The question refers to the following passage from Death's End where <PERSON> explains the concept of "military democracy" (MD) to <PERSON>:
“During the Korean War, the Americans discovered that even common Chinese soldiers taken as prisoners seemed to know a lot about their own field strategies. It turned out that your commanders had presented the battle plans to the troops for mass discussion, hoping thereby to find ways to improve them."
This philosophy of engaging all members of the army in the development of strategy goes back to <PERSON> himself. In particular in January 1948 <PERSON> drafted an inner-party directive "The Democratic Movement in the Army" (available in translation here) which made the point about the unity of an army:
With regard to military democracy, in periods of training there must be mutual instruction as between officers and soldiers and among the soldiers themselves; and in periods of fighting the companies at the front must hold big and small meetings of various kinds. Under the direction of the company leadership, the masses of soldiers should be roused to discuss how to attack and capture enemy positions and how to fulfil other combat tasks. 736
When the fighting lasts several days, several such meetings should be held. This kind of military democracy was practiced with great success in the battle of Panlung in northern Shensi and in the battle of Shihchiachuang in the Shansi-Chahar-Hopei area. It has been proved that the practice can only do good and can do no harm whatsoever.
<PERSON> envisaged a military organisation that was indeed highly democratic, in which all the ranks would contribute to strategy and forming plans for combat, having confidence that the "masses", the lowest-level soldiers, would have valuable insights which would elude experts (similar thinking led to the party line that the children of peasants would come up with technological solutions that were superior to those proposed by trained experts). This contrasts with most military thinking in which information is shared only on a "need to know" basis. <PERSON> though that the risks of disseminating information was outweighed by the benefits. 384