However, unlike the 1955 rank system when it was first established, Deng Xiaoping, then chairman of the Central Military Commission, directly ordered the abolition of the rank of Marshal and General, which symbolized the highest honor of soldiers, and immediately caused quite a controversy.
Some generals said that they would inherit the previous system and retain these two ranks. They thought it was an incentive for outstanding generals in the new era, but in the end, Deng Xiaoping issued this order.
Then why did Deng Xiaoping do it? What is the consideration for restoring the rank system? This should start with the first implementation of the rank system in New China.
Before the founding of New China, the PLA troops did not have a clear rank system, but with the increase of the number, some problems such as irregular management and inconvenient contact between superiors and subordinates were exposed. Therefore, in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the central government began to brew a new rank system.
After a long period of preparation, the rank system was first implemented in the PLA in the autumn of 1955. At the awarding ceremony, the Central Military Commission awarded Zhu De, Peng et al. 10 Marshal and Su Yu, Xu Haidong et al. 10 General. In addition, there are 55 generals and 175 lieutenant generals.
The rank system was originally established at that time to solve the problems existing in the army, which has great positive significance. However, with the change of the environment, the old rank system has also exposed various problems, the most prominent of which is the low actual rank of officers.
In the revolutionary war of more than 20 years, a large number of outstanding military generals have emerged in our army. With the rapid increase in the number of troops, the positions of these generals are also constantly improving, but a strange phenomenon has emerged.
For example, many troops at that time, many commanders were major generals, and many teachers were senior colonel ranks, which obviously did not meet the international common standards. By convention, the rank of commander is at least lieutenant general.
Moreover, the rank above major general has not changed since the promulgation of the rank system for ten years. In other words, some generals with outstanding abilities have retained their original ranks although they have held higher positions.
In addition, with the expansion of the number of troops, some positions have multiple titles, that is, there are both major generals and lieutenant generals as commanders, which makes the command communication not smooth when performing joint tasks.
Because the general is in a high position but has not obtained the corresponding rank, there will inevitably be a gap during his term of office, which is also a blow to everyone's enthusiasm.
The second problem is that the role of rank in the treatment of soldiers has also been greatly weakened, which also reduces the position of rank in the hearts of generals.
At that time, all countries in the world regarded rank as the main standard for paying generals. However, in the PLA army, because there is no good correspondence between ranks and positions, superiors often take the actual position of generals as the reference standard for paying salaries, so that sometimes the salaries of major generals and lieutenant generals who are also commanders are almost the same.
The third problem can not be ignored, that is, under the influence of the concept of equality between officers and men, the recognition function of the old rank has become very small.
As we know, rank is often regarded as a symbol of soldiers' honor, and the identity of a general is also reflected by rank. At that time, in the PLA troops, generals usually wore rank collars and liberation hats when wearing uniforms, while epaulettes and officers' hats were only worn during festivals, gatherings, going abroad and foreign affairs activities, which made it difficult for ordinary soldiers to identify the positions of generals.
In the late 1950s, with the breakdown of Sino-Soviet relations and the confrontation between China and the United States, China faced a severe development environment and the number of troops had to increase rapidly.
Therefore, these problems have become more and more prominent. In order to maintain unity and keep the glorious tradition of our army's hard work and plain living, 1964, Marshal He Long formally reported to Chairman Mao a series of problems existing in the rank system.
However, this time, due to the influence of historical conditions, the central government directly ordered the abolition of the rank system in 1965, and overnight, millions of PLA people were replaced with "a red star and two red flags".
The original intention of establishing the rank system is to unify management and promote the regularization of the people's army. This was cancelled at once, and the original problem disappeared, but the new problem came again.
After 1965, due to the abolition of the rank system, soldiers had to distinguish the number of clothes pockets that cadres and ordinary soldiers could only pass. According to the requirements, cadres have four pockets and soldiers have two, but the distinction between cadres and cadres has become very blurred.
Of course, this reflects the concept of equality between officers and men to a certain extent, but it is easy to have such troubles in specific battles.
1February, 979, the counterattack against Vietnam broke out. In a combat operation, several different troops were crowded on a highway, and no one could get in, which had a great impact on the overall combat of the troops.
At this time, the teacher with the highest position at the scene stood up. Standing on a tank, he shouted, "I'm the teacher, and everything is up to me." Now all tanks are on the left and trucks are on the right. "
However, after a few minutes, the troops still didn't respond, because no one could recognize him as a teacher only from his clothes. There have been many command confusion caused by the lack of ranks, which has brought great obstacles to the combat of the troops.
Not only in the military field, the abolition of the rank system has also affected the diplomatic activities of military cadres.
65438-0980, Guangyi Xu, deputy director of the General Logistics Department, led a PLA logistics delegation to inspect the United States. Considering his position, according to the principle of reciprocity in international communication, the United States sent a four-star general to accompany him all the time, and all the treatment of Guangyi Xu in the United States was arranged according to the general's standards.
But in fact, he was only a major general before the abolition of the rank system, which means that the US side "takes care of us".
If this example didn't have much impact, Xiao Ke, then vice minister of national defense and president of military academy, caused a lot of inconvenience when he visited abroad.
