Word: commissar
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...should have completely dispelled them. Teng Hsiao-ping, 70, already a party vice chairman and the government's first Vice Premier, was given the powerful, long-vacant post of Chief of Staff of the army. Chang Chun-chiao, 64, a Vice Premier, became the army's political commissar, a post once held by none other than Mao Tse-tung...
With the new appointments, China took another giant step toward consolidating the governmental and military leadership that was almost completely decimated by the Cultural Revolution and the struggles for power that followed it. There had been no Chief of Staff since 1971 and no political commissar since 1973. Now, with Teng and Chang taking up army responsibilities-joining Yeh Chien-ying, who was named Defense Minister at the National People's Congress last month-the command structure of China's 2.5 million-man army is virtually complete...
...Nickolai G. Kuznetsov, 72, commander of the Soviet navy in World War II. Kuznetsov's advocacy of an aggressive "oceanic" strategy for the Soviet sea arm appealed to Stalin. He quickly rose through the ranks as senior officers were liquidated in the 1937- 38 purges, and became Navy Commissar in 1939 at the age of 37. Kuznetsov embarked on a massive cruiser and battleship building program and restored czarist-style discipline on shipboard, requiring officers to wear bone-handled swords. He mapped the naval strategy used against Finland in 1940, and later led his fleet against the Nazis. Demoted...
...camp's vice political commissar who I didn't like--a fat-faced, tough-looking character with a scar, who drove around in a chauffeured automobile, explained that soldiers on duty did not have the right to put up critical posters, and almost blew up at a hostile question about the Korean War. I might write off the People's Liberation Army because of him, except for what happened at a high school in Shanghai...
...want to be a PLA woman to safeguard our motherland," said the third, the one who'd looked amused. So it was clearer than ever how little I knew; because in a battle between her and the vice political commissar, how could I tell who would win, or whether it would even be a contest? All I could tell for sure is that once in a while, now, I miss Shanghai, where the lights stretch on for miles at night but it feels as though everyone knows everyone else. So I guess that will have...