Why China Preferred Accordions To AKs | “Tidal Wave of Learning from the USSR” (mid-1950s)

[@avus-kw2f213]

Accordions are underrated weapons of war . They have a high compactness to musical capability ratio

[@BrettBaker-uk4te]

Can't wait for the Political Officer episode. Will the channel's Political Officer be in the episode, ensuring accuracy?😊

[@IvanIvanoff-d4p]

My babushka always tell me, never underestimate 12 weird guys with instruments

[@MrTwiggy93]

And yes, I am very interested in a video about the PLA rank system!

[@Gepedrglass]

Admittedly, in your other talks, you've already convinced me of the importance of the political officer. But I will also excitedly wait for that video.

[@ShinyUmbreon765]

Precision machining is hard to boot strap, getting machines to make machines is huge.

[@Type56_Ordnance_Dept]

"Getting machines to make machines"--When you put it that way, that really brings home the enormity.

[@ethanmckinney203]

One of my subjects is the French Air Force and aviation industry in the run-up to the Second World War. The French were heavily dependent on imported machine tools, which was a serious problem both financially (foreign exchange) and for the speed of expanding all of their military production. Even fairly advanced industrial economies have bottlenecks at the stage of building machines to build machines. One of the most dramatic was the absolutely immense milling machines for metal propeller blades. The biggest manufacturer had (I believe) two. The French were constantly producing more airframes than engines and more engines than propellers.

[@davidk6269]

You had me at “accordions”. And “vomit”. 😅😂

[@keithagn]

Great video/ lecture. I learned a lot. Thank you! And Regards from the Left Coast of Canada formally known as British Columbia 😀

[@oliversmith9200]

Ha ha! Learning is fun with this professor!

[@onecertainordinarymagician]

My grandfather was a Piano professor in China. He was practically orphaned by Chiang's Changsha Fire of 1938 (He found his father eventually after many years), but after the founding of the PRC, he was able to be enrolled into a school playing, you guessed it, the Accordion. Then he became an Accordion teacher, and even after the school got a piano, he would still teach Accordion because the piano cannot be moved outdoors. He would stick to his love of the Accordion, and I know he had 3~4 sets in his old house. I guessed the ramped-up Accordion production was also because schools were beginning to be established all around China at the time, and they needed instruments.

[@wasa8680]

I have heard tale of the legendary PLA accordian tactics. Lol.

[@wbwarren57]

Another great episode! Thank you.

[@kevinlau9018]

This is my bright red sun in the sky, illuminating the dark finals.

[@Omniseed]

For some reason I've been thinking the 'accordion' was a nickname for one of the drum magazine Soviet subguns but then that goes directly against the emphasis on close quarters contact and night fighting without leading off with gunfire

[@deanzaZZR]

@2:30 歌唱勝利! 歌唱我們情愛的祖國! Sing to victory! Sing to our loving motherland!

[@johnfisk811]

I recall a Soviet officer equating the role of the political officer in the Soviet army to that of the Chaplains in the British army. Moral guidance and material welfare.

[@parkerlong2658]

Considering how many died on the front lines and some of the stories of these men i often find the depiction of these guys as basically brainwashing cyborgs coldlessly killing traitors to the revolution as a bit much. Especially when so many of them where completely willing to die and even fight for there brothers in arms. Definitely one of the weirder aspects of american depictions of a unit in warfare even if its understandable considering the connstations of a political officer in american media

[@dontwalkdontrun]

Before the electric guitar in the 1950s the accordion was the most popular musical instrument in America. Elvis ended all that noise here.

[@Type56_Ordnance_Dept]

For real??!!! I grew up in Cleveland (home of the Polka Hall of Fame!) and had a Romanian accordion player in my 2nd grade class, but I didn't know that it had ever had much traction anywhere else in the country. I learn so much in this place!

[@kiltedcossack]

@@Type56_Ordnance_Dept Sir, you need some Flaco Jiminez in your life!

[@blujthewombat]

I really hope we get to cover where and how these weapons ended up in various countries and conflicts, id love to hear how some of those deals were made and what the people that used the weapons outside of china thought. I know that in Iraq that many people if given a choice between a chinese made ak and one from a european country, they would always pick the european option.