Jia Ruoyu, deputy director of the military academy education who accompanied Xiao Ke to visit, remembers this experience vividly:
After the reform and opening up, faced with this increasingly prominent problem, the Central Military Commission realized that only using the original rank system did not meet the requirements of military development and could be abolished blindly, which was not conducive to the modernization of the military. Therefore, how to restore and develop the rank system has become a difficult problem for everyone.
In June, 1979, 1 1, after full consideration, the General Political Department of the People's Liberation Army formally submitted the "Request for Instructions on Strengthening the Construction of Cadres" to the Central Military Commission. In this report, the proposal of "restoring the military rank system" was put forward in writing for the first time.
Deng Xiaoping attaches great importance to this. He knows that the steady development of the national economy cannot be separated from a modern people's army, and an important part of modernization is the modernization of the military system, in which the rank system is essential.
Therefore, on March 1980, Deng Xiaoping made it clear at the enlarged meeting of the Central Military Commission: "The army still needs to engage in the rank system, and whether or not to engage in the rank system is also a matter of organizational line."
With Deng Xiaoping's statement, the restoration of the rank system was formally put on the agenda. In order to make overall arrangements, in May 1983, the Central Military Commission set up the "Leading Group for Restoring the Military Rank System of the Whole Army" to make all preparations for restoring the military rank system in advance.
However, no problem can be solved overnight, and some problems are encountered in the process of preparing to restore the military rank system.
The first is the degree of inheritance of the old rank system. Since it is a restoration, it is necessary to absorb the advantages of the old rank system, try to remove the existing problems, and then formulate development measures.
As mentioned above, there are three main problems in the old rank system, namely, the mismatch between rank and position, the mismatch between rank and treatment, and the weakening of the recognition function of rank.
After careful analysis, it can be found that the three problems are all attributed to the large scale of the army, which leads to the fact that the rank system is not as normal as expected in practice. Therefore, to realize the sublation of the old rank system, disarmament is the first thing.
Deng Xiaoping is keenly aware of this. In fact, long before the proposal to restore the rank system came out, he had realized the bloated state of the army. As China shifts its strategic focus to economic construction and improvement of the international environment, it is necessary to reduce the size of its army.
As a result, while preparing to restore the military rank system, millions of disarmament work is also proceeding in an orderly manner.
In strengthening the role of the rank system, the CPC Central Committee with Deng Xiaoping at the core has also made arrangements, including the establishment of new ranks, a new system of matching ranks with treatment, a reserve officer rank system and a civilian cadre rank system.
This reform immediately aroused heated discussion among some generals in the army, because it abolished the ranks of marshal and general, which was obviously a great innovation. Then why did Deng Xiaoping do it?
Originally, Deng Xiaoping first considered that most officers grew up in a peaceful environment at that time, and it was impossible to make achievements beyond the previous revolutionary ancestors, so the abolition of these two ranks met the requirements of military development.
Secondly, after the million-dollar disarmament of the army, all kinds of establishment have been greatly simplified, and the arrangement of ranks should be simpler. In fact, Deng Xiaoping was fully qualified for the first-class general stipulated in the regulations, but for the sake of the development of the army, he resolutely declined.
Deng Xiaoping publicly stated more than once: "In peacetime, the rank is designated as a general."
Will this dampen the enthusiasm of senior military generals? Of course not.
Because Deng Xiaoping also made a supplement to the rank system, specifically put forward that "above the rank, one post has more titles", which is essentially different from the old rank system.
It turned out that when the proposal to restore the rank system appeared, many young generals in the army hoped to meet the standards of the western army and achieve the same rank and title. Admittedly, this has a certain effect on maintaining the systematicness of the army, but it also suppresses the space for young generals to play.
In order to improve the general's overall ability, Deng Xiaoping decided to implement a new multi-rank system, that is, above military cadres, each position can be held by generals with multiple ranks, so that some young cadres can hold higher positions although their ranks are lower, which is conducive to cultivating outstanding military generals in the new era.
Deng Xiaoping has made a lot of efforts to restore the rank system, the most striking of which is that tens of thousands of female soldiers were awarded the rank of officer at this conferring ceremony.
It turns out that before the award of 1955, tens of thousands of women working in the army stayed in the organization because of the prejudice that "women cadres should not stay in the army in large numbers" in the Soviet Union, and only Major General Li Zhen was awarded the general.
This obviously does not meet the needs of military development, because in some specific arms, female soldiers can often play a greater role than male soldiers. Therefore, in the first year after the official restoration of the rank system, a large number of female officers appeared in the military camp, and the number of general officers also increased to five.
Finally, after repeated exploration and discussion, on the founding day of 1988, the Second Session of the Seventh the National People's Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC) adopted the Regulations on the Military Rank of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, which was promulgated and implemented by the President of the State, and the new military rank system of the China People's Liberation Army was formally born.
1September 198814th, the ceremony of conferring the rank of general was held in Zhongnanhai. Yang, Chairman of the Central Military Commission and Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission, attended the ceremony. Hong Xuezhi, Qin Jiwei and so on 17 people were awarded the rank of general, which opened the prelude to the new rank system.
In the awarding ceremony of 1988, the whole army awarded the medals to 1452 generals, school officials 1800 and 405,000 junior officers. It is worth mentioning that the average age of all officers this time is much younger than last time.
We can fully believe that under their leadership, the people's army in the new period will certainly develop in a more modern direction and become an invincible powerful force to protect the country and defend the country.