Memoirs of Liu Huaqing - 63

Establishment of regular military schools

In January 1951, Southwest Military and Political University was rebuilt into the Second Advanced Infantry School of the Chinese People's Liberation Army.

In October of the first year, the Chinese Volunteers crossed the Yalu River and fought side by side with the Korean People's Army against imperialist aggression. On 5 November, in view of the needs of the development of the situation, the Central Military Commission held a meeting on military schools and troop training, and decided to establish regular military schools. Military academies and general advanced infantry schools were established; Military and political universities run by major military regions and their branch schools were respectively transformed into advanced infantry schools and infantry schools. The main task of the Second Advanced Infantry School is to train junior and intermediate military commanders and political cadres in the regularization and modernization of our army.

The school is headed by Li Da as the principal and political commissar, Yu Qiuli as the deputy political commissar, and Xu Lixing as the vice principal; I am the director of the Political Department and Zhang Yan is the deputy director; The director of the training department is concurrently served by Xu Lixing, and Shang Siguang and Zhang Wenfeng are the vice ministers; The director of the school administration department was Xie Changlin at the beginning, then Yuan Xuedi, and Wu Cheng was the deputy minister first; The director of the Cadre Management Division is concurrently served by Yu Qiuli, and Zeng Kun is the deputy director. The party committee of the school is composed of Yu Qiuli, Zeng Kun, Shang Siguang, Xie Changlin and me, and Yu Qiuli serves as the party secretary.

The school has five regular brigades and one training regiment, with four teams of participants, Russian, cadre rotation, women's and a senior study class for continuing reform and education of Kuomintang uprisings, surrender and captured officers.

In January 1951, the regular brigade began to enroll more than 2,000 cadets. Most of these cadets are outstanding regiment, battalion, and company commanders, unit chiefs, section chiefs, staff officers, officers, and other military and political cadres drawn from the troops, of which 47 percent are regiment and battalion cadres, 71 percent were enlisted during the War of Resistance Against Japan, and 51 percent were meritorious and exemplary figures.

All of them have been tempered by many years of revolutionary war and have relatively high political quality and military experience. However, because most of the trainees were poor peasants and had been in a war environment for a long time, they did not have the opportunity to systematically study military and political theories, and their education level was generally low, most of them were below junior junior high school, and they lacked knowledge of natural sciences. As a result of the victory in the revolutionary war, some of the cadets also cultivated the idea of pride and peaceful pleasure. In an environment of long-term dispersed operations, there are many guerrilla habits. After liberating the southwest, most of the trainees went on to fight against bandits for nearly a year, and without resting, they were transferred to study, and their ideological preparation was inadequate, and some were resistant. In particular, the commanders who came from the troops, who have guards and messengers in their units to take care of their lives, now have to live a regular and tense life as company cadets, and they cannot adapt to it for a while, and some cannot put down the shelves.

We have developed an educational program that is implemented in phases. The duration of study is one and a half years, with preparatory education in half a year and undergraduate education in one year. Preparatory education mainly corrects the attitude of learning and the culture of surprise tutoring, strictly carries out the cultivation of standard coaches and regular military life, overcomes guerrilla habits, and grasps the construction of school spirit; The implementation plan for undergraduate education was formulated in accordance with the CMC's policy of "requiring mastering the art of martial arts on the existing basis, learning to fight with Taiwan's arms, so that they can organize and command modern combat capabilities in operations against imperialism" and the guiding principle that "tactical education must be the center." The military brigade takes platoon, company, battalion and regiment tactics as the main subjects, and the political brigade mainly focuses on systematic political theory education and the political work of the Soviet army and volunteers, interspersed with education on the situation and policies.

In early January 1951, an enlarged meeting of the school's party committee was held. The meeting discussed in depth the Central Military Commission's educational plans and instructions, studied the implementation of new tasks in schools, and adopted the "Resolution on Several Major Issues Concerning the Implementation of the Military Commission's Education Plan and Military Regional Instructions."

The "Resolution" analyzes the favorable factors and difficulties in establishing a regularized military school, and emphatically points out: We must resolutely implement the educational policy and educational plan clearly stipulated by the Central Military Commission, take Mao Zedong's military thought and Soviet military science as the learning objectives, and seriously sum up our army's successful combat experience; In teaching guidance, we must master the principle of less and better; advocate democratic teaching methods of the mass line, and carry out mutual teaching, mutual learning and mutual assistance; It is necessary to strengthen education in patriotism and internationalism, and strengthen education in organization and discipline; It is necessary to establish the party's leadership concept and improve the party committee system, and all school work must be carried out around the education plan.

In February, in order to convey the spirit of the military region's organizational work conference and implement the resolution of the enlarged meeting of the university party committee, the political department of the university held a political work conference. At the meeting, I analyzed and criticized various ideological tendencies among cadres at that time that hindered the implementation of new tasks and educational plans, such as temporary views on school work, unwillingness to delve into work, fatigue at work, fear of formal military training, and other incorrect ideas, emphasizing the need to treat individualism with principles, pointing out that without principles, it is impossible to distinguish right from wrong, individualism cannot be overcome, and there will be no strong leadership work.

These two meetings enabled leaders at all levels to enhance their understanding of the strategic significance of running regular military schools, unify their thinking, and make extremely important ideological preparations for running regular military schools well. After the meeting, there was a gratifying situation in which the whole school was in unison and worked intensively to meet the new heavy teaching tasks.

On January 30, preparatory education began at the school.