[@Chiller11]

I didn’t realize that the Chinese would associate the Soviet Union with the accordion. Then, of course, I realized that the most widely recognized virtuosic group utilizing the accordion in North America is of Eastern European descent . I’m speaking of course of those musical prodigies from Leutonia, the Schmenge Brothers. Well more precisely Stan Schmenge, his brother Yosh being equally amazing on the clarinet.

[@Type56_Ordnance_Dept]

@@Chiller11 Yeah, it makes me think of a youth in Cleveland with Polish and Slovenian wedding receptions at the union hall.

[@nilsmadej9091]

I used to learn accordion years ago, and I recently bought one and started to get back into it... I should put more elbow grease into it to spread the good word of Mao among the populous!

[@ChaohsiangChen]

So, the equivalent of banjos and electric guitars in the US military to the PLA is accordions. Got it.

[@brucermarino]

Thanks again for a wonderful series of talks. Perhaps a dumb question: Is not the ancient Chinese theme of Confucianism a form of merit and technocracy? Wonderful work!Thanks!

[@lolwutyoumad]

That would be legalism

[@Type56_Ordnance_Dept]

@@brucermarino To paint with a slightly broad brush (but then again, it's a course about guns!), the usual Confucian civil service curricular formula went "merit & virtue + liberal education to get the job; then learn the practical skills of governance through OJT."

[@brucermarino]

@@Type56_Ordnance_Dept Thank you, Professor!

[@deanzaZZR]

@4:50 中苏人民的友谊万岁古长青. Long live the friendship of the Chinese and Soviet peoples. I will note that this poster is using simplified Chinese characters unlike the earlier poster in this episode.

[@MrTwiggy93]

Is this honeymoon the reason why the PLA adopted Soviet style uniforms in 1955 and not during the Stalin era like the other Comblock countries?

[@MrTwiggy93]

Oh, I see you answered my question a few minutes later😅

[@billyzhao3427]

Please make an episode dedicated to soviet influence on China in music and arts ONLY. The accordions is just a tip of the iceberg. Soviet films during that period are heavily influential and many of those movies featured accordions and trains for some reason. In the meantime, the use of JIan Pu (numbered music notation system) become widely used in place of traditional music notations on staff. For instance, Do or C is 1, Re or D is 2, and so on. I find all this quite interesting. I thought Americans, owning its homage to Europen traditions shouldn't have this problem but then I learned that most Americans don't know solfege system as their Europen cohorts do. At least Chinese sing in Do, Re, Mi ... It is very awkward to sing in C-D-E-F ....

[@Type56_Ordnance_Dept]

Holy cow, I think YOU should do the episode! I don't know much about this stuff, especially the musical side.

[@billyzhao3427]

@@Type56_Ordnance_Dept kzbin.info/www/bejne/mIbckmh6d9uqlcksi=Q92rQMPDGPrUynAi - quite a fantastic and fummy movie. Fast forward to 2:16:00 you will know what I mean...

[@deanzaZZR]

Accordion music and a few cute young revolutionary ladies with rosy cheeks and pigtails. You had to be there!

[@mathesonthenosedestroyer2147]

I got a question, how were their bayonets supposed to be sharpened?

[@robertkalinic335]

On SKS? They weren't supposed to, it has folding spike.

[@ChaohsiangChen]

It's called a spike bayonet. You only sharpen the tip. It has no practical use other than poking holes and used as a lever. Lee Enfield No.4 has it as well.

[@johnyricco1220]

The accordion produce a wall of sound and it kind of transports you to Russia if you hear a Russian tune played.

[@QingPingYang-lx5kh]

When I was in china same thing happened to me. I was given a dish of pigeon which I did not want to eat. I was assured in was not the dove of peace. Somehow that did not help😢

[@deanzaZZR]

The posters keep coming! I think I will stop here @6:50 中苏两国人民和军队的友谊万岁! Long live the friendship of the Chinese and Soviet peoples and military!

[@deanzaZZR]

@6:10 我們共同反對侵略戰爭. 保衛遠東和世界和平. We jointly oppose wars of aggression and defend the Far East and world peace.

[@lelagrangeeffectphysics4120]

Hey type 56 i have a question: how would you rate shelled out cratered terrain in terms of micro-terrain tactics, as far as id guess its both amazing and awful at the same time since the wavy terrain is dirupted by shell crater which is awful if you havve to crawl in and out of them while not knowing how deep some of them are, but it also has tons of vantage points for ambush.

