People's war

People's war, also known as the protracted people's war, is a military strategy first developed by Mao Zedong and the Communist Party of China which prioritizes the mobilization and organization of the entire population for combat and support roles. The military strategy is adopted by Maoists, who claim that the people's war is universal and can span across all nations provided that it is adapted to the material conditions. The only parties to adopt people's war in their history are the Communist Party of China, Communist Party of Vietnam and Maoist Guerrilla Groups such as the Shining Path, Communist Party of India (Maoist), and the Communist Party of the Philippines.

History

As early as 1849, Friedrich Engels advocated for a people's war as the only effective strategy for a nation seeking to gain independence from a larger power. He drew direct inspiration from the French revolutionary wars of 1793.

The strategy

In its original formulation by Mao Zedong, people's war exploits the few advantages that a small revolutionary movement has—broad-based popular support can be one of them—against a state with a large, professional, well-equipped and well-funded army. People's war strategically avoids decisive battles, since a tiny force of a few dozen soldiers would easily be routed in all-out confrontations. Instead, it favors a three-phase strategy of protracted warfare, with carefully chosen battles that can realistically be won.

In phase one, the revolutionary force conducting people's war starts in a remote rural region with mountainous or forested terrain in which its enemy is weak. It attempts to establish a local stronghold known as a revolutionary base area. As it grows in power, it enters phase two, establishes other revolutionary base areas and spreads its influence through the surrounding countryside, where it may become the governing power and gain popular support through programmes such as land reform. Eventually in phase three, the movement has enough strength to encircle and capture small cities, then larger ones, until finally it seizes power in the entire country.

Political Goals

The basis of a people's war, a war waged by the masses through the party, necessitated political control over military operations. This was echoed by Mao in a 1938 statement:

"Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. Our principle is that the Party commands the gun, and the gun must never be allowed to command the Party. Yet, having guns, we can create Party organizations, as witness the powerful Party organizations which the Eighth Route Army has created in northern China."

In On Protracted War, Mao argues that wars waged by Communists were inherently progressive and just, meaning they advanced the conditions towards realizing communism. All wars which had the support of the party were to be actively participated in, even if they were in coordination with reactionary factions. Mao criticized "idealists" who refused to cooperate with said reactionaries.

In China

Mao argued that because of the creation of the Second United Front and national "perseverance" the Japanese had failed to achieve a victory through mobile warfare during the Second Sino-Japanese war and that China was thus engaged in a "protracted war". Mao criticized the proponents of "China's quick victory" stating that they were underestimating the enemy. He expressed his dislike of armchair generals who assumed that guerrilla warfare held a supplementary role to mobile warfare. Mao lamented that their hopes consisted chiefly of a victory through foreign military intervention by the Soviet Union or through a decisive military engagement.

Mao stated that there had to be three prerequisites in order to achieve victory and defeat the Imperial Japanese Army:

"First, the establishment of an anti-Japanese united front in China; second, the formation of an international anti-Japanese united front; third, the rise of the revolutionary movement of the people in Japan and the Japanese colonies. From the standpoint of the Chinese people, the unity of the people of China is the most important of the three conditions."

Mao argued that resistance against Japan must come through the form of both conventional resistance, and a rearward strike on the logistical and reinforcement capabilities of Japanese forces. He asserted that warfare through conventional means must not involve static defense of nonessential strategic objectives.

"Our strategy should be to employ our main forces to operate over an extended and fluid front. To achieve success, Chinese forces must conduct their warfare with a high degree of mobility on extensive battlefields... This means large scale mobile warfare, and not positional warfare... It does not mean the abandonment of all the vital strategic points, which should be defended by positional warfare as long as possible... Positional warfare is necessary, but strategically it is auxiliary and secondary."

As part of his goal to wage a people's war, Mao explained that large numbers of Guerrilla units among the peasants were necessary for such a strategy to succeed. China's ability to supply her troops depended on captured Japanese equipment stocks and foreign deliveries, allowing China to conduct positional warfare when her conventional capabilities matched the Japanese, who would be worn down using the aforementioned rearward strikes.

Further Reading

• Mao Zedong (1937). On guerrilla warfare
• Mao Zedong (1938). On protracted war