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China The People's Liberation Army in the Cultural Revolution
The PLA played a complex political role during the Cultural
Revolution
(see The Cultural Revolution Decade, 1966-76
, ch. 1).
From 1966 to 1968, military training, conscription and
demobilization, and political education virtually ceased as the PLA
was ordered first to help promote the Cultural Revolution and then
to reestablish order and authority. Although the Cultural
Revolution initially developed separately in the PLA and in the
party apparatus, the PLA, under the leadership of its radical
leftist leader, Lin Biao, soon became deeply involved in civilian
affairs. In early 1967 the military high command was purged, and
regional military forces were instructed to maintain order,
establish military control, and support the revolutionary left.
Because many regional-force commanders supported conservative party
and government officials rather than radical mass organizations,
many provincial-level military leaders were purged or transferred,
and Beijing ordered several main-force units to take over the
duties of the regional-force units. In the summer of 1967, regional
military organizations came under leftist attack, Red Guard
factions obtained weapons, and violence escalated. By September the
central authorities had called off the attack on the PLA, but
factional rivalries between regional- and main-force units
persisted. Violence among rival mass organizations, often backed by
different PLA units, continued in the first half of 1968 and
delayed the formation of revolutionary committees, which were to
replace traditional government and party organizations. In July
1968 Mao abolished the Red Guards and ordered the PLA to impose
revolutionary committees wherever such bodies previously had not
been established.
Worries over military factionalism caused the leadership to
curtail the Cultural Revolution and to initiate a policy of
rotating military commanders and units. The Soviet invasion of
Czechoslovakia, the enunciation of the Brezhnev Doctrine, the
Soviet military buildup in its Far Eastern theater, and Sino-Soviet
border clashes in the spring of 1969 brought about a renewed
emphasis on some of the PLA's traditional military roles. In 1969
Lin Biao launched an extensive "war preparations" campaign;
military training was resumed, and military procurement, which had
suffered in the first years of the Cultural Revolution, rose
dramatically. Military preparedness was further advanced along
China's frontiers and particularly the Sino-Soviet border when the
thirteen military regions were reorganized into eleven in 1970.
The PLA emerged from the more violent phase of the Cultural
Revolution deeply involved in civilian politics and administration.
It had committed 2 million troops to political activities and
reportedly suffered hundreds of thousands of casualties. Regional
military forces were almost completely absorbed in political work.
PLA units did not withdraw fully from these duties until 1974.
Following the sudden death of Lin Biao in 1971, the military began
to disengage from politics, and civilian control over the PLA was
reasserted. Lin's supporters in the PLA were purged, leaving some
high-level positions in the PLA unfilled for several years. PLA
officers who had dominated provincial-level and local party and
government bodies resigned from those posts in 1973 and 1974.
Military region commanders were reshuffled, and some purged
military leaders were rehabilitated. Military representation in the
national-level political organizations, following an all-time high
at the Ninth National Party Congress in 1969, declined sharply at
the Tenth National Party Congress in 1973
(see The Cultural Revolution Decade, 1966-76
, ch. 1).
Along with the reassertion of civilian control over the
military and the return to military duties came a shift of
resources away from the defense sector. Defense procurement dropped
by 20 percent in 1971 and shifted from aircraft production and
intercontinental ballistic missile development to the modernization
of the ground forces and medium-range ballistic missile and
intermediate-range ballistic missile development.
Data as of July 1987
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