[@alancranford3398]

This is the Chinese rifle that the Type 56 replaced including a range session and a rifle match: kzbin.info/www/bejne/Y57XaoabrJ6crck It's not an accordion! No bayonet assault course? Note the muzzle flash in bright daylight. The owner is proud of his Type 53 even when he had a jam. Who believes that bolt action rifles never jam? The short Mosin-Nagant had muzzle blast and kicks harder than the M1 Rifle. Score another two points for the Type 56 carbine--less muzzle blast and less recoil.

[@alancranford3398]

One key to a good teacher is passion. Dr Jason Clower has passion about the subject of the PLA. Thanks for explaining the accordion--I had a vague idea that proved wrong about the accordion reference. One of many takeaways from this module is that the PLA and the Party didn't split. In the USSR the Party and the military and the intelligence organs formed a troika. In Germany the Nazi Party and the military were in competition, despite the Fuhrer originally being a communist who was tasked by the army with penetrating a "workers' party" that the army spy eventually took over. It would be interesting to see the point where the PLA and the Party fractured. The fracture point must have been answering the question of "who is on top?" Domination over collaboration destroys empires. Another important takeaway is that technology is dependent upon culture. When "math is racist," engineering a skyscraper that doesn't topple over becomes a matter of luck. China used to be the most advanced empire on the planet. How isolated little England came to dominate more of the world than the Roman Empire is partially due to the decay of the Chinese Empire, which existed at least in name until the year 1911. Becoming a carbon copy of the Soviet Army didn't work because China wasn't a Russian-dominated Soviet Union. Even T. E. Lawrence knew better than to pattern the Arab army after the successful British Army during World War One--Arab culture isn't English and today's Middle Eastern militaries didn't adopt a key feature of the English system--experienced sergeants running the military while the officers commanded.

[@Arbiter099]

Accordion production tripled? 🤣

[@davidk6269]

11:25 I understand that the PLA did not have ranks (and certainly not different uniforms for different ranks) during the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese war, which they remedied after this conflict. Did the PLA remove ranks during the Cultural Revolution?

[@Type56_Ordnance_Dept]

Bingo! You guessed it!!!

[@davidk6269]

@@Type56_Ordnance_Dept Yay! I got something right for once! By the way, I love your channel. I look forward to each and every upload from you. ; )

[@b.griffin317]

Fun fact: when I clicked on this there were 56 likes.

[@ChaohsiangChen]

"總幹部部" Seriously, who came up with this name?

[@Type56_Ordnance_Dept]

OK, I feel validated that it seems weird to cultured native speakers too. (To me it sounds like baby talk.) Turns out, the culprit is our old friend, Translation By Dictionary!

[@ChaohsiangChen]

@Type56_Ordnance_Dept 幹部 means the stem staff, or core staff in English. However, since 幹 in Chinese is basically also used the way the "F" word is used, with or without certain connotations, 幹部 is also understood in the Chinese military jargon as 被幹的部. Now you know how screwed up the naming is.

[@Type56_Ordnance_Dept]

@@ChaohsiangChen 🤣🤣🤣

[@AGS363]

19:32 Do you really have to ask?

[@Type56_Ordnance_Dept]

Truly truly, I have found my people.

[@DragonTamerCos]

i have a formal objection to this video: At the end of the video, you made the choice to pronounce the name "Khrushchev" more inline with the Russian pronunciation, even if it is unconventional to English speakers. But, you refuse to say "CPC", you only ever say "CCP". CCP is incorrect, it should be CPC, Communist Party (Country), that we've been doing it in English since the second Internationale. CPUSA, CPI (Communist Party India), CPB, CPG (Communist Party of Greece (KKE)). This is very bothering to me, imo, it is very "othering" to the CPC (not that the current incarnation of the CPC deserves any love from me Ideologically). Anyway, point being, if you can go against your English speaking urges and pronounce Khrushchev in an unconventional way, you can go against your American urges and say the name of the Communist Patty of China's name in the correct way for an English speaker.

[@stoneylonesome4062]

Jason, do you watch Nick Mullen/The Adam Friedland Show/Cum Town?

[@Type56_Ordnance_Dept]

No, should I check it out? Will it land me on a no-fly list? 🤣

[@tzenzhongguo]

WTF sounds like North Korea which this love of the accordion.