Establishing and Practicing the Correct Outlook on Performance Achievements | An Investigation Before a Party Committee Session on War Preparation and Training

An Investigation Before a Party Committee Session on War Preparation and Training

■ A Standing Member of the Party Committee of a Certain Detachment, People's Armed Police Sichuan General Corps

Editor's Note: Hard work is the correct path to generating performance achievements (政绩), and performance achievements are the ultimate expression of the value of hard work. Deliberation on war preparation and training (议战议训) is an important responsibility and a critical link through which Party committees at all levels lead military training work; its quality directly determines the effectiveness of training troops and preparing for war. Yet in practice, some Party committees' deliberations on war preparation and training suffer from problems such as deliberating without substance and deliberating without precision. One important reason is that pre-meeting investigation and research is insufficiently thorough, causing the agenda to become detached from the realities of preparing to fight. Without investigation there is no right to speak; without investigation there is no right to make decisions. Not long ago, before a certain detachment of the People's Armed Police Sichuan General Corps convened a Party committee session on war preparation and training, a standing member of the Party committee went down to the grassroots front line, using a problem-oriented approach to examine actual conditions, identify root causes, and devise practical solutions, providing a strong reference for achieving concrete results in the deliberation on war preparation and training. His experience conducting this investigation carries meaningful lessons.

Party member backbone personnel of a certain detachment of the People's Armed Police Sichuan General Corps take the lead in conducting the 400-meter obstacle course training event. Photo by Lü Junfei.

Accompanying a Certain Battalion on Night Training, Discovering Problems and Correcting Them in a Timely Manner——

Squeezing the Water Out of Combat-Realistic Training (实战化训练)

Investigation and Research

"Fall in!" After hearing the whistle, officers and soldiers of a certain battalion quickly came downstairs, preparing to begin night training. On that occasion, I, as the standing Party committee member stationed there to provide assistance, decided to train alongside the officers and soldiers.

Upon arriving at the training ground, however, the scene before me made my heart sink: on one side, the physical fitness training ground was brightly lit, with officers and soldiers sweating profusely and chanting slogans with vigor, yet on the other side, the tactical skills training ground was completely dark, with the various night-training equipment left largely untouched. The actual combat skills (实战本领) that should have been forged in the darkness of night had been replaced by physical fitness training conducted at night. This was neither consistent with the training schedule nor in keeping with the basic requirements for organizing night training.

"Why has tonight's night-training event been changed to physical fitness training?"

I walked over to the duty officer and asked quietly.

The duty officer's face immediately flushed, and he explained the difficulty: according to regulations, after each battalion organized night training, personnel were permitted to rise half an hour later the following morning. However, because the night-training schedules of the various battalions were not coordinated, they interfered with one another, and the rest of officers and soldiers could not be guaranteed. On several occasions, after they had finished night training and wanted to sleep in the next morning, the officers and soldiers of the neighboring unit conducting normal morning exercises were shouting so loudly that some of their personnel were listless the entire day. After this happened several times, individual units began to cut corners and lower standards, gradually substituting physical fitness training for nighttime tactical skills training.

After immediately halting and correcting this situation, I remained unsettled for a long time. Night training is a whetstone for honing combat effectiveness; if the problems were not resolved, it would inevitably and seriously affect combat effectiveness.

Problem-Solving Approach

"Grasping night training cannot only calculate the 'time account'—it must also calculate the 'actual combat account.'" The following day, I convened the operations and training department together with the battalion commanders to solicit opinions and suggestions. In the end, everyone pooled their thinking and produced a number of workable ideas. For example: break the practice of organizing night training by organic unit, and instead have the operations and training department coordinate and organize by cantonment zone, so that after officers and soldiers in the same zone complete night training, they can make up their sleep in a relatively quiet environment; battalion officers rotate as duty officers, responsible for regulating night-training order, venues, and equipment; and the headquarters element provides guidance throughout and conducts training supervision, among other measures.

After the Party committee's deliberation on war preparation and training studied and approved these measures, the appearance of night training improved markedly. Not long ago, a certain company conducted camouflage infiltration (伪装潜行) training. Deputy Party Secretary Luo of the company Party branch, wearing night-vision goggles and carrying a high-powered flashlight, played the role of the opposing force (蓝军), while a Party member squad leader led his entire squad in using nearby earthen slopes and embankments for concealment, successfully capturing the "enemy."

