Problems of War, Strategy, and the United Front

#PUBLICATION NOTE

This edition of Problems of War, Strategy, and the United Front has been prepared and revised for digital publication by the Institute of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism under the Central Committee of the Communist Party in Switzerland on the basis of the edition published in the Selected Works of Mao Zedong, First English Edition, Volume 2, Foreign Languages Press, Beijing, 1965.

#INTRODUCTION NOTE

These are two excerpts from a speech delivered by Comrade Mao Zedong at the Closing Sitting of the Enlarged Sixth Plenary Session of the Sixth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in Yan'an, Shaanxi, China on the 5th and 6th of November, 1938.

At that time, the issue of independence and initiative within the united front was one of the outstanding questions concerning the anti-Japanese united front, a question on which there were differences of opinion between Comrade Mao Zedong and Wang Ming. In essence, what was involved was proletarian leadership in the united front. In his report of the 25th of December, 1947, The Present Situation and Our Tasks, Comrade Mao Zedong briefly summed up these differences:

During the War of Resistance, our Party combated ideas similar to those of the capitulationists [referring to Chen Duxiu's capitulationism in the period of the National-Revolutionary War], that is, such ideas as making concessions to the Nationalist Party's anti-popular policies, having more confidence in the Nationalist Party than in the masses, not daring to mobilize and give full rein to mass struggles, not daring to expand the Liberated Areas and the people's armies in the Japanese-occupied areas, and handing over the leadership in the War of Resistance to the Nationalist Party. Our Party waged a resolute struggle against such impotent and deteriorated ideas, which run counter to the principles of Marxism-Leninism, resolutely carried out its political line of «developing the Left-wing forces, winning over the Centrist forces, and isolating the far-Right forces», resolutely expanded the Liberated Areas and the People's Liberation Army. Not only did this ensure our Party's ability to defeat Japanese imperialism in the period of its aggression, but also, in the period after the Japanese surrender, when Jiang Jieshi launched his counter-revolutionary war, it ensured our Party's ability to switch smoothly and without loss to the course of opposing Jiang Jieshi's counter-revolutionary war with a people's revolutionary and to win great victories in a short time. All Party comrades must keep these lessons of history firmly in mind.

In his Problems of Guerrilla War Against Japan and On Protracted War, Comrade Mao Zedong had already settled the question of the Party's leading role in the War of Resistance Against Japan. But some comrades, committing Right-opportunist errors, denied that the Party must maintain its independence and initiative in the united front, and so doubted and even opposed the Party's line on the war and on strategy. In order to overcome this Right-wing opportunism, bring the whole Party to a clearer understanding of the prime importance of the problems of war and strategy in the Chinese revolution, and mobilize it for serious work in this connection, Comrade Mao Zedong again stressed the importance of the subject at this Plenary Session, approaching it from the standpoint of the history of China's political struggles, and analysed the development of the Party's military work and the specific changes in its strategy. The result was unanimity of thought in the Party leadership and unanimity of action throughout the Party.

#Workers and oppressed people of the world, unite!

#PROBLEMS OF WAR, STRATEGY, AND THE UNITED FRONT

#SPEECH DELIVERED AT THE CLOSING SITTING OF THE ENLARGED SIXTH PLENARY SESSION OF THE SIXTH CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF CHINA

