“The People, and the People Alone, are the Driving Force of History”

“The People, and the People Alone, are the Driving Force of History” is a Mao quotation that moves through the novel as doctrine, performance, and irony. It is recited by Wu Dawang in a cooking competition, adapted into playful dialogue with Liu Lian, and echoed in the army’s public account of his achievements. Across these settings, the saying’s claim about popular agency is repeatedly framed by institutions and personal interests that define what “serving the people” is supposed to mean.

A maxim put to work

Wu Dawang’s mastery of Mao quotations is part of his record as an ambitious soldier. At a Mass Theory and Practice of Frontline Logistics Competition, he recites 286 quotations and three classic essays word-perfect, then prepares a four-dish meal and soup in thirty minutes. His performance earns praise as a Model Soldier and helps lead to his appointment as the Division Commander’s full-time orderly and cook. The quotation belongs to a political vocabulary that Wu has learned to reproduce with exceptional precision, and that skill has tangible consequences for his career.

The maxim also sits within an institutional world where public service is made to encompass service to superiors. The Political Instructor argues that Wu must look after Liu Lian so the Division Commander can concentrate on meetings in Beijing; the Commander’s focus, in turn, is linked to the Division’s battle training and the army’s readiness. In this chain of reasoning, domestic assistance is presented as a contribution to national and international political aims. The slogan’s broad claim about the people is thus attached to a hierarchy that specifies who is to serve whom.

From doctrine to shared play

When Wu and Liu Lian cook together, the saying becomes part of an exchange rather than a formal recitation. After they each prepare dishes and compete over whose cooking is better, Liu concludes with the maxim and proposes a contest. The scene places revolutionary language in the ordinary setting of a shared meal: Wu makes stewed chicken and fried aubergines, while Liu prepares cucumber with scrambled egg, green pepper with diced pork, and a soup of dried shrimps and white gourd. Their debate about the food gives the formula a playful, immediate use, distinct from the political speeches and career rituals surrounding Wu.

That shift in register matters because the maxim’s collective subject—the people—appears in the novel amid relationships and arrangements shaped by rank, work, and private advantage. Liu is a nurse by training who has not worked in a hospital since marrying the Division Commander, while Wu knows little about her personal history. His advancement depends on his reputation for service and on the Commander’s household; his actions are judged through a political ideal whose practical interpretation is supplied by the institution around him.

Public praise and private interest

The novel returns to the language of service when Wu is granted an early discharge and a factory job in the city. At a farewell meeting, the Head of Management praises him as an exemplary revolutionary thinker and an Exemplary Servant of the People, claiming that his study of Mao and his success in putting theory into practice merit state assistance. The audience is told to learn from his example: those who give themselves to the people will be remembered and helped by the army. Yet the account is presented as an official performance whose ending even Wu, his Captain, and the Political Instructor had not anticipated. His job is also an exception arranged because he is a favorite of the Division Commander and his wife, while promotions across the army have been cancelled during restructuring.

The contrast does not erase the work Wu has done or the material assistance he receives. Instead, it shows how an ideal of collective service can be used to explain a benefit distributed through personal favor and military authority. The official ceremony turns an individual arrangement into a lesson about public virtue, while Wu’s silence and impassive bow leave the praise unconfirmed by any speech of his own.

Historical frame and irony

The maxim’s political force is set against the novel’s account of the army’s changing institutions. At a seminar in Beijing organized by the Central Military Commission, the Division Commander volunteers his division for a pilot scheme to streamline and restructure the army. The result is the division’s disbandment, the cancellation of promotions, and the impending departure of its soldiers. Wu’s planned advancement is overtaken by these changes, even as a special city job is arranged for him. The language of service persists through a moment when the organization that has structured his career is preparing to disappear.

The novel also places revolutionary claims in a historical lineage through Mao Zedong’s 1944 speech commemorating Zhang Side. That speech describes the Communist Party, the Eighth Route Army, and the New Fourth Army as wholly devoted to the people’s liberation and interests, and distinguishes deaths by whether they serve the people or their oppressors. Against this solemn formulation, the novel’s repeated, institutional, domestic, and ceremonial uses of revolutionary language create a pointed contrast. The maxim remains a statement of collective purpose, but its meaning in practice is continually mediated by hierarchy, ambition, and the needs of the state.