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Deng Xiaoping: The Soldier

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

June Teufel Dreyer
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Extract

Deng Xiaoping's attempt to modernize and professionalize the People's Liberation Army (PLA) will surely be remembered as one of the most important components of his historical legacy. Yet, ironically, Deng's military activities formed a decidedly minor part of his career. Deng received no formal military training, and Chinese Communist sources have very little to say about his military contributions before 1980; most of what was reported comes from his enemies and is difficult to corroborate. What has been written after 1980 has a suspiciously hagio-graphic ring and is also difficult to confirm.

Type
Deng Xiaoping: An Assessment
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 135 , September 1993 , pp. 536 - 550
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1993

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References

1. See, for example, Ping, Shen, “Forever adhere to Chairman Mao's line on army-building: criticize Deng Xiaoping's revisionist fallacies on army-building,” Hongqi, August 1976, pp. 4–9Google Scholar.

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4. See Benjamin Yang's “The making of a pragmatic Communist: the early life of Deng Xiaoping, 1904–49,” in this issue, for a fuller treatment of this episode.

5. For example, by William Whitson, arguing that Deng's Soviet training and time with Feng Yuxiang were formative experiences. See The Chinese High Command (New York: Praeger, 1973) p. 123CrossRefGoogle Scholar. As noted above, Deng did not study the military during his year in the USSR and there is no evidence that he was otherwise exposed to it. His time with Feng was very brief, and spent in indoctrination of cadets.

6. Ibid. p. 158.

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8. According to Article 15, “The Chinese People's Liberation Army and the people's militia are the workers' and peasants' own armed forces led by the Communist Party of China; they are the people's own armed forces.” See Beijing Review, 24 January 1975, p. 15, for the complete text.

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