#Mao Zedong

#5th and 6th of November, 1938

#★

#1. THE QUESTION OF INDEPENDENCE AND INITIATIVE WITHIN THE UNITED FRONT

#1.1. HELP AND CONCESSIONS SHOULD BE POSITIVE, NOT NEGATIVE

All political parties and groups in the united front must help each other and make mutual concessions for the sake of long-term cooperation, but such help and concessions should be positive, not negative. We must consolidate and expand our own Party and army, and at the same time should assist friendly parties and armies to consolidate and expand; the people want the government to satisfy their political and economic demands, and at the same time give the government every possible help to prosecute the War of Resistance; the factory workers demand better conditions from the owners, and at the same time work hard in the interests of resistance; for the sake of unity against foreign aggression, the feudal lords should reduce rent and interest, and at the same time the peasants should pay rent and interest. All these principles and policies of mutual assistance are positive, not negative or one-sided. The same should be true of mutual concessions. Each side should refrain from undermining the other and from organizing underground party branches within the other's party, government, and army. For our part we organize no underground party branches inside the Nationalist Party and its government or army, and so set the Nationalist Party's mind at rest, to the advantage of the War of Resistance. The saying, «Refrain from doing some things in order to be able to do other things»,¹ exactly meets the case. A national war of resistance would have been impossible without the reorganization of the Red Army, the change in the administrative system in the council areas, and the abandonment of the policy of armed insurrection. By giving way on the latter, we have achieved the former; negative measures have yielded positive results. «To fall back, the better to leap»² — that is Leninism. To regard concessions as some thing purely negative is contrary to Marxism-Leninism. There are indeed instances of purely negative concessions — the Second International's doctrine of collaboration between labour and capital³ resulted in the betrayal of a whole class and a whole revolution. In China, Chen Duxiu and then Zhang Guotao were both capitulators; capitulationism must be strenuously opposed. When we make concessions, fall back, turn to the defensive, or halt our advance in our relations with either allies or enemies, we should always see these actions as part of our whole revolutionary policy, as an indispensable link in the general revolutionary line, as one turn in a zigzag course. In a word, they are positive.

#1.2. THE UNITY BETWEEN THE NATIONAL AND THE CLASS STRUGGLE

To sustain a long war by long-term cooperation or, in other words, to subordinate the class struggle to the present national struggle against Japan — such is the fundamental principle of the united front. Subject to this principle, the independent character of the political parties and classes and their independence and initiative within the united front should be preserved, and their essential rights should not be sacrificed to cooperation and unity, but on the contrary must be firmly upheld within certain limits. Only thus can cooperation be promoted, indeed only thus can there be any cooperation at all. Otherwise cooperation will turn into amalgamation and the united front will inevitably be sacrificed. In a struggle that is national in character, the class struggle takes the form of national struggle, which demonstrates the unity between the two. On the one hand, for a given historical period the political and economic demands of the various classes must not be such as to disrupt cooperation; on the other hand, the demands of the national struggle (the need to resist Japan) should be the point of departure for all class struggle. Thus, there is unity in the united front between unity and independence and between the national struggle and the class struggle.

#1.3. «EVERYTHING THROUGH THE UNITED FRONT» IS WRONG

The Nationalist Party is the political party in power, and so far has not allowed the united front to assume an organizational form. Behind the enemy lines, the idea of «everything through the united front» is impossible, for there we have to act independently and with the initiative in our own hands while keeping to the agreements which the Nationalist Party has approved (for instance, the Programme of Armed Resistance and National Reconstruction). Or we may act first and report afterwards, anticipating what the Nationalist Party might agree to. For instance, the appointment of administrative commissioners and the dispatch of troops to Shantdog Province would never have occurred if we had tried to get these things done «through the united front». It is said that the Communist Party of France once put forward a similar slogan, but that was probably because in France, where a joint committee of the political parties already existed and the Socialist Party was unwilling to act in accordance with the jointly agreed programme and wanted to have its own way, the Communist Party had to put forward such a slogan in order to restrain the Socialist Party, and certainly it did not do so to shackle itself. In the case of China, the Nationalist Party has deprived all other political parties of equal rights and is trying to compel them to take its orders. If this slogan is meant to be a demand that everything done by the Nationalist Party must go through us, it is both ridiculous and impossible. If we have to secure the Nationalist Party's consent beforehand for everything we do, what if the Nationalist Party does not consent? Since the policy of the Nationalist Party is to restrict our growth, there is no reason whatever for us to propose such a slogan, which simply binds us hand and foot. At present there are things for which we should secure prior consent from the Nationalist Party, such as the expansion of our three divisions into three army corps — this is to report first and act afterward. There are other things which the Nationalist can be told after they have become accomplished facts, such as the expansion of our forces to over 200'000 soldiers — this is to act first and report afterwards. There are also things, such as the convening of the Border Region Assembly, which we shall do without reporting for the time being, knowing that the Nationalist Party will not agree. There are still other things which, for the time being, we shall neither do nor report, for they are likely to jeopardize the whole situation. In short, we must not split the united front, but neither should we allow ourselves to be bound hand and foot, and hence the slogan of «everything through the united front» should not be put forward. If «everything must be submitted to the united front» is interpreted as «everything must be submitted to» Jiang Jieshi and Yan Xishan, then that slogan, too, is wrong. Our policy is one of independence and initiative within the united front, a policy both of unity and of independence.

