How did you command the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea?
Mao XinyuApplying superb art of war guidance to defeat the superior and defeat a strong enemy is a fine tradition and military magic weapon forged by the Communist Party of China in the practice of war over a long period of time. At the beginning of the founding of New China, the leaders of the People's Republic of China made the historic decision to resist US aggression and aid Korea and defend the country, and guided the Chinese People's Volunteers to win the battle for the founding of the country under the conditions of extreme disparity in the strength of the enemy and ourselves. ** The general secretary profoundly pointed out that the great victory of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea "is a declaration for the Chinese people to stand tall in the east of the world, an important milestone in the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, and of great and far-reaching significance to China and the world." On the occasion of the 130th anniversary of the birth of Comrade ***, reviewing and summarizing the art of strategic guidance of the founding leaders of New China in this war is of great practical significance for us to continue to carry forward the great spirit of resisting US aggression and aiding Korea today, and to effectively deal with the new risks and challenges that are becoming more and more complex.
Coordinate the overall political and strategic situations, and make major decisions to fight abroad with extraordinary courage and courage
On June 25, 1950, the Korean Civil War broke out, and in early October of the same year, the U.S. military brazenly crossed the 38th parallel and burned the war to the Sino-Korean border. The newly born new Chinese regime is faced with a very difficult choice of war and a severe test. While resolutely making up his mind to send troops to Korea, he carefully planned the scale and mode of the war, and realized the goal of stopping the war with a small war and fighting on the outside line to achieve the goal of internal defense.
Persist in safeguarding long-term interests and handle "fighting" and "building" well. It is extremely difficult to make a decision on the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea. After comprehensively weighing the pros and cons, he formally made the strategic decision to resist US aggression and aid Korea and defend the country, and the main consideration was to "fight with one punch, lest a hundred punches come" and safeguard our long-term interests. First of all, we should persist in promoting construction through crackdowns and promoting construction through construction to ensure the country's long-term peace and stability. ** Noted: "In short, we believe that we should go to war, we must go to war. The benefits of participating in the war are enormous, and the damage of not participating in the war is extremely great. "Proceeding from the goal of building a modern socialist country, we should coordinate the two major tasks of "grasping construction" and "ensuring survival", shift the focus of military strategy from the southeast to the northeast, provide security guarantee for national construction with the anti-aggression war, and provide material support for winning the war with national construction. Second, carry forward the spirit of great internationalism and support the world national liberation movement. ** An important purpose of considering the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea in the general trend of the times is to strike at domestic and international reactionary arrogance and avoid the possible unfavorable situation of the revolution in the East and even in the world. History has proved that this war shattered the myth of the invincibility of the US military and gave a powerful impetus to the cause of world peace and human progress.
We should persist in stopping wars of aggression on a larger scale by local wars. In order to maintain the overall peace of the country and avoid or reduce the impact of interference on the overall political situation of the country, the decision to send troops to the DPRK has been carefully designed to control the war within a limited scope as much as possible. First of all, it was decided to send troops in the name of the "Volunteer Army" rather than the "People's Liberation Army", which avoided giving the United States a pretext for declaring war on China. Second, the war was limited to the Korean Peninsula region, which contributed to the localization of the scale of the war. Third, strictly defining the purpose of the war, and after the fifth campaign, changing the purpose of the war from completely expelling the US troops from Korea to restoring the pre-war state reduced the risk of the war becoming bigger and bigger and even triggering a world war. Finally, if we insist on not fighting, we will fight and be afraid of the other side, and by teaching the "joint ****" headed by the US military a hard lesson, we will make them profoundly understand that it is "difficult to handle" by provoking the Chinese people, and this has truly achieved the goal of ending the war with war.
Persist in achieving strategic defensive objectives by counterattacking operations on the outside line. Judging from practice, most of the several border self-defense and counterattack operations since the founding of New China insisted that the enemy could come and we could go, and after the enemy launched a military invasion against us and we gained the right to defend ourselves and counterattack, we adopted external counterattack operations to defeat the enemy. At the same time as making the decision to resist US aggression and aid Korea and defend the homeland and defend the country, he also clearly adopted the method of overseas operations and achieved strategic defense through counterattack operations on the outside line. History has proven that this decision is very necessary and correct. In order to support the DPRK and the army and maintain the tranquility of China's northeastern frontier, the volunteers must go to the territory of the DPRK to meet the "joint forces." If we wait until the United States completely defeats the DPRK and the army before sending troops, we can only make preparations to meet the United States on the border line, and we must prevent the US troops from suddenly crossing the Yalu River and burning the flames of war to northeast China at any time, which will put us in a great strategic passivity. In the longer term, if the United States is encouraged by the victory in the Korean War, its war ambitions will be further inflated, which will greatly reduce China's security factor and increase the hidden dangers.
