also they are mainly work teams. All military cadres should learn how to take over
and manage the cities. They must understand how to skillfully cope with the imperialists and Guomindang reactionaries in the cities, how to skillfully cope with the
capitalists, how to skillfully approach4 the workers and organize the labor unions,
how to mobilize5 and organize young people, how to skillfully approach6 and train
cadres in the new regions, how to skillfully manage industries and trades, how to manage7 schools, newspapers, news agencies, and broadcast stations, how to
skillfully deal with foreign affairs, how to skillfully deal with the problems of the
various democratic parties and people’s organizations, how to skillfully adjust the
relationship between the cities and the villages and to solve the problems relating
to food, coal, and other necessities, and how to skillfully deal with financial and
monetary problems. In a word, the various problems of the cities, with which our
armies’ cadres and soldiers have not been familiar in the past, must be borne by
those cadres and soldiers in the future. When you advance, you will occupy places
in four or five provinces. Apart from the cities, there is still work awaiting you
in the vast rural areas. Because the southern villages are completely new regions,
our work there will be fundamentally different from that in the old regions in the
north. You will not be able to carry out the rent and interest reduction policy in the
nine provinces and dozens of major cities is very great, and this will mainly be
left to the armies themselves to resolve. The army is a school. A field army of 2.1
million is the equivalent of thousands of universities and secondary schools, and
it will mainly be up to the army to solve [the matter of] work cadres. You must
have a clear understanding of this point. Since the most serious battles are basically a thing of the past, you must not expect that the replenishment of troops and
equipment will be too much, too good, or too complete, which would cause a huge
financial crisis. You must also seriously consider this point. The aforementioned policies are also applicable to the army of Lin and Luo,10 so I ask all the corps11
to also take note of them. We have already talked quite a lot with Comrade Kang
Sheng and have asked him to hurry over on the 12th with comrade Rao Shushi
and discuss things with you. After discussion, please immediately send a cable
stating your opinions and what you will do. The East China Bureau and organs of
the East China Military Region should immediately move to Xuzhou to work with
the General Front Committee12 and the Front Committee of the Third Field Army,
concentrating on deployment for advancing southward. All rear-area work should
be taken over by the Shandong Sub-bureau.
Central Military Commission of the Central Committee, February (sic)13
---
Notes
Our source for this text is Bureau of Archives, Central Archives of the Chinese Communist Party, ed., Gongheguo jiaobu— 1949nian dang’an: diliuji zhongyang junwei tichu
“xian chengshi hou xiangcun” de zhanlüe, pp. 5–6 (http://www.saac.gov.cn/zt/2009-02/08
/content_2761.htm); see also “Zhongyang guanyu budui ying chengwei yige gongzuodui
bing xuehui jieguan chengshi de zhishi,” in Nanjing jiefang (shangce), ed. State Archives
Bureau of Nanjing (Beijing: Zhongguo dang’an chubanshe, 2009), pp. 297–98. A revised
version was published in Xuanji (1960), pp. 1407–9.
1.  Directive of the Central Military Commission to Deng [Xiaoping], Chen [Yi], etc.
on the Task of Army Training and Consolidating → Turn the Army into a Working Force
8.  the rent and tax collecting practices → existing rent and interest practices

--- Notes

# Directive of the Central Military Commission to Deng [Xiaoping], Chen [Yi], etc. on the Task of Army Training and Consolidating
# Date: 1949-02-09
# Source: en:MRP
Directive of the Central Military Commission
to Deng [Xiaoping], Chen [Yi], etc. on the
Task of Army Training and Consolidating1
(February 9, 1949)
[Deng] Xiaoping, Chen Yi, and also Su Yu, [Tan] Zhenlin, East China Bureau,
Work Committee of the Central China Bureau, Central Plains Bureau, and Lin
[Biao], Luo [Ronghuan] as well:
We received your telegram of the 4th. It is very good that you have sped up
training and consolidation and are prepared to set off one month ahead of schedule.2 We hope you will act accordingly and not become slack. But in reality, you
should also train and consolidate in March and you must emphasize studying policies in preparation for taking over and managing the major cities. From now on,
we must change the rural-first, urban-second method of the last twenty years into
an urban-first, rural-second method. The armies are not only fighting forces3 but

2.  This refers to the preparations by the Second and Third field armies to advance the
date, from April to March 1949, of the battle to cross the Yangzi River.

3.  fighting forces → fighting units

4.  approach → lead

5.  mobilize → skillfully mobilize

6.  approach → unite
DOI:  10.4324/9781315719436-239

7.  manage → skillfully manage

first year, and you will generally only be able to continue the rent and tax collecting practices.8 You will have to work in the villages under these conditions, which
means that you will have to learn from scratch how to work in the villages. But it
will be easier to learn how to work in the villages than in the cities. Work in the
cities will be more difficult, and it is the primary aspect of our current study. If our
cadres cannot quickly learn how to manage the cities, we will experience extreme
difficulties. You should therefore deal with all other problems in February, and
then spend the entire month of March learning how to work in the cities and in
the new regions. There are fewer than two million Guomindang soldiers scattered
over a large area. Of course, there will still be battles to fight, but little or even
no possibility of fighting large-scale battles, such as the Huai-Hai Campaign; the
time for such serious battles has passed. The army is still a fighting team, and you
should not slacken on this point because that would be wrong. However, we are
now required to take on the task of changing our armies into work teams. If we do
not take on this task now and resolutely carry it out, we will be making a very serious mistake. We are now preparing to send 53,000 cadres south with our armies,
but this number is very small. The number of cadres9 when we occupy eight to

9.  The number of cadres → The number of cadres needed

10.  the army of Lin and Luo, → the Fourth Field Army,

11.  all the corps → comrades Lin Biao and Luo Ronghuan

12.  To meet the needs of the Huai-Hai Campaign, the Central Military Commission
decided on November 16, 1948, to form a General Front Committee composed of Liu
Bocheng, Chen Yi, Deng Xiaoping, Su Yu, and Tan Zhenlin, and with Deng Xiaoping as
secretary, in order to provide unified leadership to the Central Plains and East China field
armies and to exercise leadership in battle. The General Front Committee was subsequently
given authority to exercise leadership during the battle to cross the Yangzi.

13.  Eds. The correct date should be February 8.