Word: eng
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Their squeamishness, some analysts think, stems from an old argument among army officers that many observers thought Lin had settled years ago. In the late 1950's, many professional officers, including the Defense Minister at that time, P'eng Tehhuai, complained that the PLA was asked to spend too much time bringing in harvests and building dams. The officers wanted to build a crack modern army and felt too little time was left for military training. China, they thought, should swallow its pride and a little ideology and accept Russian help in building modern weapons stockpiles, including atomic bombs...
...eng and the Experts
Beneath these demands lay a clash between two different personality styles. P'eng, to some extent, represented the "experts," those who thought the most valuable men to China were the trained and ingenious technicians. Mao Tse-tung, who loathed the "expert" ideal, dismissed P'eng and replaced him with Lin. Mao's ideal man was the "red," a man of lower class background who believed, like Mao, that will power and unquestioned loyalty to socialism and to China would together win the world...
Army officers who supported P'eng in 1959 probably realize that their interests lie with the anti-Mao, expert faction. But they face a dilemma. They don't want to risk another defeat, especially in this case, when no one knows (or likes to think about) the fate of the losers. Yet, they are not eager to give substantial help to the reds...
...thus head of the government apparatus, had dropped to eighth. Liu is nearly as old as Mao but for years he was assumed to be the Chairman's likely successor and so he had won considerable support within the Party. That support, plus his close friendhip with P'eng, was apparently too much...