March 21, 1930
Order on the Testing of Officers and Soldiers
(March 29, 1930) 1

This order is to be followed. In view of the fact that the appropriateness of the
appointment, demotion, promotion, and transfer of officers and their deputies
directly influences victory and defeat in battle and the efficacy of the work, there
should be testing and evaluation so that the higher organs of command may be
apprised of the work performance of officers and their deputies at various levels
and may provide guidance, rectification, and education. Moreover, during the
period of guerrilla warfare, the important tasks of the Red Army are to overthrow
the class enemy, to arm the workers and peasants, to help establish local governments, and to expand the Red area. To accomplish such tasks, during the period
of warfare it is necessary to be able to achieve unity between officers and
soldiers, to advance bravely, to annihilate the enemy, and to take his weapons to
arm the peasants and workers in turn. In normal times, on the one hand, officers
and soldiers must unite to engage in propaganda, mobilization, and organizational work and, on the other hand, officers in charge at all levels must train the
soldiers in their own units. Therefore, given this sort of significant responsibility,
the training of Red Army officers themselves and of the soldiers becomes highly
important work. It has been found that the promotion and transfer of officers and
their deputies in our army at present occur only after there have been sacrifices
in battle, whereupon in great haste to make do, a vacancy is filled or someone is
promoted from below. All of this is unplanned use of personnel. As for education, when our Red Army is not on the march engaging in battle, its forces are
divided to carry out the work—as is naturally necessitated by our surroundings
and our tasks. But this also makes it impossible for the army headquarters to plan
systematically the education of the soldiers of the various columns. Thus planning for education of the soldiers has to be the responsibility of the officers in
charge at the various levels (columns and detachments), and the army headquarters can do no more than give direction through guiding principles. Therefore,
whether officers and their deputies are used appropriately, which is to say
whether they have the appropriate command ability in battle, the appropriate
management methods, education, and training for normal times, and particularly
Our source for this text is Mao Zedong junshi wenji, Vol. 1, pp. 143-47, where it is taken
from the 1942 documentary collection cited in the note to the text of March 19, 1930.
1. This is order No. 5 of the Fourth Red Army Headquarters.

for mass work during guerrilla warfare, is all related to Red warfare and mass
work. Among the soldiers, there are certainly many worker and peasant revolutionary elements who are brave, steady, and experienced in battle, whose
ability qualifies them to be officers and deputies. In the past, however, we
have never done any testing or evaluation. So there has been no plan for the
appropriate appointment and transfer of officers and their deputies and no
basis upon which to make promotions from the ranks, while an education
plan has been even more sorely lacking. Now, with the purpose of (1) making
sure that the transfer and appointment of officers and their deputies is carried
out appropriately; (2) being in a position to promote and make use of rank
and file soldiers who are brave, progressive, and relatively capable; and
(3) achieving good results in the education and training of all the army's
officers and men in a relatively planned way, the following methods have
been decided upon:

1. Formulate an Educational System. In the future, [responsibility for] the
education of the soldiers rests with the column. The army headquarters may only
provide direction through guiding principles of education (but each column's
education plan and implementation status must still be reported to the army
headquarters in a timely fashion for review). [Responsibility for] the education
of officers rests with the army headquarters.

2. Implement a System of Testing. From now on in education the Dalton
system of testing 2 should be frequently used, to speed up the rate of progress.
The method of testing is as follows:
Testing organization:
(1) The testing of privates is done by company (with the participation of
someone sent from the detachment).
(2) [The testing of] noncommissioned officers (squad leaders and deputy
squad leaders) is done by detachment (with the participation of someone sent
from the column).
(3) [The testing of] lower-level cadres (above the rank of deputy platoon
commander and below the rank of company commander) is done by column
(with the participation of someone chosen by the army headquarters).
(4) [The testing of] mid-level officers and their deputies (detachment
commander, deputy detachment commander, leader of units directly under
the army headquarters, section chief) is done by the army headquarters.

2. An educational method initiated by the American Helen Huss Parkhurst at Dalton
High School in Dalton, Massachusetts, in 1920. It involved eliminating lectures and requiring the students to learn independently from reference books or experiments, while the
teachers acted as advisers. Students worked at their own pace, and those who progressed
more rapidly could graduate earlier. By 1930, a small number of primary and middle
schools in China had tried this method.
3. Create Assessment Forms for Officers and Soldiers (sample forms to be
issued separately).
(1) The assessment form is divided into three parts
a. background check
b. test
c. assessment
(2) Assessment of privates
a. background check: name, age, date joined, number of times in
combat and wounded (political aspects will be formulated by the Political
Department).
b. test:
(1) knowledge: regulations, models, orders, guerrilla tactics.
(2) skills: drill ground operations, field operations.
c. assessment: personality, proclivities, abilities (to be evaluated and
reported by the platoon leader).
(3) Assessment of noncommissioned officers
a. background check (same as above)
b. test (same as above)
c. assessment: personality, proclivities, abilities in squad management skills, leadership in battle, and teaching and training in normal times
(to be evaluated in detail by the company commander, the deputy company commander, and the political commissar).
(4) Assessment of cadres
a. background check: name, age, place of origin, date when appointed to the present position, experience before joining the Red
Army, experience after joining the Red Army, number of times in
combat and wounded, awards and punishment received, and special
skills.
b. test: (political [aspects] will be formulated separately by the Political Department) tactical principles, the science of firing weapons, major
aspects of battle formation.
c. assessment: views (whether or not they are consistent with Red
Army policy and whether or not there are other ideas when faced with an
unexpected situation), management and training methods, guerrilla work,
command capability and decisiveness, personality (relations with and
feelings toward colleagues), implementation of orders, the degree of faith
the soldiers have in the person.
(5) Assessment of mid-level officers and assistants
a. background check: same as for cadres.
b. test: (Political [aspects] will be formulated separately by the Political Department) the science of tactics, the science of firing weapons,
topography, major aspects of battle formation.
c. assessment: same as for cadres.