邓小平文选/军队要整顿

Comrade Mao Zedong established an excellent system and a fine style of work for it as early as the period of struggle in the Jinggang Mountains.

With this army of ours, the Party commands the gun, and not vice versa.

Through protracted struggles against warlordism, the army achieved unity in its own ranks and formed close ties with the masses.

However, it was thrown into considerable chaos after Lin Biao was put in charge of army work in 1959, and especially in the later period under him.

Now, many fine traditions have been discarded and the army is seriously bloated organizationally.

The size of the armed forces has increased substantially and military expenditures take up a larger proportion of the state budget than before, with a lot of money being spent just on food and clothing.

I think that the overwhelming majority of our army comrades are dissatisfied with the present state of affairs.

It is for this reason that Comrade Mao Zedong has called for the consolidation of the army.

We must reduce the size of our armed forces, confront the problem of extensive overstaffing and restore the army's fine traditions.

Since the Headquarters of the General Staff, the General Political Department and the General Logistics Department bear major responsibility, they should be the first to be consolidated.

We must set things right in the armed forces in accordance with Comrade Mao Zedong's instructions on stability and unity.

It is mainly the officers who are involved.

The overwhelming majority of our officers are good, but there is indeed a small handful who are bent on factionalism.

They engage in factional activities both inside the army and in the civilian units where they go to work.

In the past, during the protracted and scattered guerrilla wars our army fought in the countryside, many separate “mountain strongholds”came into being.

After the Red Army's arrival in northern Shaanxi in the Long March and during the subsequent War of Resistance Against Japan [1937-45], Comrade Mao Zedong set before the whole Party and army the task of overcoming the tendency towards the “mountain-stronghold”mentality.

After the Yan'an rectification movement, which among other things, opposed sectarianism, the whole Party achieved a new level of unity,

and this provided the basic guarantee for our victories in the War of Resistance and the War of Liberation [1946-49].

Unless factionalism is eliminated, stability and unity cannot be achieved and the army's fighting capacity is sure to be weakened.

Those who are pleased to engage in factionalism should wake up and correct their mistakes.

But one of the important principles to be observed in the future appointment and promotion of army officers is that those who are seriously involved in factional activities or who cling stubbornly to factional ways should not be given leading posts.

Another problem is discipline in the army.

Why did Comrade Mao Zedong propose the singing of The Three Main Rules of Discipline and the Eight Points for Attention, with special emphasis on the rule “obey orders in all your actions”?