Peng's experiences in the Korean War strongly affected his outlook over the next decade. The heavy losses sustained during the first year of the war convinced him that the Chinese Army needed to change by introducing modern equipment and standards of professionalism and by developing new tactics more suited to modern conventional warfare. He came to believe strongly that military training should never be reduced for of political indoctrination and that military commanders should enjoy seniority over commissars. Because the only communist country fully prepared for modern technical warfare was the Soviet Union, Peng grew to see the Red Army as a model for the development of China's PLA. Those perspectives and Peng's long-held conviction that the primary role of the Communist Party was to improve the welfare of the common people were contrary to Mao's political goals and so contributed to their eventual conflict in the late 1950s. Stalin once arbitrated in favor of Peng in a conflict with a Soviet diplomat by saying, "Trust him in everything; Peng is a long-tested, talented militarist."