Former title: 72 year old veteran Lv Zhidong: officers and soldiers are the best teachers

　　 In the early 1980s, Lv Zhidong, the instructor of the Auto Company of an anti-aircraft artillery regiment of a division of the former Shenyang Military Region, regarded political work as a "specialized knowledge" to explore and study. He came from and went to the officers and soldiers, and found out many useful experiences, which was regarded by the military region as a "model instructor who studies hard in ideological and political work". Recently, 72 year old Lv Zhidong wrote an article to share his experience of carrying out regular ideological work that year——

　　 "Officers and soldiers are the best teachers"

■ Lv Zhidong

A close-up view of Lu Zhidong. Figures provided by the author

Over the past 40 years, whenever I think of the past when I served as the instructor of a car company and led the company to "resound and shout" with the company commander, I always feel proud.

At the beginning of my career as the instructor of the automobile company, the company was not prominent in the regiment, and its work often fell behind that of the brother company. A comrade whispered to me: "There are some soldiers in the company who are 'hard and soft' and can't be brought!" But when I came closer to get to know them, I found that the situation was not as simple as it seemed.

At the beginning of 1980, the training of new drivers began. Due to the limited quota, 13 recruits in the company failed to participate and were assigned to logistics posts. After the list was announced, the recruits were in some mood, and two of them didn't even eat breakfast the next day. At that time, I wondered that even if they could not treat the division of jobs correctly, it would not be so serious.

In order to find out the reason, I went to find new recruits separately with the Chief Controller. They unanimously reported that during the previous training, a platoon leader had taught them: "Our company is a technical unit, we must work hard, and whoever can't do it will be allowed to participate in the later training..." The failure to participate in the training made these recruits feel that it was because of their "bad work". But they thought that they were "no worse than their comrades in arms who participated in the training".

When I found the platoon leader, he told me that at that time, he just wanted to stimulate the training enthusiasm of new soldiers. The platoon leader is kind. Why didn't he produce good results? I think the reason is that he only mobilized the enthusiasm of the soldiers from the perspective of interests unilaterally, did not consider the possible impact from the overall situation, and neglected to fundamentally improve the ideological awareness of the soldiers.

I immediately educated the emotional recruits, explaining that learning to drive and doing logistics were all arranged according to the needs of the company's work, and the previous training performance was not the only standard. Later, they talked with the two soldiers who were more resistant to the division of labor, and combined the "big principle" of correctly treating the revolutionary division of labor with the "small principle" of personal gains and losses to help them solve their ideological problems and correct their misconceptions.

In the 1980s, Lv Zhidong (second from the right) cleaned the car with company officers and soldiers. Figures provided by the author

After this incident, all the work of the company went smoothly. See the amount of food, look at the appearance, listen to snores, listen to songs... My "Soldier Awareness Radar" is always on, trying to catch the "mind waves" of officers and soldiers at the first time, and do regular ideological work. However, on the new driver Wang Yili, my old experience "failed".

Once, I learned that Wang Yi was unable to work due to illness. I went to see him, but he didn't look ill. "Instructor, I have a stomach problem. I can do what the organization wants me to do, but I'm afraid I can't do it well..." According to some situations mentioned by Wang Yi, I guess he is afraid of hardship and fatigue, so I confided in him and gave him some ideological education about "being a soldier requires a lot of effort".

I thought the heart to heart talk was relatively successful, but I didn't realize that it was not so. A few days later, the company commander told me that Wang Yi was not afraid of suffering because he was "sick". Liu Shuqing, the monitor of the class, took him out of the car at that time. In order to let him master driving skills better, Liu Shuqing insisted on not driving. Wang Li was really upset and had to pretend to be ill for a few days so that the monitor could drive.

I think it is reasonable to think that both new and old drivers in our car company want to drive more and improve their skills. After my further understanding, this is really the case.

I was touched by this. When I saw only one or two accidental phenomena, I hastily concluded that "only see trees, not forests". Although it is not advisable for Wang Yili to influence the "sick patients" by not having a customer view, the comrade in arms behind it is moving. This makes me feel that to do a good job in the ideological work of officers and soldiers, it is necessary to be good at comprehensively and systematically understanding and analyzing problems, and mastering the thoughts and psychological motivations behind their behaviors, so as to open the door to their innermost feelings.

However, this is not easy. When the company selects spiritual civilization soldiers, we mobilize all the members of the company to recommend them. The group leader reviews and puts forward the selection list, and then gets the list to the company for discussion and comments. Finally, the party branch committee will study and decide. When the list was submitted to the officers and soldiers of the company for discussion, everyone commented on a candidate, saying that he was not outstanding at ordinary times, but had a good relationship with the head of the regiment group. After further understanding of the situation, we learned that some group members did not organize a recommendation, but the group leader reported the list according to his personal opinions.

The original intention of the company's Party branch is to fully promote democracy and carry out work in a fair and just manner. Unexpectedly, it backfired. It can be seen that it is a repeated and deepening process to accurately grasp the thoughts of officers and soldiers. We seriously criticized the group leader of that regiment, once again solicited the opinions of officers and soldiers extensively, and carried out a practical and realistic education for cadres. The Party branch of the company won the trust of officers and soldiers and carried out all work with a clean and upright attitude.

In the 1980s, Lu Zhidong (right) talked with soldiers. Figures provided by the author

In a word, say everything. As one of the main forms of carrying out ideological and political work, chatting with officers and soldiers is also inseparable from dialectical wisdom. One morning when it was raining heavily at breakfast, a squad leader arranged for a new soldier to stand guard. The new soldier felt that the squad leader was deliberately targeting him and would not go, so the two men quarreled about it. Later, I learned that the new soldier had been on guard a lot recently. I felt that the squad leader bullied him as a new soldier, and he had been on fire for a long time. The company happened to improve its food that day. It was rainy again. The monitor asked him to stand guard, but he was not angry at all.

"The squad leader acted unfairly, so I contradicted him" "He didn't obey the work arrangement, so I must correct him"... Referring to the experience of talking with soldiers in the past, I found that the motivation of soldiers to make mistakes sometimes contains reasonable factors. Let the soldier make a review at the military assembly. I pointed out his mistakes by saying "two sides".

"You stand guard more than others. It is a fact that you work hard, and everyone has seen it. But everything is not absolutely fair. Your monitor is responsible for the work in the platoon. It is appropriate to arrange more services in this shift. The starting point is good, and you should be considerate of the monitor";

"You are more tired than others. It is understandable that you have opinions about the monitor. But you think that the monitor's prejudice against you is not in line with reality. As far as I know, the monitor's response to your performance is relatively good";

"It's better for you to directly reflect your opinions than not to talk behind your back. But if you are angry with your work, you will violate discipline if you don't follow orders"

Finally, I hope that the soldier will work hard and make progress. He said he was convinced, and other officers and soldiers of the company also felt very educated.

When I was an instructor of a car company, I practiced, studied and summarized at the same time in my work. I think it is very difficult to do well in the ideological work of officers and soldiers. The officers and soldiers are the best teachers. When we deal with problems, we should use dialectical thinking, think deeply and thoroughly, sort out what the officers and soldiers can't stand, remove what the officers and soldiers can't think of, remove the "stone" from their minds, and do a good job in ideological and political work naturally.

(Wenjin finishing)