Wu Yang and Bai Lu: Cadre Education in the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression [1]
Starting in 1933, the Northeast anti-Japanese armed forces under the leadership of the CPC Manchuria Provincial Committee began to unite with anti-Japanese forces such as the Volunteer Armies, the Red Spear Society [1], and the "Mountain-and-Forest Teams" (shanlindui) [2] on a large scale. These were successively reorganized into the Northeast People's Revolutionary Army and the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army (NAJUA). They pinned down hundreds of thousands of regular Japanese and puppet troops, providing powerful support to the national War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression. Along with the expansion of the army, problems regarding the insufficient quantity and lack of capacity among military cadres began to emerge, severely restricting the army's development. Therefore, strengthening cadre education to ensure the effective implementation of the Party's line within the military became a critical issue for the NAJUA.
Methods of Cadre Education in the NAJUA
The NAJUA operated year-round in mountainous and forested areas, engaging in combat with Japanese and puppet military and police forces. Since conventional schooling was difficult to manage, its methods of cadre education were quite diverse, generally consisting of the following:
Establishing short-term training classes and camp schools. Short-term training classes were generally held in revolutionary base areas or "secret camps" (miying) [3]. Camp schools were training classes of a mobile nature that followed the army, allowing for cadre training without disrupting normal military activities. Both primarily recruited junior commanders and activists among the soldiers, aiming to improve cadres' command capabilities and ideological levels through short-term training. For example, the East Harbin Detachment held several mobile training classes in 1934, with 6 to 8 people per class: "One class specialized in work among soldiers, while another specialized in work for youth groups and anti-Japanese military youth." In 1939, the Third Route Army of the NAJUA opened short-term training classes to "cultivate company commanders, political instructors, and equivalent military-political cadres and local personnel."
Establishing mobile teaching corps. This was the most common method for the NAJUA to train junior and middle-level cadres. These teaching corps generally moved with the army; in addition to training, they also undertook combat missions. Upon completion of the study period, superiors could dispatch the outstanding trainees to various units to take on corresponding leadership roles. Almost every army of the NAJUA established organizations such as teaching corps, teaching regiments, or teaching companies. The First Army established a teaching company as early as May 1934, selecting 20 trainees for a three-month training period, after which they were assigned to various units for management work. At the end of 1937, the Second Route Army of the NAJUA established the Xiajiang Teaching Corps specifically to train officers below the regimental level.
Establishing NAJUA Military and Political Schools. The Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army Political and Military School, established in 1936, was a school specifically for training senior NAJUA cadres, mainly to meet the needs of the development of units and the expansion of anti-Japanese guerrilla areas. Zhao Shangzhi served as the principal. Trainees were primarily selected from the military or recommended by mass organizations [4] in the base areas, divided into officer classes and student classes. The school held three sessions in total, training nearly 300 outstanding senior military and political cadres for the NAJUA, making a huge contribution to the development of the army.
Sending cadres to the Soviet Union for study. Due to the limited conditions for running schools in the Northeast, sending young cadres to the Soviet Union was another avenue for training. The study period generally ranged from one to three years, primarily focusing on technical and senior cadres. In December 1933, the Manchuria Provincial Committee of the Youth League sent Yu Baohe to Moscow to study radio communication technology. After returning home, he secretly organized the "Telecommunications School of the Third Army Headquarters of the Northeast People's Revolutionary Army" in Tonghe County to train specialized telecommunications personnel. Among senior cadres, Li Yanping, commander of the Fourth Army, and Chen Rongjiu, commander of the Seventh Army, were both sent to study at the Communist University of the Toilers of the East in Moscow.
Content of Cadre Education in the NAJUA
Although the methods of cadre education varied, the curriculum generally included three major categories: military skills, political theory, and cultural knowledge.
Since the NAJUA primarily undertook military operations, military education was the focus of cadre cultivation. The emphasis of military education varied according to the target audience. For instance, short-term training classes and teaching corps for junior and middle-level commanders focused on guerrilla tactics and shooting techniques; some also learned basic unit management, military topography, and combat service. In contrast, the military courses offered by the NAJUA Military and Political School for senior cadres primarily explained guerrilla tactics and the concept of people's war, including the "16-character guerrilla formula" [5], weapon usage, map identification, scale and distance calculation, military geography, and meteorology.