"Now the detachment makes unified arrangements, and companies can share equipment and venues with one another. When we encounter difficult and complex training events, we can consult the headquarters element at any time. After night training, officers and soldiers can also get adequate rest and recovery, and the drive to train troops remains consistently high." Coming off the exercise and training ground, Company Commander Luo shared with me these new changes on the night-training ground.

In the Dormitory Building of a Certain Battalion, Streamlining and Optimizing the Duty Deployment Plan——

Returning Training Time and Energy to Officers and Soldiers

Investigation and Research

That morning, I walked into the dormitory building of a certain battalion, and several sentries in front of the building simultaneously stood up and saluted. Standing at the entrance, I was momentarily uncertain which company's door to enter first. Calculating in my mind, I found that the dormitory building had multiple self-defense sentries (自卫哨) posted, and together with patrol sentries, armory sentries, and guards for key targets, this single building alone had 10 officers and soldiers performing duty.

At that moment, Xiao Wu, a driver from the transportation and repair company, came over and proactively explained the situation to me: "The duty pressure at the grassroots level is fairly heavy right now. Some comrades can't sleep soundly at night, and during the day they frequently have to face guard relief in the middle of training, which easily affects training results." I couldn't help but feel that the scene of layered defenses and sentries posted everywhere appeared regular and rigorous on the surface, but in reality it was wastefully consuming manpower and imposing a heavy burden. I decided to conduct further investigation.

As I made my way through, officers and soldiers fed back a number of problems to me: sentry post layouts were unreasonable, with completely overlapping fields of view; when there were examination duties, escort missions, or convoy tasks, nighttime rest could not be guaranteed; and daytime training was also frequently interrupted by duty assignments.

Duty itself exists to guarantee combat effectiveness; it must not in turn undermine combat effectiveness. Based on the investigation, I conducted a survey of each battalion and found that among the cantonment sentry posts, some had overlapping functions, some had rudimentary facilities, and some had very limited observation ranges. Whenever it was time for guard relief, the number of personnel on the training ground would also decrease, affecting the training participation rate and training quality and effectiveness.

Problem-Solving Approach

At the Party committee session on war preparation and training, I put this problem on the table, prompting everyone to think and discuss it in depth. Everyone felt that training troops and preparing for war in a serious and concrete manner requires raising the contribution rate to combat effectiveness and improving training quality and effectiveness.

After careful study, we drew on regulations and the opinions and suggestions of officers and soldiers, and following the approach of "streamline and consolidate, combine fixed posts with patrols, reinforce key points, and leverage information support (精简合并、固巡结合、重点加强、信息支撑)," we developed a preliminary optimized duty deployment plan: self-defense sentries within the same zone with mutually overlapping fields of view are consolidated into one; the number of nighttime patrol sentries is halved, and foot patrols are converted to vehicle patrols; all surveillance camera feeds are connected to the detachment- and battalion-level operations duty rooms; and when one company bears a major duty task, its internal duty responsibilities can be distributed among the other companies.

After the duty deployment was optimized and adjusted, I visited the battalion again and found that the original several self-defense sentries had been consolidated into one. Party member Xiao Zhao, who was on post, reported that video surveillance now has no blind spots, the number of personnel on duty has been halved, the training participation rate has gone up, and training levels have risen accordingly.

This further strengthened my conviction: grasping grassroots work and grasping war preparation requires liberating officers and soldiers from needless consumption, and returning time and energy to the exercise and training ground and to combat effectiveness. This is the genuine performance achievement (实在政绩) that is responsible to winning battles, responsible to officers and soldiers, and responsible to unit building.

Entering the Training Ground, Promoting the Battalion Rolling Training Model——

Give the Grassroots More Space for Autonomous Development (自主抓建)

Investigation and Research

On this day, I walked into a certain training ground where multiple companies were organizing training. Although the morale of officers and soldiers was fairly high, because the training events and progress were all roughly the same, a problem of overcrowding in training had emerged. For example, some companies organizing combatives (擒敌术) training could not even form up in basic formations; some companies organizing hand grenade throwing training found that, due to limited venues and instructor resources, soldiers with non-standard movements who urgently needed remedial training could only get in a few throws in total.

This inevitably led me into deep reflection: how could training quality and effectiveness be guaranteed when conducted in this manner?

