captured soldiers into courageous revolutionary fighters. The hundreds of thousands of Kuomintang officers and soldiers captured during the War of Liberation were quickly transformed through education and joined the fight to win the world for the people. Why? Because the two armies were worlds apart, and their life's purposes were different.
With lofty ideals and convictions came a high degree of conscious resolve to resolutely carry out revolutionary discipline. The three rules of discipline that Mao Zedong announced while standing on "Thunder Rock" on Jinggang Mountain were gradually refined into the "Three Main Rules of Discipline and the Eight Points for Attention," becoming the iron law of military governance that continues to this day. When troops marched past an orchard during the assault on Jinzhou in the War of Liberation, though desperately hungry and thirsty, not a single person picked a piece of fruit. In the soldiers' view, eating the common people's fruit without permission was contemptible; not eating it was noble. On Wusheng Mountain during the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea, the young soldier Qiu Shaoyun was carrying out a concealment mission when surrounding grass was ignited by enemy incendiary bombs; to avoid exposing the unit's position, he endured the agony of the flames consuming his body without moving, becoming a steel warrior who lives forever in the fire.
With lofty ideals and convictions came the fighting spirit of fearing neither hardship nor death. The glorious battle history of the People's Army is woven together by the blood and lives of countless heroes and models. In the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea alone, the Chinese People's Volunteer Army produced 2 special-class heroes, 236 special-merit recipients, 51 first-class heroes, 270 second-class heroes, 4 first-class models, and 83 second-class models. The battle history written in blood resounds with a heroic symphony of struggle, sacrifice, further struggle, and ultimate victory. Those heroes and models — named and unnamed, living and fallen — are like stars in the sky: visible, but too numerous to count. It is precisely their existence that made the heavy night sky of the war years blaze with brilliant starlight.
(III)
Looking carefully through history's "telescope," we see a long-enduring founding aspiration hidden within a single artifact.
On a white handkerchief, a few lines of writing bring instant tears to the eyes — words written in June 1950 by a certain regiment to comrades being demobilized: "We hope that you will henceforth actively participate in production and construction and serve the people to the end." Savoring this seemingly unremarkable artifact, we can weigh its profound historical significance: education in the purpose of serving the people ran through the entire military careers of officers and soldiers, influencing them for their whole lives.
Yes, the People's Army loves the people and serves the people — not only sincerely relying on the people and wholeheartedly serving the people, but also holding fast to the concept that the people create history, implementing a series of people's war strategies and tactics, and allowing the mighty power of people's war to be fully released.
This mighty power was generated by correct guiding principles. As early as the founding period, the Red Army put forward "dispersing forces to mobilize the masses, concentrating forces to deal with the enemy," establishing and applying the guerrilla-style strategic and tactical principles of "the enemy advances, we retreat; the enemy camps, we harass; the enemy tires, we attack; the enemy retreats, we pursue" — starting from the reality of the enemy's strength and our weakness, relying on the masses to contend with the enemy. During the War of Resistance Against Japan and the War of Liberation, our army brought the strategies and tactics of people's war to the fullest expression. For the sake of a protracted war of resistance, our Party implemented the "Ten Major Policies," among which streamlining the army and simplifying administration, supporting the government and cherishing the people, developing production, the "three-thirds system" (三三制), and reducing rent and interest were all focused on the people's livelihood, formulated to reduce the burden on the people and win popular support. As Mao Zedong revealed in "On Protracted War": "The richest source of power to wage war lies in the masses of the people" and "Mobilize the entire people, and you will create a vast sea in which the enemy will be drowned."
