PLA in the period after Korean War and before Cultural Revolution

Originally Posted by raider1001

Handbook on the Chinese Communist Army...an old pamphlet on the Soviet style modernization carried out by PLA before the Cultural Revolution. It's interesting to think what would happen to China if Soviet style transformation continued instead of interrupted by Cultural Revolution.

Look at where Soviet is now...

Without strong economy to back up the modernization program, it simply couldn't function. Plus China is not like Russia... even with Soviet broken to different country, Russia is still the largest in the world and they have oil. China on the other hand would be broken to tinier bits and pieces, with huge population... without much resources and so each of these states will have to look for a foreign backing... you will see China back to the old Nationalist era.

Soviet style modernization is not a way to go, too much resources will be allocated to the military. Cultural Revolution might be a bad thing that happen to China, but it did open the eyes of the people and allowed for Deng to actually implement reforms.

this book looks interesting,i'd like to read it

thanks for the recomendation. I might give it a read too.