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China HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT, 1927-79
From the Founding of the People's Liberation Army to the Korean War
The People's Liberation Army (PLA) was built on several
millennia of tradition and a century of Western military
innovations. It traces its origins to the August 1, 1927, Nanchang
Uprising in which Guomindang troops led by Chinese Communist Party
leaders Zhu De and Zhou Enlai rebelled following the dissolution of
the first Guomindang-Chinese Communist Party united front earlier
that year. The survivors of that and other abortive communist
insurrections, including the Autumn Harvest Uprising led by Mao
Zedong, fled to the Jinggang Mountains along the border of Hunan
and Jiangxi provinces. Joining forces under the leadership of Mao
and Zhu, this collection of communists, bandits, Guomindang
deserters, and impoverished peasants became the First Workers' and
Peasants' Army, or Red Army--the military arm of the Chinese
Communist Party. Using the guerrilla tactics that would later make
Mao Zedong internationally famous as a military strategist, the Red
Army survived several encirclement and suppression campaigns by
superior Guomindang forces. But party internal politics forced the
Red Army temporarily to abandon guerrilla warfare and resulted in
the epic Long March of 1934-35
(see Nationalism and Communism
, ch.
1). The Red Army's exploits during the Long March became legendary
and remain a potent symbol of the spirit and prowess of the Red
Army and its successor, the PLA. During that period, Mao's
political power and his strategy of guerrilla warfare gained
ascendancy in the party and the Red Army.
In 1937 the Red Army joined in a second united front with the
Guomindang against the invading Japanese army
(see Anti-Japanese War
, ch. 1). Although nominally cooperating with the Guomindang,
the Chinese Communist Party used the Red Army to expand its
influence while leading the anti-Japanese resistance in north
China. By the end of the war, the Red Army numbered approximately
1 million and was backed by a militia of 2 million. Although the
Red Army fought several conventional battles against the Japanese
(and Guomindang troops), guerrilla operations were the primary mode
of warfare.
Mao's military thought grew out of the Red Army's experiences
in the late 1930s and early 1940s and formed the basis for the
"people's war" concept, which became the doctrine of the Red Army
and the PLA. In developing his thought, Mao drew on the works of
the Chinese military strategist Sun Zi (fourth century B.C.) and
Soviet and other theorists, as well as on the lore of peasant
uprisings, such as the stories found in the classical novel
Shuihu Zhuan (Water Margin) and the stories of the Taiping
Rebellion
(see Emergence of Modern China
, ch. 1). Synthesizing
these influences with lessons learned from the Red Army's successes
and failures, Mao created a comprehensive politico-military
doctrine for waging revolutionary warfare. People's war
incorporated political, economic, and psychological measures with
protracted military struggle against a superior foe. As a military
doctrine, people's war emphasized the mobilization of the populace
to support regular and guerrilla forces; the primacy of men over
weapons, with superior motivation compensating for inferior
technology; and the three progressive phases of protracted warfare-
-strategic defensive, strategic stalemate, and strategic offensive.
During the first stage, enemy forces were "lured in deep" into
one's own territory to overextend, disperse, and isolate them. The
Red Army established base areas from which to harass the enemy, but
these bases and other territory could be abandoned to preserve Red
Army forces. In the second phase, superior numbers and morale were
applied to wear down the enemy in a war of attrition in which
guerrilla operations predominated. During the final phase, Red Army
forces made the transition to regular warfare as the enemy was
reduced to parity and eventually defeated.
In the civil war following Japan's defeat in World War II, the
Red Army, newly renamed the People's Liberation Army, again used
the principles of people's war in following a policy of strategic
withdrawal, waging a war of attrition, and abandoning cities and
communication lines to the well-armed, numerically superior
Guomindang forces
(see Return to Civil War
, ch. 1). In 1947 the PLA
launched a counteroffensive during a brief strategic stalemate. By
the next summer, the PLA had entered the strategic offensive stage,
using conventional warfare as the Guomindang forces went on the
defensive and then collapsed rapidly on the mainland in 1949. By
1950 the PLA had seized Hainan Island and Xizang (Tibet).
When the PLA became a national armed force in 1949, it was an
unwieldy, 5-million-strong peasant army. In 1950 the PLA included
10,000 troops in the Air Force (founded in 1949) and 60,000 in the
Navy (founded in 1950). China also claimed a militia of 5.5
million. At that time, demobilization of ill-trained or politically
unreliable troops began, resulting in the reduction of military
strength to 2.8 million in 1953.
China's new leaders recognized the need to transform the PLA,
essentially an infantry army with limited mobility, logistics,
ordnance, and communications, into a modern military force. The
signing of the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance, and
Mutual Assistance in February 1950 provided the framework for
defense modernization in the 1950s. However, the Korean War was the
real watershed in armed forces modernization. The Chinese People's
Volunteers (as the military forces in Korea were called) achieved
initial success in throwing back United Nations (UN) troops and,
despite the PLA's first encounter with modern firepower, managed to
fight UN forces to a stalemate. Nevertheless, China's Korean War
experience demonstrated PLA deficiencies and stimulated Soviet
assistance in equipping and reorganizing the military. The use of
"human wave tactics" (unsupported, concentrated infantry attacks)
against modern firepower caused serious manpower and materiel
losses. Chinese air power also suffered heavy losses to superior UN
forces. Finally, shortcomings in transportation and supply
indicated the need to improve logistics capabilities.
Data as of July 1987
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