Achieve Goals of Modernization of National Defense

The modernization of national defense was an important part of the cause of socialist modernization.

After the founding of New China, Mao Zedong put forward the task of "building a standardized and modernized national defense force". In 1953, he put forward the call of "building a modern national defense" and defined it as the fundamental goal of national defense construction.

The First National People's Congress, held in September 1954, explicitly listed the building of modern national defense as one of the important elements of the "Four Modernizations" for the first time.

At the end of 1959 and the beginning of 1960, Mao Zedong further made it clear: “Building socialism originally required industrial modernization, agricultural modernization, scientific and cultural modernization, but now we must add national defense modernization.”

The Third National People's Congress held in December 1964 scientifically defined the "Four Modernizations" as "the comprehensive modernization of agriculture, industry, national defense and science and technology."

Mao said that we need to modernize national defense because only in this way can we more effectively defend ourselves against possible imperialist aggression, defend the national independence and liberation of the people that we already won, safeguard the sovereignty and security of the country, fight for a peaceful international environment, defend the peaceful labor of the people, and build a modern and powerful socialist country.

Mao Zedong reminded people: "If we do not strive to completely change the state of our economy and technology, which is far behind that of the imperialists, within the next few decades, defeat is inevitable.” “We should deploy our work with the possibility of being beaten in mind and strive to change our socio-economic and technological backwardness in a not too long period of time, otherwise we will make mistakes.”

The determination of the goal of national defense modernization and the incorporation of it into the goal of national "Four Modernizations" pointed out the direction of efforts and the way to realize modernization for strengthening national defense construction in New China.