ABSTRACT
By the summer of 1948, the Third Chinese Civil War had reached its final phase. While the Communist army prepared to wage decisive battles and so-called “battles of annihilation” in northeast China and the Central Plains, the newly reunified Secretariat/CMC also looked ahead to the implications of these operations, unprecedented as they would be in scale and importance. One primary concern was command and control as the armies were growing larger and more geographically dispersed. In the beginning of the year, Mao circulated a directive entitled “On Setting up a System of Reports,” which highlighted the need for the regional forces to be accountable to the center and ordered that “the Party’s leading bodies at all levels must correct bad habits of neither asking the higher level for prior instructions nor submitting reports afterwards.”1 He also reminded “leaders of field armies and military areas of their obligation to submit reports and requests for instructions on matter of strategy when necessary.”2 While it was common policy for the regional commanders to get approval from Mao and the CMC before they undertook major campaigns, there had been numerous occasions when they did not wait for a reply or moved without orders.
