One objective: Build a powerful, modern and
regularized revolutionary army
A major issue weighed by Deng Xiaoping
was the type of armed forces China needed to build and how China could do it
in the new historical period.
Deng Xiaoping made an important decision
in March 1981 to hold a large-scale military exercise.
On hearing reports by the responsible
leaders of the General Staff Headquarters of the PLA, Deng Xiaoping urged
again and again that it was a very long time ago when the PLA was engaged in a
war and that we needed combined forces that could fight not only on the ground
but also in the sky. The troop's capability in fighting actual war should be
enhanced through training.
In the fall of 1981, a majestic and
daring super-scale military exercise by the PLA was kicked off, which was its
largest ever combined exercise involving all services and arms and conducted
in the light of the requirements of modern wars. A spectacular view of
military exercise started to unfold in a magnificent scale at the foot of the
Yanshan Mountain with armored vehicles sweeping through the length and breadth
of the territory and fighters roaring in the sky. Deng Xiaoping, commander of
the Chinese armed forces, personally viewed the
exercise.
When the exercise came to a close, Deng
Xiaoping, newly elected chairman of the Central Military Commission in June
1981 at the Sixth Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the
CPC, got into an open car and inspected the troops. It was exactly on that
occasion, he succinctly generalized, while addressing the troops, the overall
objective for building the armed forces in the new historical period into the
following: Build a powerful, modern and regularized revolutionary army.
Deng Xiaoping then wrote the following
inscription, "Strive for building our armed forces into a powerful, modern and
regularized revolutionary army", which can be seen now in every barracks
wherever you go in China.
Of the three dialectical aspects that
make up the general objective of army building with Chinese characteristics,
revolutionization enjoys the priority, modernization is the center and
regularization is the guarantee.
By Huang Guozhu, Jia Yong and Cao
Zhi
(August 18, PLA
Daily)