First of all, education on the situation of resisting US aggression and aiding Korea was carried out, so that the trainees could have a better understanding of the aggressive nature of US imperialism and the situation of struggle between the two camps. Underground party members who survived the massacre of the "Sino-US Cooperation Institute" were invited to give a report on "eternal life in flames"; Organize cadets to visit exhibitions such as Liu Jiemei, a typical example of the negative Liu Jiemei who turned over and forgot his books and lost his revolutionary will, so as to enhance the cadets' concept of war and establish the idea that they are always a combat team.

The trainees discussed in connection with the actual ideology and examined the thoughts of pride and peace paralysis, and many students were ashamed to tears. Through this period of study, the trainees had a clear understanding of the situation, enhanced their understanding of the necessity of regularizing and modernizing the armed forces, strengthened their confidence in studying and their determination to overcome difficulties, and laid a good ideological foundation for the next step of cultural study and military and political study.

In accordance with the idea that "administering the army first and administering the school must be strict" consistently advocated by Commander Liu Bocheng, we have taken the word "strict" and vigorously grasped the building of school spirit. Strict requirements have been set for all personnel, especially leading cadres and cadets at and above the regiment level, to establish healthy tendencies and to vigorously criticize erroneous thinking. The first group of the school's party committee adheres to principles, is upright, resolute, sets an example for all comrades in the school. School leaders seriously criticized and educated all kinds of words and deeds that violated principles and unhealthy ideological tendencies, and resolutely dealt with several typical erroneous incidents. These practices quickly stopped the evil tendencies of the school, greatly improved the principle atmosphere of the entire school, and ensured the smooth implementation of the teaching plan.

Cultural education begins in mid-February. According to different education levels, the students are divided into four grades: junior high school, junior high school A and junior B, mainly learning four courses: Chinese, mathematics, chemistry and natural knowledge, which are organized and implemented by the Department of Culture and Education of the Ministry of Training. The motivation of the students to learn is very high. However, after all, the cultural foundation is thin, the age is relatively old, there is no step-by-step study habit, coupled with the tight teaching plan, although the students study without sleep and food, it is still full of difficulties, and everyone generally reflects, "high requirements, fast progress, many exercises, and cannot eat".

According to this situation, on the one hand, we ask students to recognize the arduousness of cultural learning and use it as a "fortress" to overcome; On the other hand, it goes deep into the front line of teaching, helps sum up experience, studies and improves teaching methods, organizes trial lectures for teachers, strengthens counseling, and carries out package teaching and mutual assistance activities. Due to the correct leadership of the party committee of the school, the improvement of teaching methods and the hard work of the teachers, especially the fighting spirit of all students, the academic performance was quickly improved, and the teaching task was completed in three months, and most of the students scored more than 80 points in various examinations. The rapid improvement of students' literacy level has created the necessary conditions for entering the subject.

We prepared for undergraduate education in advance. As a faculty member of undergraduate education, I prepared lesson plans and teaching aids, and underwent group discussions and trial lectures. After inspection, the university leaders decided that the conditions for the implementation of undergraduate education were in place, so the opening ceremony was held on May 5, and the students transferred to undergraduate education.

At the opening ceremony, Commander He Long, commander of the Military Region, Political Commissar Deng Xiaoping, Deputy Commander Li Da, and Deputy Directors Wang Xinting and Zhang Ziyi all attended the ceremony. On behalf of the Central Military Commission, Commander He Long presented military flags to various military and political brigades. After the flag-awarding ceremony, a solemn military parade was held, which was reviewed by the commander of the military region.

The central content of the undergraduate military education is the study of Mao Zedong's military thought and the training of joint operations and tactics of various branches of the armed forces. Mao Zedong's military works and Liu Bocheng's translation of "Contract Tactics" are used as the basic teaching materials. The education is divided into two semesters, the first semester focuses on the knowledge of company and platoon tactics and arms, and the second semester focuses on the study of battalion and regiment tactics and necessary staff officer operations. In addition, there are subjects such as queue coaching, shooting, weapons, assassination, topography, fortification, common doctrine, and rear service.

In terms of teaching methods, in addition to systematic teaching of military theoretical knowledge by instructors, there are also classroom discussions, sand table operations and tactical exercises held with the cooperation of practice groups.

The political education of the military brigade is mainly theoretical education on the situation and tasks and the "History of Social Development." In addition to education on the situation and tasks, the political brigade takes "History of Social Development" and "Political Work of the Army" as its main courses.

The contents of undergraduate education are large and the time is short, but the instructors and cadets have worked very hard, carried forward the heroic and tenacious style of our army, assiduously studied military theory and reformed teaching methods, and the teaching plan was implemented relatively smoothly.

In September, I left school and was transferred to the 10th Army.

It is gratifying to note that later comrades from the school told me that in May 1952, this group of students successfully passed the state examination, with a good score rate of 57.5%; 179 students were rated as honors and 208 students were rated as model learners. At the graduation ceremony, Commander He Long, on behalf of the Central Military Commission and the Southwest Military Region, warmly congratulated the school on its achievements. Commander He Long and Political Commissar Deng Xiaoping also personally presented graduation certificates, certificates, and prizes to the trainees.

From May 1949 to the beginning of the Second Field Army, in the more than two years of school work experience, I deeply realized that military school work, whether in wartime or peacetime, is an important part of military work. To build a modern and regularized army, run military academies and schools well, and train qualified personnel for administering the army is an important aspect that cannot be ignored and is a strategic task.