Without a People's Army, the People Have Nothing

“Without a People's Army, the People Have Nothing” is both a revolutionary claim about the army’s service to the people and, in the novel, a framed slogan whose return to the Division Commander’s house marks how official language survives personal and institutional upheaval. The expression’s public authority is repeatedly set against private interests: service is praised as selfless, yet career advancement and material security depend on recognition, personal favor, and the army’s changing needs.

Meaning and Revolutionary Context

The slogan appears in a passage reproducing Mao Zedong’s speech commemorating Zhang Side. The speech identifies the Communist Party, the Eighth Route Army, and the New Fourth Army as forces devoted to the people’s liberation and interests, and presents Zhang Side as a soldier who served within those ranks. In that setting, the statement makes the people’s well-being inseparable from the existence of a people’s army.

The novel places this ideal alongside the practical vocabulary of military work. Wu Dawang’s record of revolutionary study and service helps make him a favored soldier, while the Political Instructor invokes the army’s duties and wider political mission to reprimand him. The same language can therefore function as a serious public principle and as an instrument for evaluating, directing, or disciplining individuals.

The Slogan in Military Life

For Wu Dawang, the relationship between service and personal advancement is not abstract. His ambition for promotion and a move to the city shapes the choices he makes, while the Political Instructor argues that a soldier’s conduct has consequences extending from the household to the Division and the army as a whole. The rhetoric connects intimate responsibilities to national and military stakes, making private conduct legible as service to a collective cause.

That connection is also exposed as a source of irony. Military authorities celebrate exemplary service, but opportunities depend on decisions by superiors and on personal favor. When the Division is selected for restructuring and disbandment, promotions are suspended; nevertheless, the Division Commander arranges an exception for Wu Dawang, securing city employment and a move for his family. The public ideal of service thus coexists with a distinctly personal route to material security.

The Framed Print and Its Return

After Wu Dawang and Liu Lian have smashed an earlier framed revolutionary quotation in the house, a print bearing the slogan hangs in its place. On his final visit, Wu Dawang notices it in the sitting room, where the rest of the room appears unchanged. Its presence makes the official language a material feature of the household, not merely a phrase in speeches or instruction.

The scene also links the slogan to what remains unsaid between the former lovers. Wu Dawang enters hoping to revisit the kitchen and dining room and to ask Liu Lian for the “Serve the People!” sign as a keepsake. Instead, Liu Lian silently gives him a long, narrow object wrapped in red silk. The framed print remains on the wall while their final exchange turns on an object she chooses to return, placing the public revolutionary message beside a private history neither character explains aloud.

Public Ideal and Institutional Change

The novel’s reproduction of Mao Zedong’s 1944 speech gives the slogan a historical and commemorative frame: Zhang Side’s service is presented as service to the people, and the speech distinguishes the significance of a death according to whose interests it serves. Against this language of collective devotion, the Division’s dissolution makes the army itself subject to administrative restructuring. Wu Dawang’s comrades face uncertain futures, while his own departure is presented at a farewell gathering as proof that selfless service earns assistance from the army.

The slogan consequently gathers several different uses without losing its stated ideal. It names the army’s claimed purpose, supplies a standard for political exhortation, and accompanies ceremonies that turn an individual’s career outcome into a public example. Its recurrence beside private bargains and unequal outcomes creates the novel’s central tension: the language promises service to the people as a whole, while the institutions speaking in its name distribute opportunity through specific relationships and decisions.