Principle of Disintegrating the Enemy Troops and Treating Enemy Captives Well

One of the three principles of political work of the Chinese People's Liberation Army is the strategy and means to shake the enemy's mind politically and to destroy the enemy's combat power.

The main contents were: to cooperate with military strikes, to carry out political offensives, to implement the policy of treating prisoners leniently, to win enemy soldiers and officers to lay down their arms, to defect, to revolt, to break away from the reactionary camp, and to treat enemy prisoners who lay down their arms without killing or humiliating them, without confiscating their personal belongings, and without treating their injuries or illnesses.

The People's Liberation Army adopted a policy of lenient treatment for prisoners at the early stage of its founding.

During the People’s Revolutionary War, Mao Zedong proposed in a report to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in November 1928 that "the most effective method of publicity against enemy troops is to release prisoners and treat wounded soldiers.” Later, "not to search the pockets of prisoners" was listed as one of the eight points of the three major disciplines.

In December 1929, the Resolution of the Gutian Conference emphasized the publicity work against enemy troops and set out a policy of leniency toward prisoners. The “Draft Interim Regulations on the Political Work of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army” promulgated in 1930 stipulated the disintegration of the enemy as a task of political work.

The Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army used slogans and paintings, leaflets and notices, shouting on the firing line, and position reunions to propagate the ideas of the Agrarian Revolution and call on the KMT soldiers to run away with their guns, go home and share their fields, hold soldier riots, and join the Red Army.

Revolutionary humanitarianism should be applied to prisoners, without beating, cursing, killing, abusing, searching for pockets or injuring treatment, they can leave or stay voluntarily and those who are willing to return home will be given travel expenses; they rewarded those who revolted and defected for their merits; they did not discriminate against the families of enemy soldiers and officers, and gave them fields. Under the military and political struggle, many KMT soldiers and officers surrendered, revolted and defected.

During the Anti-Japanese War, the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army insisted on the policy of distinguishing the Japanese militarists who started the war from the general officers and soldiers of the Japanese invading army, and distinguishing the enemy officers and soldiers who stubbornly resisted from those who laid down their arms as prisoners, exposing the reactionary nature of the Japanese rulers and the internal contradictions of the invading army, and prompting their officers and soldiers to awaken and change from participating in the war of aggression to being passive and averse to war, and even actively opposing war.

The Japanese soldiers who surrendered and were captured set up organizations such as the "Japanese Soldiers' Awakening League" and the "Japanese in China Anti-War League" to cooperate with the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army in their publicity efforts against the Japanese army. Against the puppet army, they adopted the policy of actively fighting, combining fighting and pulling, and dividing and disintegrating, to win sympathetic elements, control the two-faced factions, and combat the determined evil elements. Under the military attack and political struggle, a large number of puppet troops abandoned their guns and left their ranks to fight against the Japanese aggressors. During the War of Liberation, the Chinese People's Liberation Army created a new experience of large-scale disintegration of enemy forces and reformation of defected and uprising forces.

Inspired by the CPC's policy of advocating peace and opposing civil war, Gao Shuxun, deputy commander of the KMT Eleventh War Zone, led an army and a column to revolt in Handan on October 30, 1945, on the front line of the civil war. In order to strengthen the efforts to divide, disrupt and win over the KMT army, the CPC Central Committee decided to launch a publicity campaign against the KMT army, calling on its officers and soldiers to follow the example of Gao Shuxun's troops and come to the people's side.

In October 1947, the Chinese People's Liberation Army issued a manifesto announcing the policy of "punishing those who are the first to do evil, not asking those who are submissive, and rewarding those who have made meritorious achievements" for the military and political personnel of the KMT.

In January 1948, Liu Shaoqi made the “Report on the Current Situation and Handling the Problem of Captives” at the First All-Army Enemy Work Conference, summarizing the historical experience of the PLA's enemy work and, on the basis of the "Gao Shuxun Movement", proposed the fundamental guidelines, policies and methods of enemy work according to the new situation.

During the War of Liberation, after a powerful political offensive and extensive and intensive struggle with the military, more than 17.73 million KMT soldiers and officers revolted, defected and accepted peaceful conversion.

Disintegration of enemy troops was an important means to overcome the enemy and win. Mao Zedong once pointed out: "Our victory depends not only on the combat of our army, but also on the disintegration of the enemy's army.” This was because the war waged by the reactionary army is unjust, and there are conflicts of fundamental interests and insurmountable contradictions within it, so it has the objective possibility of being disintegrated; the war waged by the Chinese People's Liberation Army is just and revolutionary, and it has absolute political superiority, and by propagating the political ideas of the CPC to the enemy, carrying out disintegration work, and implementing the policy of treating prisoners leniently, the enemy soldiers and officers can be encouraged to awaken.

The implementation of the principles of disintegration of enemy troops and preferential treatment of prisoners has played a great role in the past in fighting against domestic and foreign enemies.