"Combining professional competence with political integrity" (德才兼备) [6] has always been the CPC’s standard for cadre cultivation. Therefore, in addition to military skills, improving the political literacy of cadres was equally important. In 1935, the political curriculum of the Fifth Army Teaching Corps included four courses: Problems of the Chinese Revolution, History of the World Revolution, Political Economy, and Proletarian Revolutionary Theory and Practice. The school established in 1936 similarly placed political education in the primary position; its entrance exams for trainees were highly political in nature. Simultaneously, the school offered multiple political courses to teach trainees common knowledge of political economy, modern Chinese history, and the CPC’s lines and policies.
The NAJUA was established on the basis of a broad coalition of various anti-Japanese armed forces; its cadres came from different social classes and groups, some from the old armies and others from poor peasant families, resulting in uneven educational levels. Therefore, the short-term training classes, camp schools, and military-political schools all offered cultural education. These courses focused on literacy, writing, and arithmetic, aiming to enable cadres to reach a level where they could read and write documents and military orders. This ensured they could understand the Party's lines, principles, and policies, and carry out necessary communication between superiors and subordinates.
Characteristics of Cadre Education in the NAJUA
The cadre education of the NAJUA inherited the CPC's theory of cadre education while integrating the external environment of the War of Resistance in the Northeast, manifesting its own unique characteristics.
First, the methods and content were flexible and diverse. Not only did education take various forms such as training classes, teaching corps, and overseas study, but each form could be flexibly adjusted based on specific circumstances to achieve results. Structurally, when a teaching corps was formed, members were usually selected from outstanding young backbones in various companies or mass organizations. However, if activists could not be spared to form a separate team at that time, an alternative method was adopted: "taking an entire company or platoon as a teaching corps, where all soldiers, regardless of merit, became trainees." In terms of content, in the winter of 1933, the Raohe Guerrilla Detachment formed a ski team for emergency training to break the winter "punitive expeditions" (taofa) [7] of the Japanese and puppet forces, allowing members to master skiing skills, which played a significant role in subsequent battles.
Second, it emphasized the cultivation of the cadre's role as a model. The "Rules for the First Session of the Training Class" issued by the Third Route Army in 1939 included requirements for study discipline, security and combat discipline, military etiquette, hygiene discipline, weapon maintenance discipline, and soldierly conduct. This aimed to help trainees "develop the pure and exemplary style of a revolutionary soldier." The emphasis on the cadre's role as a model is evident. The same was true for the teaching corps, which emphasized both political and military training. The members they produced had firm political stances and excellent military qualities; they were often more heroic in combat and became models for the entire army. "As soon as soldiers and commanders heard gunfire or had a task, they were filled with joy, advancing heroically and charging automatically, which other units could not match."
Third, it emphasized integrating theory with practice. The cadre education of the NAJUA was usually closely combined with the combat environment and the trainees' own experiences. In military terms, teaching corps and camp schools emphasized the combination of tactical training and actual combat. For example, when explaining guerrilla tactics, they would use recent combat cases to analyze how to utilize terrain and choose timing, allowing cadres to apply theory to practice and improve the army's combat effectiveness. In ideological and political theory education, instructors also integrated theory with practice. For instance, when lecturing on the evils of capitalism, instructors at the NAJUA Military and Political School often inspired trainees to compare their own experiences with the theories learned, helping them recognize the connection between joining the revolution and changing their impoverished fates, thereby strengthening their revolutionary conviction.
Since its inception, the NAJUA attached great importance to cadre education. This work achieved remarkable results: the overall quality of cadres was improved, and their will became more determined. These cadres bore the responsibility of transmitting orders and acting as role models, greatly enhancing the army's centripetal force and cohesion, and effectively promoting the development of the anti-Japanese struggle in the Northeast.
(The authors are respectively a lecturer at the School of Marxism, Changchun University of Science and Technology, and an associate professor at the School of Marxism, Jilin University) Source: Chinese Social Sciences Net - China Social Sciences Today, June 23, 2025 Web Editor: Tongxin