This mighty power drew from the selfless dedication of the people. Who are the people? Countless heartbreaking stories tell us: the people are that wife in the Soviet area whose husband followed the Red Army on its long expedition, who waited and waited, making one pair of military shoes every year, and who at her death left behind seventy-five pairs of military shoes. The people are those "Yimeng Red Sisters" (沂蒙红嫂) and "Taihang Nursing Mothers" (太行奶娘) who nourished wounded Eighth Route Army soldiers with their own breast milk and used their own children to ransom Eighth Route Army descendants from enemy blades. The people are those mountain villagers who, to smash Japanese "mopping-up" operations, cleared the fields and hid their stores, leaving the enemy with nothing to eat or drink until their spirits broke. The people are also those ordinary common folk who sent their last flesh and blood to the battlefield, handed over their last bowl of rice as military rations, used their last foot of cloth to make military uniforms, and spread their last old cotton-padded jacket over a stretcher... In a word, the tens of millions of people who ruined their families to aid the nation's cause, gave everything they had, and were willing to make great sacrifices for the revolution — they wrote two towering characters: the People!
This mighty power created a spectacle of war without precedent in history. In the War of Resistance Against Japan, our Party was able to serve as the mainstay of resistance because its foundation was the people.
When the sea of the people surged in fury, the military and civilian population behind enemy lines created tunnel warfare, mine warfare, sparrow warfare (麻雀战), aquatic guerrilla warfare, and transportation sabotage warfare, among others, bringing people's war to a consummate art. During the War of Liberation, the people marched alongside the army — from rear-area production to transporting supplies, from repairing roads to treating the wounded, from clearing battlefields to guarding prisoners — wherever the People's Liberation Army fought, the people were there in support. In the three great campaigns of Liaoshen, Huaihai, and Pingjin alone, the PLA mobilized a total of more than 8.8 million civilian laborers; the people deployed 1.41 million vehicles of all sizes, more than 360,000 stretchers, more than 2.6 million draft animals, and contributed 425 million kilograms of grain. One Shandong civilian worker led a small cart team from Laiyang County, following the army through battle after battle across the Huaihai battlefield, covering more than five thousand li; at each place he arrived, he carved the place name into a small bamboo stick he carried with him, and in the end that bamboo stick bore the names of eighty-eight cities, towns, and villages across three provinces — Shandong, Jiangsu, and Anhui. No wonder Chen Yi exclaimed: the victory of the Huaihai Campaign was pushed out by the people's wheelbarrows.
The Jilubian (冀鲁边) Anti-Japanese Base Area in the old revolutionary region was an open plain with no natural defenses, yet it relied on the vast green sorghum fields of summer and the warm kangs in villagers' homes in winter to nurture generation after generation of the people's sons and daughters in arms. In response to the needs of the developing War of Liberation, many units were reorganized, large numbers of young men enlisted, and successively some one hundred thousand or more people were incorporated into the Northeast, East China, Central Plains, Northwest, and other field army units, bidding farewell to their homeland and maneuvering across regions, fighting within and beyond the Great Wall, battling north and south of the great rivers. They were like great trees that had taken root and grown in the fertile soil of the Jilubian region's deep mass foundation — weathering wind and rain, enduring cold and heat, flourishing and spreading their branches, their dense shade extending to the Changbai Mountains and the Heilong River, to island coconut groves, to the eastern seaboard, to the snow-covered western frontier.
From the founding of the People's Army to the birth of New China, the Chinese Communist Party waged armed struggle for twenty-two years, fighting to the death against reactionary armies, and ultimately won the hearts of the people, the will of the people, and the strength of the people, founding a republic in which the people are masters of their own country.
Today, although the form of warfare is evolving toward informatization and intelligentization (信息化、智能化), the essential nature of the army — that its "foundation lies in the people" — has not changed, and people's war will manifest in new forms. For example, practitioners in fields such as artificial intelligence and cybersecurity will be rapidly incorporated into the wartime mobilization system, driving deep coupling between military requirements and social development, and transforming the extraordinary creativity of the people into an important factor for victory in modern warfare.
(IV)
Looking far ahead through history's "telescope," on the road of advance, the answer of victory is clear and resolute.
After the founding of New China, tempered by the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea, the People's Liberation Army began its march toward modernization. In peacetime, everything in army-building — the internal and external environment, education and training, logistical support, equipment development — has been changing; yet two cornerstones have never been loosened by the passage of time: the Party commanding the gun, rooted in fundamental institutions, and serving the people, flowing in the blood of officers and soldiers.
