Memoirs of Liu Huaqing - 67

Study in the Soviet Union

In June 1954, with the approval of the Central Military Commission, the Navy selected a number of cadres at and above the regimental level to study at the Voroshilov Naval Academy in the Soviet Union. Prior to this, Liu Daosheng, deputy commander of the Navy, had brought 10 people to study in the Soviet Union. Our batch is the second phase, there are Gao Lizhong, Chen Yunzhong, Cheng Qingrong, Yuan Yifen, Hu Daigeng, Wei Daifeng, Wicker, Wu Yi and translator Xu Zhiti, plus me, a total of 10 people.

When I first heard the news, I was a little worried, after all, I was 38 years old, I didn't know Russian, I had a poor foundation in mathematics and science, and I would definitely have many difficulties in studying. Thinking that the learning opportunity is rare, the organization chose me, and I cannot live up to this expectation. So, I encouraged myself and began to prepare for my studies before going abroad. I mainly asked Comrade Liu He to help me with mathematics, and Comrade Xu Zhiti to help me learn Russian and navigation.

In August, the study abroad personnel gathered in Dalian, and Luo Yuru, director of the Haisi School Management Department, rushed to Dalian to see us off. The overseas students set up a party branch, and I served as the secretary of the party branch.

We boarded the train from Shenyang and entered the Soviet Union via Manzhouli. In the car, two people have a private room. The journey was long, so everyone brought some Russian and math books with them and used the time on the road to study. After leaving the country, the train goes around Lake Baikal, passes through Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk, Novosibirsk, Omsk, and arrives at Svertlovsk on the Ural Mountains on the Eurasian dividing line. The train roared all the way, and everywhere it passed, it was all primeval forest, and there were no people for a few days. Leave Svertlovsk and enter the Eastern European plain, where it is more populated. After walking for another two days, he reached Moscow.

When they arrived in Moscow, the Soviet side sent someone to pick them up, and Han Zhenji, the mainland's military attache in the Soviet Union, also came. We stayed one night in a hotel, got on the train the next day, and six or seven hours later arrived at our destination, Leningrad (present-day St. Petersburg). The college sent a car to take our group to the dormitory for foreign students. This road took 11 days.

School starts in early September. There is no opening ceremony, and after the head of the external training department announces the education plan, it will officially start.

The second phase of Chinese international students has a separate class, and everyone elected me as the class leader. We live on the second floor of a building outside the hospital, not far from the hospital headquarters, only ten minutes away. In the same building, there are also students from Romania, Bulgaria, East Germany, Poland, North Korea and other countries. For cadres above the military level, one person has one dormitory, and the other two people have one room. Meals were eaten in the academy officers' cafeteria, and each person bought his own food. Eat Western food, relatively simple, one dish and one soup, and then a sweet tooth; The staple food is bread, and the drinks are coffee, cocoa and tea. We have a communal kitchen in our residence, and we buy some vegetables to make Chinese food and teeth festivals during holidays. We have state allowances: 1200 roubles for military cadres and 1000 roubles for divisional cadres. Food costs about 600 rubles a month, and other daily necessities are relatively cheap.

The Voroshilov Naval Academy has a century-old history and is one of the oldest higher military schools in the Soviet Union at that time. Since its establishment, the academy has trained a large number of commanding officers and military scholars, and marshals such as C. T. Gorshkov, H.T. Kuznetsov, TM Egorov, H. Sergeyev and other marshals graduated from the academy. During the Great Patriotic War, thousands of graduates of the Academy were awarded various orders and medals, of which 97 were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. At that time, those who held leadership positions in the Russian Navy were basically graduates of the academy. Engaged in teaching and scientific research at the Naval Academy, there are many academicians, communication academicians and meritorious scientists, and the instructors are all graduates of naval academies, have served in the naval unit and have combat experience, and the teaching force is very strong. The college has a variety of laboratories, laboratories and a well-stocked library. The equipment is perfect and the learning conditions are good.

Leningrad, the location of the Naval Academy, is located in the Neva River Delta, with many islands in the urban area, and is connected by bridges between the islands, which was the second largest city in the Soviet Union at that time and an important industrial, scientific and cultural center. Due to the high latitude, the Northern Lights are affected by the autumn every year, and the days are very long, and there are days or even nights, and you can read without turning on the lights.

In June 1990, I led a delegation to visit the Soviet Union, and the Soviet side was very careful and arranged to visit the naval academy where I had studied. After 36 years, the college has changed a lot, and the former dormitories, classrooms, canteens, etc., have been demolished and rebuilt; The department leaders and instructors at that time were also retired and were not found. The college leader also accompanied me to the archives, found my academic transcript and the college's comments on my studies, and made a copy to send me as a souvenir. This made me recall the intense study life at that time.

