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6. Crises and Politics
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6 Crises and Politics IN THE 1950S, AS CHINESE society became more radical during the anti-rightist and Great Leap Forward movements, the Chinese military experienced tremendous institutional changes. Defense Minister Peng Dehuai utilized Soviet technology, the officer reeducation and promotion system, and bureaucratic regulations to train a new “professional generation” of the PLA.1 Obviously, a gap existed between the military reform programs and Mao’s continuous revolution, which included political movements against intellectuals and emphasized zhengzhi juewu (political spirit). To Mao, the revolution that brought the CCP to power was the key to continued success. Mao imposed unprecedented, radical methods to mobilize the Chinese masses to forge a new revolutionary generation. The young Chinese, who were “born in New China and raised under the red flag,” had little experience with class struggle. They should be trained and ready to carry on the revolution. PLA officers did not fully understand Mao’s political intentions or his solutions to military and international problems.2 Some generals were uneasy with or puzzled by Mao’s directives in the second Taiwan Strait crisis (1958). Generals Ye Fei and Nie Fengzhi indicated that they had no idea what Mao wanted to do during the crisis. Neither did Marshal Peng. Mao drafted orders in Peng’s name and made decisions by himself, with little or no counsel. Some generals complained about A History of the Modern Chinese Army the lack of communication between Beijing and the field headquarters . Unhappy with the gap between the party and the military, Mao demanded a supportive relationship between the party center and the PLA high command, like the one that existed during its previous military struggles. In the meantime, however, he could not tolerate the military leaders’ criticism of his domestic policy. When Peng questioned Mao’s Great Leap Forward movement, the marshal was purged at the party’s Lushan conference in the summer of 1959.3 That fall, 1,848 generals and officers were dismissed or jailed as rightists or as members of Peng’s “anti-party clique.”4 After Peng’s fall, Marshal Lin Biao became the defense minister, serving from September 1959 to September 1971. He promoted Mao’s ideology of the people’s war. He became the second most powerful party leader, and Mao made him his successor in 1969. Chinese military historians consider Lin’s fourteen-year tenure as defense minister destructive to the PLA. This chapter, however, argues that Chinese military modernization did not completely stop after the high command shakeup in 1959. The PLA continued to improve its commanding system, combat effectiveness, and logistics supply until 1967. Its experience in the 1962 Sino-Indian War demonstrated the positive results of the 1950s reform. Sergeant Li Weiheng’s story in this chapter also attests to the reform’s benefits. The debate in the PLA between the people’s war and modernization continued until the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966–67), when all of Lin’s opponents were removed from their posts in the PLA. The 1958 Taiwan Strait Crisis Before his fall, from August to October 1958, Marshal Peng faced a major international crisis in the Taiwan Strait involving the armed forces of the PRC, ROC, and United States.5 In the summer of 1958, when a serious Middle Eastern crisis diverted American attention, it seemed a good opportunity to renew PLA attacks in the Taiwan Strait.6 On July 16, the Chinese government strongly condemned the U.S. armed interference in Lebanon.7 On July 17, the CCP Central Committee, hoping the United States was distracted by the Lebanese crisis, decided to shell Jinmen to crack down on Jiang Jieshi’s army’s frequent harassment along the Fujian coast across from Jinmen and Mazu. [34.228.43.90] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 15:10 GMT) Crises and Politics On the evening of July 18, Mao spoke at a decision-making meeting attended by CMC vice chairmen and leading air force and navy officers, emphasizing that Jinmen and Mazu were China’s territory and that shelling the GMD troops was an internal Chinese matter and would not give the United States an excuse to attack mainland China. Mao believed that the shelling would last for two to three months.8 Later that night, the CMC held an urgent meeting attended by the heads of the PLA branches. Defense Minister Peng conveyed Mao’s instructions and told the chiefs that the GMD planned to create a tense situation in the Taiwan Strait...