** Resolutely made the strategic decision to go abroad to fight, which profoundly enlightens us: the major affairs of the country of soldiers, and the war decision is related to the future and destiny of the country and the nation. On the issue of decision-making on whether to "fight a war or not," the key lies in proceeding from the overall strategic situation, persisting in subordinating the military to politics, and persisting in subordinating immediate interests to long-term interests.
We should strive to grasp the initiative in the development and evolution of the war, and do a good job in making preparations, openings, transitions, and endings for the war
** and *** deeply understand and grasp the laws of war, skillfully use the uncertainty in the war, lead the volunteer army to prepare for war based on the worst possible, and flexibly adjust the combat plan according to the development and changes of the battlefield, timely transfer to strategy, strategic defense, carefully plan the end of the war, promote the orderly transformation of the war hub, the organic connection of the war stage, and director a sound and majestic war drama.
Based on the worst, it is possible to advance the war layout. In the preparations for the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, it was emphasized that we should base ourselves on the most difficult and complicated situation, take precautions to do a good job in strategic pre-planning, especially the deployment of combat forces, and ensure victory in the first battle. Soon after the outbreak of the Korean War, he immediately decided to form the Northeast Frontier Army, mobilized four armies and three artillery divisions and other troops, and placed them in the Sino-Korean border area (one army was later transferred), and at the same time, six armies were mobilized on the second and third lines as strategic mobile forces to prepare for the complex situation. Three estimates were made as to the war situation that our army might face after entering the war: First, to annihilate and expel the United States and other invading forces in Korea;Second, the United States cannot be annihilated in large numbers in Korea, and the war has become a stalemateThe third is to be able to persist in fighting in Korea and force the United States to resolve the issue through negotiations. The attitude of ** and *** was to strive for the emergence of the third scenario, to prevent and prepare for the emergence of the second, and the general principle that was later established was "to strive for all possible victories on a sound and reliable basis". These thorough preparations for war enabled our troops on the Sino-Korean border to form a relative advantage over the enemy and laid the foundation for the Chinese Volunteers to win the first battle in one fell swoop.
Seize the opportunity to flexibly promote the transition of the war phase. ** Be good at seeing the subtleties, synthesizing all kinds of information, especially the situation of the enemy and us on the battlefield, scientifically predicting the development trend of the war, accurately grasping the key points of the war, and taking preemptive measures to promote the development of the war process in a direction favorable to us. At the beginning of the dispatch of troops to Korea, he seized the suddenness of the complete surprise of the enemy, ordered the volunteers to adjust their operational policy, changed from the original defensive operation to annihilating the enemy in the movement, immediately launched a strategic campaign and carried out several campaigns in succession, and took the "joint army" by surprise. With the stalemate in the 38th parallel of the war, the operational policy of "protracted operation and active defense" was formulated in a timely manner, and the volunteer army took positional warfare as the main form of operation, and closely coordinated operations and negotiations, thus moving into the strategic defense stage. At this stage, ** instructed our army to heighten vigilance and make preparations to deal with the enemy's attack from the air, ground and sea during the negotiations, and constantly consolidated our army's front. In the end, we became stronger and stronger the more we fought, and this created favorable conditions for the victorious truce that followed.
Plan the end of the war according to the strength of the enemy and the enemy. As early as June 1951, taking into account the domestic and foreign situation and the situation of battlefield forces, the Chinese People's Volunteer Army determined the strategic policy of "fully preparing for protracted combat and striving for peace talks to reach an end to the war", and decided to end the war through political negotiations. The goal of the end of the war is to restore the pre-war state and make every effort to stabilize the front near the 38th parallel, which not only meets the requirements of China's overall political situation, but also basically conforms to the situation of the balance of forces between the enemy and us. After more than two years, we waged unremitting struggle around this war goal, and finally forced the United States to sign an armistice agreement on July 27, 1953, and the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea ended victoriously.
** The experience and practice of controlling the development process of war have profoundly enlightened us: Soldiers are impermanent, and uncertainty is a prominent feature of modern warfare. We must vigorously enhance our ability to control war, overcome uncertainties in the development of war with scientific subjective guidance, and make it develop and evolve in a direction that is favorable to us.
