Born of the Times to Resist Japan: A Look Inside the Chinese People's Anti-Japanese Red Army University
On June 1st ninety years ago, the Chinese People's Anti-Japanese Red Army University held the opening ceremony for its first class of students——
In July 1936, American journalist and writer Edgar Snow visited a university in Bao'an, Shaanxi, and remarked that it had many unique qualities: one class of students averaged only 27 years of age, yet each had an average of eight years of combat experience and had been wounded three times. For lack of paper, students turned enemy leaflets over and used the blank sides as classroom notebooks. This university used cave dwellings as classrooms, stones and bricks as desks and chairs, and its buildings were impervious to bombing. A university like this, Snow thought, was probably the only one of its kind in the world.
The university Snow visited was the Red Army's highest military institution of learning — the Chinese People's Anti-Japanese Red Army University.
On June 1, 1936, the Chinese People's Anti-Japanese Red Army University (hereafter "Red University") held the opening ceremony for its first class of students at Wayaobu in northern Shaanxi. From its very inception, the Red University was intimately bound up with the survival of the nation and the rise and fall of the state. Snow clearly recognized this, regarding the Red University as the most fitting place to gauge the Chinese Communists' resolve to resist Japan.
The Red University was born of the resistance against Japan and built for the resistance against Japan. At the opening ceremony, Comrade Mao Zedong stated: our Party has established the Anti-Japanese Red Army University in order to prepare for the coming of the national revolutionary war. He encouraged all students: the Red University must complete the unfinished task of Whampoa, and must become the leading force in striving for the independence and liberation of the Chinese nation. Mao Zedong's speech lit the lamp of ideals for the Red University, infused it with a spiritual soul, and oriented its educational mission toward resisting Japan and saving the nation, directing its purpose and task toward cultivating large numbers of revolutionary talent for the resistance against Japan.
Ideals are rooted in reality. At that time, Japanese imperialism — having launched the September 18th Incident in 1931, forcibly occupied our Northeast, and then extended its claws into North China — harbored the ambition of annexing North China and then swallowing all of China. In the face of Japanese imperialism's frenzied aggression, the Kuomintang reactionaries represented by Chiang Kai-shek persisted in the policy of "pacifying the interior before resisting foreign aggression" (攘外必先安内), retreating step by step. The Chinese nation had arrived at a critical moment of life or death.
In October 1935, the main force of the Central Red Army had just reached northern Shaanxi after the arduous Long March, while the Second and Fourth Front Armies were still on the march. At this time, Kuomintang forces continued their "encirclement and suppression" campaigns against the Red Army, concentrating their strength to attack our Red Army and the northern Shaanxi base area, in a vain attempt to annihilate the Red Army in one stroke while the main force of the Central Red Army had just arrived in northern Shaanxi and had not yet consolidated its footing.
In this moment of national peril — though still under attack by Kuomintang forces and in difficult straits — the Chinese Communists acutely recognized that national contradictions had surpassed class contradictions to become the principal contradiction, and that China's political situation was in a period of transition from domestic revolutionary war to the anti-Japanese national revolutionary war. From December 17 to 25, 1935, the CPC Central Committee convened a Politburo conference at Wayaobu, establishing the new strategy of building an anti-Japanese national united front and putting forward the imperative to train cadres in large numbers and send them in successive waves to every front. On May 8, 1936, the CPC Central Committee convened an enlarged Politburo conference in Yanchang County, northern Shaanxi, and decided to establish a Red Army university at Wayaobu. Thus, at this critical juncture of the situation and the tasks at hand — to train cadres, cultivate talent, and welcome the coming of the great anti-Japanese national liberation war — the Chinese People's Anti-Japanese Red Army University was born.
When Snow visited the Red University, it had just relocated from Wayaobu to Bao'an. Shortly after the opening ceremony, because Wayaobu came under attack by Kuomintang forces, the Red University withdrew together with the central organs and moved to Bao'an County in early July to continue its work. The first class of the Red University numbered approximately 1,065 students, drawn mainly from the Central Red Army and the 15th Army Corps. The student body was organized into three departments: the First Department was the Advanced Department, primarily training cadres at the division level and above, with a total of 40 students, of whom 38 were Red Army cadres at the division or regimental level and above, with an average age of 27; the Second Department was the Senior Department, primarily training battalion and company cadres, with a total of 225 students organized into 2 teams; the Third Department was the General Department, primarily training squad and platoon cadres and some veteran soldiers, with a total of 800 students organized into 6 teams.
