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China's Militia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

John Gittings
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Extract

China's “Everyone a Soldier” movement of Autumn 1958 represents on paper perhaps the most ambitious military enterprise in the history of mankind. Two hundred and twenty million men and women of a predominantly agricultural population were to be transformed into an “ocean of soldiers,” equipped and prepared to defend their homeland against the invader.

Type
Chinese Military Affairs
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 18 , June 1964 , pp. 100 - 117
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1964

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References

1Tse-tung, Mao, Selected Works (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1951), I, p. 66. “… the existence of a regular Red Army of adequate strength is a necessary condition for the existence of the Red political power. If we have only Red Guards of a local character but no regular Red Army, then we can only deal with the house-to-house militia, but not the regular White troops.”Google Scholar

2 One estimate puts the number of Red Guards in the Kiangsi-Fukien area at 200,000 in 1934. U.S. War Dept., The Chinese Communist Movement (Report of 07 1945, Hearings of the Committee of the Judiciary on the I.P.R., Part 7a, Appendix 2, p. 2325).Google ScholarThe figure of 2,560,000, given by Liu Yun-cheng, is wildly exaggerated. “The Militia in the People's Revolutionary Wars of China,” Survey of China Mainland Press (SCMP) (Hong Kong: U.S. Consulate General), No. 2780 Liu Yun-cheng also claims that “the role of the militia was belittled” during the Second Revolutionary War after the rise of “Leftist” opportunism in the Party and the Li Li-san line of “Every Gun to the Red Army.” There is, however, no indication in Mao's writings of this period that the expansion of the militia or Red Guards was a point at issue. The military debate in the Party at this time was concerned with the relative merits of positional and guerilla warfare.Google Scholar

3Kan-chih, Ho, A History of the Modern Chinese Revolution (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1959), p. 397.Google Scholar

4Chien-ying, Yeh, in his Report of 06 22, 1944, to the Chinese and Foreign Correspondents at Yenan, gives detailed figures on “more than two million People's Militia organised behind enemy lines,” Gelder, Stuart, The Chinese Communists (London: Gollancz, 1946), pp. 73–102.Google Scholar

5Tse-tung, Mao, On Coalition Government (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1956), IV, p. 255.Google Scholar

6 Statistics in Ho Kan-chih, op. cit., p. 425.Google Scholar

7Yun-cheng, Liu, op. cit.Google Scholar

8Li, Ting, Militia of Communist China (Hong Kong: Union Research Institute, 1955), pp. 98–102.Google Scholar

9 Report by NCNA, Tsinan, 07 23, 1949. The civilian workers helped “in transport work, taking charge of prisoners, carrying the wounded and other services.” “Women and children ground flour, sewed uniforms and made shoes for troops, and helped to build railways, roads and bridges to ensure a continuous flow of supplies to the front.”Google Scholar

10 Text in NCNA (London), special supplement No. 29, 09 29, 1949.Google Scholar

11People's Daily, 11 25, 1950, summarised in Li, Ting, op. cit., pp. 103–106.Google Scholar

12 See Chang Ching-wu, “Strengthening our Militia Work,” NCNA, 11 21, 1950.Google Scholar

13En-lai, Chou, report of 09 23, 1951, quoted in New York Times, 11 13, 1951.Google Scholar

14Teh-huai, P'eng, “Report to N.P.C. on Draft Military Service Law,” 07 16, 1955, SCMP, No. 1090.Google Scholar

15“National People's Council Adopts Military Service Law,” NCNA 08 2, 1955.Google Scholar

16 For instance, SCMP, Nos. 1389 and 1494.Google Scholar

17Manchester Guardian, 06 18, 1955;Google ScholarThe Times, 06 7, 1956.Google Scholar

18Cf. Ting Li, op. cit., p. 226, “… the work of organising and training the militiamen was relaxed, and therefore the development of the militia came to a standstill.”Google Scholar

19 Fu Ch'iu-t'ao, “Everybody is a Soldier,” Red Flag, 10 16, 1958,Google ScholarExtracts from China Mainland Magazines (ECMM) (Hong Kong: U.S. Consulate-General), No. 150.Google Scholar

20 NCNA, 10 1, 1958, “Important Statement by Chairman Mao Following Provincial Tour.”Google Scholar

21 NCNA, 10 19, 1958, “National Conference Discusses Militia Work.”Google Scholar

22 “Party Resolution on Questions Concerning People's Communes,” 12 10, 1958, Current Background (CB) (Hong Kong: U.S. Consulate-General) No. 542.Google Scholar

23 According to the Chinese statement of 09 1, 1963, it was “an agreement on providing China with nuclear technical data,” Peking Review, 09 6, 1963.Google Scholar

24 They were “rightly and firmly rejected by the Chinese government,” People's Daily and Red Flag joint editorial, 09 6, 1963, Peking Review, 09 13, 1963.Google Scholar

25 Text in Peking Review, No. 22, 07 29, 1958.Google Scholar

26 Statement by the Spokesman of the Chinese Government, 09 1, 1963.Google Scholar

27 “Important statement by Chairman Mao,” op. cit.Google Scholar

28Kiangsu Ch'ün-chung (Kiangsu Masses), 10 1, 1958, ECMM, No. 150.Google Scholar

29 See further, Hsieh, Alice Langley: Communist China's Strategy in the Nuclear Era, (New York: Praeger, 1962), pp. 139–151.Google Scholar

