Address at the Opening Ceremony of the First Session of the Senior Infantry School (January 7, 1953)  Principal Song of the General Senior Infantry School [1] and all cadets and faculty members:  Your school has now concluded its preparatory cultural-education phase and officially commenced. I congratulate you on successfully fulfilling, in your future studies and teaching, the glorious mission entrusted to you by the Military Commission.  Our country is engaged in large-scale construction aimed at achieving industrialization and socialism, while our enemies, the imperialists, continue to occupy Taiwan and to aggress against Korea, thereby threatening our national security. To defend the motherland against imperialist aggression, it is no longer sufficient to rely on the equipment and tactics we employed in our past struggles against relatively backward domestic adversaries. We must master the most modern weaponry and the corresponding cutting-edge tactics. We must learn from Soviet military science so as to rapidly elevate our armed forces to a level capable of securing victory in modern warfare.  In pursuit of this goal, your educational and instructional work bears a great responsibility, for you are to serve as models and leaders for the entire army in mastering contemporary military technology in the infantry field. I hope that you will stand united and devote yourselves wholeheartedly to learning and teaching.

Mao Zedong, Chairman of the People’s Revolutionary Military Commission of the Central People’s Government January 7, 1953  Printed from the original manuscript approved by Mao Zedong. Included in Selected Military Works of Mao Zedong (Internal Edition).  Note [1]: Refers to Song Shilun, President and Political Commissar of the Senior Infantry School of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army.