#2. PROBLEMS OF WAR AND STRATEGY

#2.1. CHINA'S CHARACTERISTICS AND REVOLUTIONARY WAR

The conquest of political power by armed force, the settlement of the issue by war, is the central task and the highest form of revolution. This Marxist-Leninist principle of revolution holds good universally, for China and for all other countries.

But, while the principle remains the same, its application by the party of the proletariat finds expression in varying ways according to the varying conditions. Internally, capitalist countries practise bourgeois democracy (not feudalism) when they are not fascist or not at war; in their external relations, they are not oppressed by, but themselves oppress, other nations. Because of these characteristics, it is the task of the political party of the proletariat in the capitalist countries to educate the workers and build up strength through a long period of legal struggle, and thus prepare for the final overthrow of capitalism. In these countries, the question is one of a long legal struggle, of utilizing parliament as a platform, of economic and political strikes, of organizing trade unions and educating the workers. There, the form of organization is aboveground and the form of struggle bloodless (non-military). On the issue of war, the Communist Parties in the capitalist countries oppose the imperialist wars waged by their own countries; if such wars occur, the policy of these Parties is to bring about the defeat of the reactionary governments of their own countries. The one war they want to fight is the civil war for which they are preparing.⁴ But this armed uprising and war should not be launched until the bourgeoisie becomes really helpless, until the majority of the proletariat are determined to rise in arms and fight, and until the rural masses are giving willing help to the proletariat. And when the time comes to launch such an armed uprising and war, the first step will be to seize the cities, and then advance into the countryside, and not the other way around. All this has been done by Communist Parties in capitalist countries, and it has been proved correct by the November Revolution in Russia.

China is different, however. The characteristics of China are that it is not independent and democratic, but semi-colonial and semi-feudal; that internally, it has no democracy, but is under feudal oppression; and that, in its external relations, it has no national independence, but is oppressed by imperialism. It follows that we have no parliament to make use of and no legal right to organize the workers to strike. Basically, the task of the Communist Party here is not to go through a long period of legal struggle before launching armed uprising and war, and not to seize the big cities first and then occupy the countryside, but the reverse.

When imperialism is not making armed attacks on our country, the Communist Party of China either wages civil war jointly with the bourgeoisie against the warlords (lackeys of imperialism), as in 1924-27 in the wars in Guangdong Province⁵ and the Northern Expedition, or unites with the peasants and the urban small bourgeoisie to wage civil war against the feudal class and the comprador bourgeoisie (also lackeys of imperialism), as in the Agrarian Revolutionary War of 1927-36. When imperialism launches armed attacks on China, the Party unites all classes and strata in the country opposing the foreign aggressors to wage a national war against the foreign enemy, as it is doing in the present War of Resistance Against Japan.

All this shows the difference between China and the capitalist countries. In China, war is the main form of struggle and the army is the main form of organization. Other forms, such as mass organization and mass struggle, are also extremely important and indeed indispensable and in no circumstances to be overlooked, but their purpose is to serve the war. Before the outbreak of a war, all organization and struggle are in preparation for the war, as in the period from the 4th of May Movement of 1919 to the 30th of May Movement of 1925. After war breaks out, all organization and struggle are coordinated with the war either directly or indirectly, as, for instance in the period of the Northern Expedition, when all organization and struggle in the rear areas of the revolutionary army were coordinated with the war directly, and those in the Northern Warlord areas were coordinated with the war indirectly. Again in the period of the Agrarian Revolutionary War, all organization and struggle inside the council areas were coordinated with the war directly, and outside the council areas indirectly. Yet again in the present period, the War of Resistance, all organization and struggle in the rear areas of the anti-Japanese forces and in the areas occupied by the enemy are directly or indirectly coordinated with the war.