The picture shows the Yalu River Bridge.
Insist that you fight yours and I fight mine, make use of our strengths and avoid our weaknesses, and create new strategies and tactics for controlling the enemy
In the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, we focused on the new style of warfare, the opponent and the reality of the battlefield, innovated and developed a new materialist method of employing troops based on seeking truth from facts, and successively solved the problems of "whether we can fight, defend, and guarantee supplies and transportation," and applied flexible and mobile strategies and tactics to the extreme.
Learn from war and change the concept of war in a timely manner. ** Notes: "In times of war, war is learning. "After the founding of New China, the nature of the war faced by our army has changed from a war of domestic unification to a war of foreign counter-aggression, and the pattern of war has also changed from a domestic war with a low degree of modernization to a modern war with the intervention of a strong enemy. The War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea and the fight between the US military and the US military made *** deeply aware of this. He held that we have fought wars for more than 20 years in the past, and in modern warfare, we cannot hold on to our old combat experience, and we will not be able to adapt to the new situation if we use old methods to fight a war of annihilation. For this reason, he proposed that the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea be a big school, and demanded that the whole army get a good grasp of adapting to the new pattern of warfare and change from dealing with a domestic war with a low degree of modernization to dealing with a modern war. This has led all officers and men of the armed forces to break the shackles of the thinking and concept of civil war, and to pay close attention to studying, studying, and mastering the new tactics and methods of fighting to win a modern war.
Emphasizing knowing one's opponent and knowing oneself to find out the weaknesses and strengths of strong enemies. On the Korean battlefield, for the first time, our army encountered such a strange and powerful opponent as the US military, and for a time it faced great challenges. ** In-depth analysis of the contradictions faced by the Western camp led by the United States, pointing out that it is not good for the United States to fight the war for a long time. Through a period of competition, we gradually figured out the situation of the US military: its advantages are a high degree of mechanization of equipment and air and sea supremacy; The weakness is that the morale of the army is not high, the tactics are not flexible, and they are especially afraid of close combat and night fighting. Compared with the US military, the weakness of our army is that its equipment is backward and the level of modernization of the army is very low; The strong points of our army are the extensive support of the people, the flexibility of tactics, the high morale, and the strong will to fight; the troops have carried forward the fighting spirit of "not fearing hardship and not fearing death," and the officers and men have given full play to their conscious initiative. Accordingly, we emphasize the importance of developing our strengths and avoiding our weaknesses, and guide our army to overcome the enemy's shortcomings with its own strengths, and to overcome "more steel and less gas" with "less steel and more gas".
Summing up the practical experience of warfare and creating new tactics and methods of fighting. ** In his long-term military career, he led our army to sum up battlefield experience in a timely manner every time he fought a battle, created and invented new tactics and methods of play, and constantly enriched and developed our army's strategic and tactical treasury. Focusing on the annihilation of the enemy's vital forces, he summed up his experience and proposed the method of "knocking out kraft candy" to annihilate the enemy army, and later proposed "fighting more small-scale wars of annihilation," thus creating our army's superiority in campaigns and battles by concentrating troops. **In view of the protracted trend of the war, it was decided to adopt the policy of rotational operations in Korea, which not only solved the problem of battlefield rest and continuous combat of the volunteers, but also effectively trained the troops. ** Guided the volunteers to build a solid defense system with tunnels as the backbone in the defense, created a set of tactics relying on tunnels for offensive and defensive operations, and accumulated rich experience in positional warfare. He also instructed our army to use the night to fight for freedom of action, creating a set of effective night combat tactics; Seize the weakness of the US military's modern equipment that is highly dependent on the rear and roads, boldly implement roundabout encirclement tactics and cut off the enemy's rear routes; Adopt all feasible means to establish a "steel transportation line" that cannot be broken and bombed continuously; Wait a minute. This series of new tactics has greatly limited the role of the US military's superior equipment, brought into better play the advantages and specialties of the Chinese volunteers, and solved a series of new problems in how to defeat a strong enemy under the conditions of an extremely disparity between the enemy's and our own forces.
**The experience and practice of creating new tactics and methods of fighting have profoundly enlightened us: no matter what form of war, the most fundamental one on the battlefield is to "save oneself and destroy the enemy." War instructors must firmly base themselves on the material and technological conditions of the times, profoundly analyze and grasp the strengths and weaknesses of both the enemy and us, flexibly make use of the time and space factors of the battlefield, and explore and invent methods to exploit the strong points and avoid the weak points and defeat the strong enemy in an asymmetrical way.
