In Deng's time, the PLA achieved remarkable results in modernization. The world loves to compare, and there is a mainstream and non-mainstream view that the era of teachers, especially in the sixties and seventies of the last century, hindered the great development of the PLA. In fact, if you look at it this way, it is neither scientific nor objective.
In the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, including before reform and opening up, we still had to admit an objective fact. Our resources are limited, but our defense tasks are very heavy. Even in this period, under the most ideal conditions, there was no war, and the USSR was helping. It is also a prohibitive thing for our overall armed forces, in terms of the level of equipment, to reach the realm of rapid development. If we ignore this objective premise and only say that the instructors hinder the development of the armed forces, this is undoubtedly a castle in the air. I believe that no one at that time paid more attention to the development of military power than the instructors. Even if we put aside the level of national defense and only talk about personal ideals and aspirations, this is also the case. Power comes out of the barrel of a gun, and the army is a faithful tool for achieving politics, I don't think anyone denies it. It is only because of political needs that the instructors have slowed down the development of military power in the second half of the course. But this result is definitely not the original intention of policymaking. What's more, we have also made considerable progress in nuclear and conventional areas. So, what is the real level of military power? It depends on the policy and content of the leadership.
And the economy must be the foundation of the development of the superstructure. If there is an economic foundation, then it will develop upwards and develop more concrete affairs, which are military, scientific, educational, sports, and so on. Therefore, since the middle of the last century, the slow development of the armed forces has been reduced to the individual instructors, which is unscientific and objective. And what did the army go through during this period?