Since 1945, the Academy has established a Department of Foreign Training to train foreign naval officers. The courses offered, including all majors of the basic department, are four years long. At that time, our educational program was: half-year preparatory department, three-year undergraduate; Three and a half years of study. The preparatory study stage, mainly learning Russian, accounts for more than half of the time; Others are naval common sense, naval weapons and equipment (guns, torpedoes, mines, minesweepers, depth charges, etc.), the performance and construction principles of ships and aircraft, and the history of the CPSU. The schedule is tight, with eight classes a day, six days a week, and two hours of self-study in the evening (in fact, three to four hours of self-study). Closed on Sundays.

The school confidentiality system is very strict, after class, the document package should be sent to the secret room, sealed with cement, and sealed; Take it out again during class. So, in the evening, we mostly review Russian, or non-confidential courses, or recall specialized courses.

On Sundays, sometimes the Academy organizes visits to the Winter Palace, the place where Lenin wrote "State and Revolution", etc., and sometimes a walk in the nearby forest park. But most of the time we still consciously use it to learn.

Russian is not easy to learn, it hurts my head. Memorizing Russian words, especially the declension of verbs, is difficult to remember. If you can't learn Russian, you can't learn other courses well. I only had to spend my study time on Sundays learning Russian. During class, the Soviet instructor would speak a paragraph, the translator would turn a paragraph, and we would swallow dates, desperately take notes, and then go back to digest slowly.

Weapons and equipment and other courses, starting from the most basic things, the design and construction of weapons, ships, aircraft, etc. are all taught. At that time, I felt that these things were of little use to our middle and senior cadres. But then when I went to work at the Seventh Research Institute and the National Defense Science and Technology Commission, this knowledge really came in handy. Learning weapons and equipment has real objects, which is easier to understand. Some equipment and engineering classes also visited the Naval Higher Academy and the Krylov Naval Engineering Academy.

Usually, there is a quiz every two to three weeks; Semester exams are held at the end of the semester. The examination is very formal, the examination team is formed by the instructors, the students draw the exam questions, after preparation, answer them orally, and then pass the translation questions and answers, and the dean and department head observe, like "three classes of joint review". My prep test scores were OK, both on a score of four or five.

After entering the undergraduate study, the main study is naval expertise, and Russian is still an important course.

In the first year, we mainly studied the combat use of weapons and the tactics of arms. The combat use of weapons includes artillery fire, torpedo fire, mine sweepering, from single ships to formations. It is necessary not only to learn the organization and command of department chiefs and ship commanders, but also to learn the operation of sailors. I didn't understand at first, and I didn't become a sailor, what is the use of learning this? Later, when I went to the fleet and navy to do leadership work, I realized that only when we understood the work at the grassroots level could we understand the situation realistically and accurately, that the leadership work could be meticulous, and that we could make decisions in our minds.

Arms tactics, mainly learn various surface ship tactics, submarine tactics, naval aviation tactics, coastal defense tactics.

Surface ship tactics mainly include combat use by artillery ships and torpedo ships; combat use of missile weapons and missile ships; surface ship cloth, mine sweeping; anti-submarine protection of surface ships; surface ships and helicopters for submarine search and attack; Counter-air, anti-submarine, mine-to-mine, anti-boat defense, etc. in navigation and combat. In addition to teaching theory, there are corresponding operations, such as: calculation of the combat capability of artillery ships, combat capability and calculation of torpedo attack force and force formation, and so on.

Submarine tactics mainly include the tactics of missile submarines attacking maritime convoys and battle ship formations and the tactics of attacking shore targets; the tactics of attacking convoys and combat ship formations by torpedo submarines; tactical use of mine submarines; The tactics of submarines sailing at sea, submarines to overcome enemy anti-submarine forces, combat reconnaissance of submarines, organization and implementation of submarines to destroy enemy sea lines of communication, methods of performing special tasks by submarines, command of submarines at sea, combat support for submarines, etc. The operation of submarine tactics includes missile submarine onshore assault, submarine combat operations in the enemy's sea lines of communication and near-shore lines of communication, etc.

The tactics of naval aviation mainly include the combat use of fighter aviation, water torpedo aviation, reconnaissance aviation, anti-submarine aviation and the actions of naval aviation in anti-landing battles. The operations include: the determination of the commander of the water torpedo regiment to make assaults on ships at sea during the day, to ensure that submarines break through the enemy's anti-submarine areas, the determination of the commander of the reconnaissance aviation regiment to conduct aerial reconnaissance of ships at sea, the determination of the commander of the tormine aviation division to surprise the search and assault group of the enemy aircraft carrier, the determination of the commander of the anti-submarine aviation regiment to search for and destroy enemy submarines, and the determination of the commander of the fighter aviation division to ensure that the tormine aviation division carries out the assault.