30 (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1954), II, p. 204.Google Scholar

31 NCNA, 10 31, 1958, CB, No. 534.Google Scholar

32“Scorn Imperialism and all Reactionaries,” People's Daily, 11 12, 1958.Google Scholar

33 For further details see my “Political Control of the Chinese Army,” The World Today, 08, 1963.Google Scholar

34Teh, Chu, “People's Army, People's War,” NCNA, 07 31, 1958.Google Scholar

35 Report on session of the Military Affairs Committee (MAC). See note 26.Google Scholar

36Hsien-sheng, Liu, “Let the Whole People be Armed to Defend the Homeland,” Kiangsu Ch'ün-chung, 10 1, 1958, ECMM, No. 150.Google Scholar

37Ch'iu-t'ao, Fu, “People's Militia—Favourite System of our People,” Che-hsueh Yen-chiu, 1959, No. 1.Google Scholar

38 “Strengthen Party Leadership and Create an Upsurge in Militia Build-up,” 02 26, 1960, SCMP, No. 2236.Google Scholar

39 Calculation based on an approximate annual draft of 500,000 for a three-year term of service (four years in the air force and five in the navy), and a total Liberation Army strength of two and a half million.Google Scholar

40 In his L'Armée Nouvelle, published in Paris in 1911, the French socialist Jean Jaurès advocated a Citizen Army for France.Google Scholar Trotsky was influenced by Jaurès' arguments while Minister of War in 1918–20; see Deutscher, Isaac, The Prophet Armed (London: Oxford University Press, 1954), pp. 477–481.Google Scholar

41 “A real people's militia [is] one that consists of the entire population, of all the adult citizens of both sexes; secondly, one that combines the functions of a people's army with those of the police …,”Lenin, V. I., Letters from Afar (London: Martin Lawrence, 1933), No. 3, “On Proletarian Militia,” 03 1917.Google Scholar

42 Quoted in Report by Teng K'e-ning to Kiangsi's Militia Work Conference, 12 1959, SCMP, No. 2196.Google Scholar

43 Szechwan has 30 million militiamen, NCNA, 10 5, 1958.Google Scholar

44 Fu Ch'iu-t'ao, see note 37.Google Scholar

45Ch'iu-t'ao, Fu, “Everybody is a Soldier,” see note 19; and Yen Fu-sheng, speech of 12 14, 1959, in SCMP, No. 2188.Google Scholar

46 Party Resolution of 12 10, 1958, see note 22.Google Scholar

47 Ibid.

48 NCNA, 10 17, 1958, and Honan Daily, 10 27, 1959, in CB, No. 530, and SCMP, No. 2173.Google Scholar

49 For a good example, reported at length, of a provincial Militia Work Conference, see items on the Kiangsi conference in SCMP, No. 2196.Google Scholar

50 NCNA, 02 8, 1960.Google Scholar

51 For the Construction and Defence of Socialism, 04 19, 1960, SCMP, No. 2247.Google Scholar

52 NCNA, 04 27, 1960.Google Scholar

53“Delegates to National Militia Conferences make Proposals to all militiamen in China,” NCNA, 04 27, 1960.Google Scholar

54Piao, Lin, “March Ahead Under the Red Flag of the Party's General Line and Mao Tse-tung's Military Thinking,” NCNA, 09 29, 1959.Google Scholar See also Lin's speech of 04 27, 1960, to the militia conference, in which he again spoke of “the important role modern technology plays in war,” SCMP, No. 2252.

55 Information on this period, except where otherwise attributed, is derived from reports in Kung-tso T'ung-hsun (Bulletin of Activities), Nos. 1–30, 1961Google Scholar, a secret publication for political cadres of regimental rank and above, produced by the General Political Department of the Liberation Army. The following items deal exclusively with the militia problem: No. 4, Ch'iu-t'ao's, Fu“Report on Inspection into the Question of Militia work in Honan” and approval of Fu's report by the Military Affairs Committee, 01 7, 1961; No. 5Google Scholar, “Abstract of third telephonic conference of the Military Affairs Committee working conference,” 01 12, 1961; No. 21, Ch'en Tsai-tao, “Report of investigation into militia work in Honan,” and a summary of speeches by Lo Jui-ch'ing, Chang Ai-p'ing and Kan Szu-ch'i to the special conference on militia work, 04 1961.Google Scholar

56 Fu Ch'iu-t'ao was Head of the Liberation Army's mobilisation department, with special responsibility for militia work.Google Scholar

57Bulletin, No. 21.Google Scholar

58 See further, editorials of Nanfang Jih-pao (Southern Daily), 10 3, 1961, SCMP, No. 2802Google Scholar, and of Chieh-fang Chün Hua-pao (Liberation Army Pictorial), 03 16, 1962,Google ScholarSurvey of China Mainland Magazines, No. 316, also reports in SCMP, Nos. 2796, 2800–2801, 2803.Google Scholar

59Radio, Wenchow, 08 13 and 09 9, 1962, Extracts of Chinese Mainland Publications, No. 72(Hong Kong: United States Consulate-General).Google Scholar

60 Further militia conferences have been reported in Fukien, Kiangsi, Hunan, Sinkiang and Liaoning in recent months (12 1963–02 1964). These reports speak of great progress being made in the past year, and of “important instructions” being given for 1964. (B.B.C. Summary of World Broadcasts, Part 3, FE 1417, 1424, 1448, 1454 and 1491.)Google Scholar