«In China the armed revolution is fighting the armed counter-revolution. That is one of the specific features and one of the advantages of the Chinese revolution.»⁶ This thesis of Comrade Stalin's is perfectly correct and is equally valid for the Northern Expedition, the Agrarian Revolutionary War, and the present War of Resistance Against Japan. They are all revolutionary wars, all directed against counter-revolutionaries, and all waged mainly by the revolutionary people, differing only in the sense that a civil war differs from a national war, and that a war conducted by the Communist Party differs from a war it conducts jointly with the Nationalist Party. Of course, these differences are important. They indicate the breadth of the main forces in the war (an alliance of the workers and peasants, or of the workers, peasants, and bourgeoisie) and whether our antagonist in the war is internal or external (whether the war is against domestic or foreign foes, and, if domestic, whether against the Northern Warlords or against the Nationalist Party); they also indicate that the content of China's revolutionary war differs at different stages of its history. But all these wars are instances of armed revolution fighting armed counter-revolution, they are all revolutionary wars, and all exhibit the specific features and advantages of the Chinese revolution. The thesis that revolutionary war «is one of the specific features and one of the advantages of the Chinese revolution» fits China's conditions perfectly. The main task of the political party of the Chinese proletariat, a task confronting it almost from its very inception, has been to unite with as many allies as possible and, according to the circumstances, to organize armed struggles for national and social liberation against armed counter-revolution, whether internal or external. Without armed struggle, the proletariat and the Communist Party would have no standing at all in China, and it would be impossible to accomplish any revolutionary task.

Our Party did not grasp this point fully during the first five or six years after it was founded, that is, from 1921 to its participation in the Northern Expedition in 1926. It did not then understand the supreme importance of armed struggle in China, or seriously prepare for war and organize armed forces, or apply itself to the study of military strategy and tactics. During the Northern Expedition, it neglected to win over the army, but laid one-sided stress on the mass movement, with the result that the whole mass movement collapsed the moment the Nationalist Party turned reactionary. For a long time after 1927, many comrades continued to make it the Party's central task to prepare for armed uprisings in the cities and to work in the White areas. It was only after our victory in repelling the enemy's third «encirclement and suppression» campaign in 1931 that some comrades fundamentally changed their attitude on this question. But this was not true of the whole Party, and there were other comrades who did not think along the lines presented here.

Experience tells us that China's problems cannot be settled without armed force. An understanding of this point will help us in successfully waging the War of Resistance Against Japan from now on. The fact that the whole nation is rising up in armed resistance in the war against Japan should inculcate a better understanding of the importance of this question in the whole Party, and every Party member should be prepared to take up arms and go to the front at any moment. Moreover, our present session has clearly defined the direction for our efforts by deciding that the Party's main fields of work are in the battle zones and in the enemy's rear. This is also an excellent antidote against the tendency of some Party members to be willing only to work in Party organizations and in the mass movement, but to be unwilling to study or participate in warfare, and against the failure of some schools to encourage students to go to the front, and other such phenomena. In most of China, Party organizational work and mass work are directly linked with armed struggle; there is not, and cannot be, any Party work or mass work that is isolated and stands by itself. Even in rear areas remote from the battle zones (like Yunnan, Guizhou, and Sichuan) and in enemy-occupied areas (like Beijing, Tianjin, Nanjing, and Shanghai), Party organizational work and mass work are coordinated with the war, and should and must exclusively serve the needs of the front. In a word, the whole Party must pay great attention to war, study military matters, and prepare itself for fighting.

#2.2. THE WAR HISTORY OF THE NATIONALIST PARTY OF CHINA

It will be useful for us to look at the history of the Nationalist Party and see what attention it pays to war.

From the start, when he organized a small revolutionary group, Sun Yixian staged armed uprisings against the Qing Dynasty.⁷ The period of the Chinese Revolutionary League was replete with armed uprisings,⁸ right up to the armed overthrow of the Qing Dynasty by the Revolution of 1911. Then, during the period of the Chinese Revolutionary Party, he carried out a military campaign against Yuan Shikai.⁹ Subsequent events, such as the southern movement of the naval units,¹⁰ the northern expedition from Guilin,¹¹ and the founding of the Huangpu Military Academy¹² were also among Sun Yixian's military undertakings.