During a training break, I asked Xiao Deng, a Party member backbone from a certain company, about the situation. It turned out that the detachment required the combatives training event to be completed in the first quarter. The battalion had fallen behind earlier due to missions, and upon returning could only grit its teeth and make up the training, resulting in several companies' training piling up together, with venues and instructors unevenly distributed (场地、教练员"旱涝不均"), and effectiveness greatly diminished.

Mechanically executing the plan may look like "implementation," but in reality it is "hollow implementation." The greatest fear in grasping training is attending only to traces of activity while ignoring results. If completing metrics is treated as the objective rather than improving combat effectiveness, how can a unit's combat effectiveness be effectively raised?

During the investigation, I brought headquarters personnel down to the grassroots to convene military training forums, inviting representatives of officers and soldiers to speak freely on "how venues should be used, how personnel should be trained, and how instructors should be allocated." Many training backbone personnel felt that the approach should be benchmarked against the "common subjects—professional skills—tactical coordination (共同课目—专业技能—技战术协同)" cyclical rotation model specified in the training syllabus, abandoning the mechanical practice of monthly block scheduling with all units advancing in lockstep. They also suggested delegating authority to the grassroots, with the headquarters element controlling training nodes while the grassroots specifically plans training content, leaving space for autonomous adjustment.

Problem-Solving Approach

I brought the results of the preceding investigation to the deliberation on war preparation and training session, where they received unanimous agreement. Everyone studied and decided to promote a battalion rolling training model: the combatives training event previously required to be completed simultaneously by all battalions was changed to a staggered monthly schedule for each battalion; each month, companies rotate through in sequence, with instructors uniformly allocated by the battalion and venues used in rotation. For fixed-venue training events such as grenade throwing and obstacle courses, parallel cross-training (并行交叉训练) is implemented: those who excel are exempted from training and redirected to specialization, while resources are concentrated to provide precise mentoring and focused intensive training (精准帮带、专攻精练) for personnel with weaknesses.

"Now that the training plan is scientific and orderly, results naturally improve faster." During a subsequent training inspection, soldier Zhang Zihang smiled and told me that the obstacle course had always been his weak point. Under the parallel cross-training framework, he participated in the battalion-organized remedial and intensive training, with an instructor correcting his movements one-on-one and training time fully guaranteed. In the end, he achieved excellent results.

In a situation similar to Zhang Zihang's was Party member Chen Zheng. His hand grenade throwing performance reached the excellent level, giving him more time to focus intensively on his other weak training events. Seeing many officers and soldiers break through their training weaknesses, I felt deeply gratified.

Reporter's Notes

Improving Combat Effectiveness Is the Greatest Performance Achievement

In the course of this interview, upon learning of this standing Party committee member's investigation experience before the deliberation on war preparation and training session, this reporter's impression is: how thorough the investigation is determines how steady and how fast the pace of combat effectiveness improvement will be.

Some of the problems that exist at the grassroots level—in the past, some leading cadres conducting investigations did not fail to see them, but rather felt "this is just how things have always been done," or "changing it may not necessarily be better." They rarely pressed further to ask: what is the actual quality and effectiveness of training? Are officers and soldiers really in good shape? Has combat effectiveness actually improved?

In investigation and research, what is most valuable is the "practical" effort (实功). Discovering problems requires keen observation; without the drive to "get down low," it is very difficult to discover these abnormalities hidden behind what has become routine. Pointing out problems requires courage; whether one dares to tackle those longstanding, difficult problems tests Party character and the willingness to take responsibility (党性和担当). Rectifying problems requires concrete measures, ensuring that every measure is aimed squarely at the target and every adjustment benefits combat effectiveness.

At present, the entire Party and the entire military are conducting in-depth study and education on establishing and practicing the correct outlook on performance achievements (正确政绩观). The military exists to fight wars. Establishing and practicing the correct outlook on performance achievements is not an abstract slogan—it lives in every thorough and solid investigation conducted by leading cadres, and in every decision made with an eye toward unit building and combat effectiveness improvement. Only by making every investigation deep and solid, and ensuring that deliberation on war preparation and training produces real results, is one being most fundamentally responsible to combat effectiveness building—and only then can improvement in combat effectiveness truly become the greatest performance achievement that can withstand scrutiny.

(This set of articles was compiled by PLA Daily special correspondent Lian Yi and reporters Zhang Leifeng and Li Haoqi.)