Carry forward the fine tradition of the people's war and comprehensively use a variety of means of struggle to defeat the opponent
The War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea was actually an all-out contest between the two great powers, China and the United States. In guiding this war, the state power was used to mobilize and integrate the resources of the whole country, and a variety of means of struggle were used to open up a second front, which effectively cooperated with frontal battlefield operations and gathered to form the overall combat strength of the people's war to defeat a strong enemy.
Extensively mobilize the masses of the people to enhance the sustainability of the war. ** Adhere to the principle that "the soldiers and the people are the foundation of victory" and believe that "the deepest root of the great power of war lies in the people". After the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea began, the War of Resistance Against US Aggression and Aid Korea closely relied on and organized and mobilized the broad masses of the people and mobilized the people of all ethnic groups and all walks of life across the country to participate in and support the war in various ways, which fully stimulated the patriotic enthusiasm and enthusiasm of the people of the whole country for work and production, and effectively supported and ensured the restoration of national construction. ** When summing up the experience of the victory to resist US aggression and aid Korea, he affectionately pointed out: "The main reason is that our war is a people's war, with the support of the people of the whole country, and the people of China and the DPRK fighting side by side."
Actively carry out political, economic, and diplomatic struggles to coordinate battlefield operations. Based on the complex contradictions between major powers, the Soviet Union and the United States resisted the United States, he personally led the struggle in these fields, effectively won the sympathy and support of the international community, and cracked down on the warmongers led by the United States. On the one hand, it joined forces with the Soviet Union and the DPRK to establish an international united front against the United States. On a series of issues, such as the dispatch of troops, operations, and armistice negotiations in the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, China, the Soviet Union, and the DPRK worked in concert, closely cooperated, and supported each other, thus providing important conditions for winning the war. On the other hand, China has taken the initiative to carry out political, economic, and diplomatic struggles against the United States. During the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, with the goal of isolating and striking at the United States, the main enemy, they carried out extensive propaganda at home and abroad, accused the United States of its crimes of aggression against the DPRK and Taiwan on various diplomatic occasions, tried by all means to break the economic blockade and embargo imposed by the United States through the manipulation of Western countries against China through the United Nations, carried out anti-isolation and anti-restriction against the isolation and restriction of the United States at home and abroad, and won international friends to establish an anti-American international front, and so on. All these have effectively cooperated with combat operations on the battlefield.
Adhere to the unity of principle and flexibility to promote talks. ** It is believed that the most important thing in implementing the strategic principle of fighting and talking is that it is necessary to gain military superiority, that is, to fight and talk at the same time, to promote talks by fighting, and to promote peace by fighting. The War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea lasted two years and nine months, and the talks lasted nearly two years and one month, during which the two sides fought fiercely over the two issues of the military demarcation line and the repatriation of prisoners. On the eve of the armistice, in order to crack down on Syngman Rhee's group, which had openly violated the agreement on the repatriation of prisoners of war, the Chinese Volunteers launched the Battle of Geumseong, crippled four divisions of the South Korean Army, and effectively cooperated with the armistice negotiations. Because we had the initiative on the battlefield, the United States was incapable of breaking the deadlock militarily, and faced tremendous pressure at home and abroad, and finally had to sign the armistice agreement and accept the fact that it had lost the war. ** In guiding the implementation of the strategy of fighting and talking, we have adhered to a high degree of unity of principle and flexibility, not conceding half a step on major issues of principle involving fundamental interests, and not even fearing the breakdown of negotiations, but on the premise of not harming fundamental interests, we have made certain concessions according to the situation, so as to demonstrate our sincerity in striving for peace, and finally reach an agreement that is in line with our strategic objectives, and form a post-war arrangement that is conducive to our interests.
** The experience and practice of waging the people's war have profoundly enlightened us: Although there are various channels for winning in modern warfare, the most fundamental thing is to closely rely on the masses of the people and give full play to the advantages of the country's overall war. At present, the contradictions and conflicts in the game between the great powers are very fierce, and the risk of war is on the rise, so we must hold high the banner of a just war, persist in combining military struggle with political, economic, and diplomatic struggles, and strive to consolidate and improve the integrated national strategic system and capabilities.
*: Theory Weekly.
Author: Mao Xinyu (Major General Researcher of Professional Technology of the Academy of Military Sciences).