After Sun Yixian came Jiang Jieshi, who brought the Nationalist Party's military power to its zenith. He values the army as his very life and has had the experience of three wars, namely, the Northern Expedition, the Civil War, and the War of Resistance Against Japan. For the last ten years, Jiang Jieshi has been a counter-revolutionary. He has created a huge «Central Army» for counter-revolutionary purposes. He has held firmly to the vital point that whoever has an army has power and that war decides everything. In this respect, we ought to learn from him. In this respect, both Sun Yixian and Jiang Jieshi are our teachers. Since the Revolution of 1911, all the warlords have clung to their armies for dear life, setting great store by the principle: «Whoever has an army has power.»

Tan Yankai,¹³ a clever bureaucrat who had a chequered career in Hunan, was never a civil governor pure and simple, but always insisted on being both the military governor and the civil governor. Even when he became President of the National Government, first in Guangzhou and then in Wuhan, he was concurrently the commander of the Second Army.

There are many such warlords who understand this peculiarity of China's. There have also been political parties in China, notably the Progressive Party,¹⁴ which did not want to have an army; yet even this political party recognized that it could not get government positions without some warlord backing. Among its successive patrons have been Yuan Shikai,¹⁵ Duan Qirui,¹⁶ and Jiang Jieshi (to whom the Political Science Group,¹⁷ formed out of a faction of the Progressive Party, has attached itself).

A few small political parties with a short history, for example, the Youth Party,¹⁸ have no army, and so have not been able to get anywhere.

In other countries, there is no need for each of the bourgeois political parties to have an armed force under its direct command. But things are different in China, where, because of the feudal division of the country, those feudal or bourgeois groupings or political parties which have guns have power, and those which have more guns have more power. Placed in such an environment, the political party of the proletariat should see clearly to the heart of the matter.

Communists do not fight for personal military power (they must in no circumstances do that, and let no one ever again follow the example of Zhang Guotao), but they must fight for military power for the Party, for military power for the people. As a national war of resistance is going on, we must also fight for military power for the nation. Where there is naivety on the question of military power, nothing whatsoever can be achieved. It is very difficult for the working people, who have been deceived and intimidated by the reactionary ruling classes for thousands of years, to awaken to the importance of having guns in their own hands. Now that Japanese imperialist oppression and the nationwide resistance to it have pushed our working people into the arena of war, Communists should prove themselves the most politically conscious leaders in this war. Every Communist must grasp the truth: «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. We can also create cadres, create schools, create culture, create mass movements. Everything in Yan'an has been created by having guns. All things grow out of the barrel of a gun. According to the Marxist theory of the State, the army is the chief component of State power. Whoever wants to seize and retain State power must have a strong army. Some people ridicule us as advocates of the «omnipotence of war». Yes, we are advocates of the omnipotence of revolutionary war; that is good, not bad, it is Marxist. The guns of the Communist Party of Russia created socialism. We shall create a democratic republic. Experience in the class struggle in the era of imperialism teaches us that it is only by the power of the gun that the working class and the working masses can defeat the armed bourgeoisie and feudal lords; in this sense, we may say that only with guns can the whole world be transformed. We are advocates of the abolition of war, we do not want war; but war can only be abolished through war, and in order to get rid of the gun it is necessary to take up the gun.

#2.3. THE WAR HISTORY OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF CHINA

Our Party failed to grasp the importance of engaging itself directly in preparations for war and in the organization of armed forces for a period of three or four years, that is, from 1921 (when the Communist Party of China was founded) to 1924 (when the First National Congress of the Nationalist Party of China was held), and it still lacked adequate understanding of this issue in the 1924-27 period and even later; nevertheless, after 1924, when it began to participate in the Huangpu Military Academy, it entered a new stage and began to see the importance of military affairs. Through helping the Nationalist Party in the wars in Guangdong Province and participating in the Northern Expedition, the Party gained leadership over some armed forces.¹⁹ Then, having learned a bitter lesson from the failure of the revolution, the Party organized the Nanchang Uprising,²⁰ the Autumn Harvest Uprising,²¹ and the Guangzhou Uprising, and entered on a new period, the founding of the Red Army. That was the crucial period in which our Party arrived at a thorough understanding of the importance of the army. Had there been no Red Army and no war fought by the Red Army in this period, that is, had the Communist Party adopted Chen Duxiu's liquidationism, the present War of Resistance would have been inconceivable or could not have been sustained for long.