Facing the hard requirements of modern warfare for efficient command, the Regulations on Political Work of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (Draft), promulgated in 1954, established in regulatory form the principle of the Party's absolute leadership over the army. Since the 18th National Congress of the Party, the Party Central Committee, the Central Military Commission, and Chairman Xi have, through a series of institutional designs and arrangements, driven the implementation of the system of CMC Chairman responsibility to become strict and substantive, making this leadership system the fundamental form for upholding the Party's absolute leadership over the People's Army — occupying the highest level and holding the commanding position within the entire institutional system of Party leadership over the army. When the curtain rose on military reform in 2015 — restructuring the command system, transferring and repositioning units, with unprecedented operational difficulty — because the top-level design and efficient leadership of "the CMC exercises overall management, theater commands focus on warfighting, and the services focus on building" was upheld, the People's Army not only "slimmed down" but also "strengthened its bones": new-type combat forces emerged as the times required, the joint operations system took full shape, and the People's Army achieved a complete renewal of its institutional structure, organizational structure, overall configuration, and overall appearance.
The grassroots frontline is also the main battleground for transmitting the army's soul. The "Red First Company" of a certain Army brigade has undergone dozens of organizational adjustments, equipment upgrades, and relocations, yet has consistently emphasized the role of the Party branch as a fighting fortress. Facing the difficulties of mastering new equipment, integrating new tactics, and fitting into new systems, the Party branch took the lead in tackling hard problems, Party member cadres charged to the front, and led the entire company's officers and soldiers to rapidly master informatized combat skills; the company was the first to complete the transition from mechanization to informatization.
All the transformation and strengthening on the road to a strong army ultimately serves to benefit the people. From the era of mule-and-horse transport — defending the borders — to the information age — disaster relief and rescue — the more advanced the People's Army's equipment and the stronger its capabilities, the greater its confidence in protecting the people. During the 2020 flood-fighting and rescue operations, the Eastern Theater Command Army's "Linfen Brigade," which had just completed its reform and reshaping, moved immediately upon receiving orders, rushing from the training ground to the front lines of flood fighting along the Huai and Yangtze Rivers; modern rescue equipment, rapid mobility and delivery capabilities, and scientific coordinated operational modes dramatically improved rescue efficiency. In January 2025, a magnitude 6.8 earthquake struck Dingri County, Tibet; a certain regiment's rescue force closest to the epicenter arrived at the disaster area in just thirty-five minutes. Such rapid response not only validated the efficiency of the modern command system but also tested the officers' and soldiers' conscious fulfillment of their duties. Whenever the people are in distress, the sons and daughters of the army will charge to the front.
The founding aspiration of Communists is the founding aspiration of the People's Army. The prolonged peaceful environment and the temptations of abundant material goods have caused a small number of people to become corrupt and degenerate through their failure to hold fast to the founding aspiration. To ensure that the Party's founding aspiration is carried through to the end within the army, since the 18th National Congress of the Party, the Party Central Committee, the Central Military Commission, and Chairman Xi have vigorously pursued comprehensive and strict governance of the Party and comprehensive and strict governance of the army, steadfastly advancing political rectification; the People's Army has undergone revolutionary tempering in the struggle against corruption and has won the historical initiative in building a strong army and rejuvenating the army.
Surveying the vast course of our army's modernization and reform-driven strengthening, the iteration of equipment and the leap in combat power are the outward transformation; obeying Party command and serving the people are the eternal inner constants — ensuring that no matter how equipment is upgraded or how the battlefield changes, the army always knows clearly where it came from and for whom it fights.
When the J-20 fighter jet streaks across the sky, when carrier battle groups sail toward the deep blue, when soldiers of the Lei Feng Squad finish training and immediately send tuition money to children in mountain areas, when the words of the martyred Chen Xiangrong — "pure love, only for China" — become the heartfelt cry of countless young people, we are all the more convinced: the army's soul of obeying Party command, and the roots sunk deep in the people, are the underlying logic by which our army can fight and win battles and comprehensively build a world-class military.