Principle of Unity between Army and People

It was one of the three principles of political work of the People's Liberation Army and the basic guideline for dealing with the relationships between army and the government, and the army and the people.

The main contents were as follows: the army should carry out the purpose of serving the people wholeheartedly, establish mass discipline without offense, propagate, organize and arm the masses, support the government, love the people, participate in national economic and cultural construction, reduce the economic burden of the people, and support social public welfare.

The unity of the people and the military is an important principle that has been followed by the Chinese People's Liberation Army since its establishment.

In September 1927, when Mao Zedong led the troops of the Autumn Harvest Uprising on the Hunan-Jiangxi Border Region to march to Jinggang Mountain, he pointed out that the army and the people were like fish in water, and that they should have a close relationship with the people. At the beginning of 1929, he formulated three major disciplines and eight points of attention for the army, and set the mass work as one of the three major tasks of the army. In December 1929, the Resolution of the Gutian Conference set out the guidelines for the relationship between the Red Army and the masses, stressing that, in addition to fighting and destroying the enemy's military power, the Red Army had the important task of propagating the masses, organizing them, arming them, helping them to establish revolutionary power and even building a Communist Party organization.

Following this principle, the Red Army divided its forces and mobilized the masses, attacked local tyrants, allocated the land, armed workers and peasants, and consolidated and developed the revolutionary bases. During the Long March, the Red Army insisted on doing mass work, strictly enforced mass discipline, and united with the ethnic minorities, winning the support of the people of all ethnic groups. The troops remaining in the southern base areas mobilized the masses to resist rents, not to hand over grain and oppose enemy soldiers, and persisted in guerrilla warfare for three years.

In October 1937, when Mao Zedong talked with British journalist Bertram, he listed military-civilian unity among the three major principles of military political work.

In the Anti-Japanese War, the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army marched into the enemy's rear and mobilized the masses to establish anti-Japanese democratic bases. The army participated in the mass production campaign to reduce the economic burden of the people.

In order to further strengthen the relationship between the military and the government, the military and the people, according to the instructions of the CPC Central Committee, since 1943, the army carried out a campaign of supporting the government and loving the people, and the campaign of supporting the army to give preferential treatment to the family members of the anti-Japanese soldiers in all anti-Japanese base areas, so as to strengthen the unity between the army and the people and to develop the People's War.

On New Year's Day in 1947, Zhu De issued a radio message, and called on all troops in the army not to relax for a moment to support the government and love the people, not to relax for a moment to help the peasants carry out land reform, and to promote the advantages and eliminate the disadvantages for the people at anytime and anywhere.

In October of the same year, the Chinese People's Liberation Army issued a manifesto calling on all officers and soldiers to learn the skills of annihilating the enemy and arousing the people, to unite the masses closely, and to quickly build the new areas into consolidated areas; to resolutely carry out orders and policies, to implement the three major disciplines and eight points of attention, to be consistent with the people and the military, to be consistent with the military and the government, to be consistent with the officers and soldiers, and to be consistent with the whole army, and not to allow any breach of discipline to exist.

In the land reform campaigns in the Liberated Areas, the army sent a large number of cadres from all armed forces to form working groups to assist local Party organizations and governments in mobilizing the masses, carrying out land reform and developing production. The people who were politically and economically liberated enthusiastically joined the army and the war effort to support the front line, and the people and the army fought side by side for achieving a festive victory in the war of liberation.

After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the People's Liberation Army has carried forward the fine tradition of unity between the army and the people, carried out in-depth activities of supporting the government and the people, exemplified the laws and policies of the Party and the state, actively participated in the socialist economic construction, supported the social public welfare undertakings, and fought for disaster relief.

After the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh CPC Central Committee, under the unified leadership of local Party organizations and the People's Government, the troops and the people in the area widely carried out activities to build a socialist spiritual civilization together with the military and the local people, and educated the military and local talents for both purposes. In September 1984, the National Congress of Advanced Delegates for Supporting the Military and the People's Government was held, which promoted the unity of the military and the people in the new period of socialist construction.

Mao Zedong pointed out that the deepest root of the great power of war lies in the people. The revolutionary war led by the CPC was a war of the masses, and the army and the people share common class interests and revolutionary goals. If the people want the revolution, they need an army that stands thoroughly on the people's side; if the army is to develop and win, it must also rely closely on the people, and “the army must be united with the people, so that the army will be seen by the people as their own army, and this army will be invincible to the world."

The Chinese People's Liberation Army consistently implemented the principle of unity between the army and the people, ensuring that the people's army moves from victory to victory.