The Red University placed strong emphasis on cultivating students' political and military qualities. The curricula of the First and Second Departments were essentially balanced between military and political subjects, covering philosophy, political economy, Marxism-Leninism, military strategy, and other content. The strategic studies lectures delivered by Mao Zedong were especially compelling to students. His lecture to the First Department, "Problems of Strategy in China's Revolutionary War," was enormously instructive and enlightening for the students. After learning about the Red University's curriculum, Snow said: for the question of "does the Red Army really intend to fight Japan," the Red University's courses were perhaps a very good answer. This was sufficient to show that the Red Army had long foreseen and was actively planning how China would fight an "independent war" against Japan.
The light of ideals gave rise to spiritual strength. Red University students overcame harsh material conditions and threw themselves wholeheartedly into their studies. At the very outset, Mao Zedong cautioned students that the Red University's situation was one of "four absences": ask for teachers — none; ask for buildings — none; ask for teaching materials — none; ask for funds — none. What to do? The answer was to work hard and struggle arduously (艰苦奋斗). When visiting the First Department's quarters in Bao'an, Mao Zedong said: Red University students were living a "Stone Age" life while studying the most advanced contemporary science — Marxism-Leninism.
At the time, Red University students regardless of rank all pitched in and used local materials: small stone caves served as sleeping quarters, larger stone caves as lecture halls; they built stone lecterns and stone benches, used stone walls as blackboards, and used their knees as desks. On clear days they held classes in the open air under large trees; on rainy days they moved into the stone cave classrooms. Though conditions were harsh, the students' enthusiasm for learning and their sense of self-discipline were both very high. Mo Wenhua, a student in the Red University's First Department, wrote in his diary: strive to study Marxism-Leninism and prepare to welcome the coming high tide of resistance against Japan. This selfless dedication to study also enabled students to make great strides in their grounding in Marxist-Leninist theory, their level of political thought, and their military command and leadership skills.
Snow left the northern Shaanxi Soviet area in October 1936 and did not witness the graduation of the Red University's first class.
Mao Zedong compared the Red University students to the disciples of the "Primordial Heavenly Venerable" (元始天尊), calling their studies in the stone caves a form of cultivation within the cave, and said with humor: when will you descend the mountain? When all under heaven falls into great turmoil, you will descend.
In December 1936, the Xi'an Incident erupted and was peacefully resolved, and the whole country entered a new stage of preparing for full-scale resistance against Japan. In accordance with instructions from the CPC Central Committee and the Central Military Commission, the first class of Red University students had no time to hold a graduation ceremony and instead departed in late December 1936 for the major Red Army units, taking up the new tasks of "consolidating domestic peace, striving for democratic governance, and realizing resistance against Japan." In mid-January 1937, the Red University relocated with the Party Central Committee and the Central Military Commission to Yan'an. On January 19, the Central Military Commission decided to rename the "Anti-Japanese Red Army University" the "Chinese People's Anti-Japanese Military and Political University" — the "Anti-Japanese University" (抗大).
The Red University's most important contribution and achievement was the cultivation of large numbers of talented personnel for the resistance against Japan. After more than half a year of study and advanced training, the students had developed a relatively deep understanding of the Chinese Communist Party's theory, line, principles, and policies regarding the establishment of the anti-Japanese national united front and the leadership of the coming anti-Japanese national liberation war; they had also studied the strategy and tactics of China's revolutionary war and acquired cultural knowledge, laying the ideological foundation and cultivating the qualities and capabilities needed to meet the anti-Japanese national liberation war. Zhang Aiping, a founding General of the Army (开国上将) and a first-class student of the Red University, had this to say: "Before attending the Red Army University, I was at most a tactician, but from that point on, I should be called a strategist. It was precisely the Red Army University that enabled me to systematically receive Mao Zedong Thought and to develop a deeper understanding of the path, prospects, and strategy of the Chinese revolution. In the wars that followed I never suffered another defeat; no matter how difficult the conditions, I had the confidence to prevail. It was at Wayaobu, and it was from Mao Zedong, that I came to understand this truth."
Many students who graduated from the Red University later held leadership positions at various levels in the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army, commanding operations and becoming celebrated commanders of the resistance against Japan — among them Luo Ronghuan, Luo Ruiqing, Tan Zheng, Peng Xuefeng, Liu Yalou, and Geng Biao. Like "seeds," they were scattered across the entire country, laying an important foundation for the development and growth of the People's Army.
Ninety years have passed. Looking back at the Chinese People's Anti-Japanese Red Army University, the light of its ideals and the soul of its spirit — its unswerving dedication to serving the nation, its courage in being the vanguard, its commitment to the nation and the people, and its hard struggle (艰苦奋斗) — still shine brilliantly today.