Mao Zedong, the Father of Modern Guerrilla Warfare Theory
One of the most original military thinkers of the twentieth century was Mao Zedong (1893 – 1976), the communist revolutionary who became the founding father of the People’s Republic of China. He literally wrote the book on the modern theory of insurgency: On Guerrilla Warfare. In it, he described a revolutionary methodology to defeat Japanese invaders, based on strategies and tactics honed during Mao’s struggle against China’s Nationalist government.
Mao developed a Theory of People’s War that divided popular insurgencies into three stages. Stage One is about winning popular support by distributing propaganda and attacking the organs of an unpopular government. Stage Two sees an escalation, with attacks directed against the government’s military forces and vital institutions. Stage Three further ratchets things up by turning to conventional warfare, and making a bid to seize the cities, overthrow the government, and seize control of the country. It was a flexible doctrine, and shifting between stages can go in either direction, depending on circumstances. And the stages need not be uniform throughout the entire country, but could vary depending on local conditions.
Mao’s insurgents fought both the Japanese and the Nationalist Chinese, and ultimately prevailed. Using small groups of combatants in raids and ambushes to defeat bigger and less mobile armies discomfited the Japanese, and eventually secured the communists victory in China. Mao summarized his revolutionary guerilla methodology as: “When the enemy advances, we retreat. When the enemy rests, we harass. When the enemy tires, we attack. When the enemy retreats we advance“. His methods became a model followed by numerous insurgencies around the world, as they fought against colonialism and oppressive native regimes.
Maosit insurgency seeks to win hearts and minds by treating the peasants with a respect that stands in stark contrast with the contempt meted them by their rulers, be they Japanese invaders or Chinese landed gentry and government officials. Revolutionaries also tied the peasants’ economic interests to the success of the revolution, via a redistribution of land, and a lifting of feudal-type dues.
As Maoists and their emulators discovered, at a visceral level, the peasants and the disadvantaged craved simple respect, even more than they craved the economic benefits promised by the revolution. They also harbored significant resentment against the upper classes who had been exploiting and contemptuously looking down upon them for so long. Such stored resentments are a powerful resource that revolutionaries should seek to tap.
After Japan’s defeat in WW2, the communists went on to win control of China in 1949, and Mao’s insurgency model and example were later utilized to great effect throughout the Developing World. The Viet Minh in particular successfully adapted Maoist methods to local conditions, and used them to defeat Vietnam’s French colonial masters. They then waged a protracted war to unify a divided Vietnam, and succeeded despite massive American support for the government of South Vietnam.
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Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources & Further Reading
Ancient History Encyclopedia – Epaminondas
Encyclopedia Britannica – Gonzalo de Cordoba, Spanish Military Commander
Encyclopedia Britannica – Maurice, Stadholder of the Netherlands
History of Macedonia – Philip II of Macedonia
History Net – Frederick the Great: The First Modern Military Celebrity
Marxists Internet Archive – On Guerrilla Warfare
Nimwegen, Olaf van – The Dutch Army and the Military Revolutions (1588 – 1688)
Searching in History – Military Innovation: Gustavus Adolphus
Strategy by Design – Von Moltke on Strategy