At its Emergency Meeting held on the 7th of August, 1927, the Central Committee of the Party combated Right-wing opportunism in the political sphere, thus enabling the Party to take a big stride forward. At its Fourth Plenary Session in January 1931, the Sixth Central Committee nominally combated «Left-wing» opportunism in the political sphere, but in fact itself committed the error of «Left-wing» opportunism anew. The two meetings differed in their content and historical role, but neither of them dealt seriously with the problems of war and strategy, a fact which showed that war had not yet been made the centre of gravity in the Party's work. After the Central Leadership of the Party moved into the council areas in 1933, this situation underwent a radical change, but mistakes in principle were again committed on the problem of war (and all other major problems), bringing serious losses to the revolutionary war. The Zunyi Meeting of 1935, on the other hand, was mainly a fight against opportunism in the military sphere and gave top priority to the question of war, and this was a reflection of the war conditions of the time. Today we can say with confidence that, in the struggles of the past 17 years, the Communist Party of China has forged not only a firm Marxist political line, but also a firm Marxist military line. We have been able to apply Marxism in solving not only political but also military problems; we have trained not only a large core of cadres capable of running the Party and the State, but also a large core of cadres capable of running the army. These achievements are the flower of the revolution, watered by the blood of countless martyrs, a glory that belongs not only to the Communist Party of China and the Chinese people, but also to the Communist Parties and the peoples of the whole world. There are only three armies in the whole world which belong to the proletariat and the working people, the armies led by the Communist Parties of the Council Union, of China, and of Spain, and as yet Communist Parties in other countries have had no military experience; hence our army and our military experience are all the more precious.

In order to carry the present War of Resistance Against Japan to victory, it is extremely important to expand and consolidate the Eighth Route Army, the New Fourth Army, and all the guerrilla forces led by our Party. Acting on this principle, the Party should dispatch a sufficient number of its best members and cadres to the front. Everything must serve victory at the front, and the organizational task must be subordinated to the political task.

#2.4. CHANGES IN THE PARTY'S MILITARY STRATEGY IN THE CIVIL WAR AND THE NATIONAL WAR

The changes in our Party's military strategy are worth studying. Let us deal separately with the two processes, the civil war and the national war.

The civil war can be roughly divided into two strategic periods. Guerrilla warfare was primary in the first period and regular warfare in the second. But this regular warfare was of the Chinese type, regular only in its concentration of forces for mobile warfare and in a certain degree of centralization and planning in command and organization; in other respects, it retained a guerrilla character and, as regular warfare, was on a low level and not comparable with the regular warfare of foreign armies or, in some ways, even with that of the Nationalist army. Thus, in a sense, this type of regular warfare was only guerrilla warfare raised to a higher level.

The War of Resistance Against Japan can also be roughly divided into two strategic periods, so far as our Party's military tasks are concerned. In the first period (comprising the stages of the strategic defensive and strategic stalemate), it is guerrilla warfare which is primary, while in the second (the stage of the strategic counter-offensive), it is regular warfare which will be primary. However, the guerrilla warfare of the first period of the War of Resistance differs considerably in content from that of the first period of the civil war, because the dispersed guerrilla tasks are being carried out by the regular (that is, regular to a certain degree) Eighth Route Army. Likewise, the regular warfare of the second period of the War of Resistance will be different from that of the second period of the civil war, because we can assume that, given up-to-date equipment, a great change will take place both in the army and in its operations. Our army will then attain a high degree of centralization and organization, and its operations will lose much of their guerrilla character and attain a high degree of regularity; what is now on a low level will then be raised to a higher level, and the Chinese type of regular warfare will change into the general type. That will be our task in the stage of the strategic counter-offensive.

Thus we see that the two processes, the civil war and the War of Resistance Against Japan, and their four strategic periods, contain three changes in strategy. The first was the change from guerrilla warfare to regular warfare in the civil war. The second was the change from regular warfare in the civil war to guerrilla warfare in the War of Resistance. And the third will be the change from guerrilla warfare to regular warfare in the War of Resistance.

The first of the three changes encountered great difficulties. It involved a two-fold task. On the one hand, we had to combat the Right-wing tendency of localism and guerrillaism, which consisted in clinging to guerrilla habits and refusing to make the turn to regularization, a tendency which arose because our cadres underestimated the changes in the enemy's situation and our own tasks. In the Central Council Area, it was only after much painstaking education that this tendency was gradually corrected. On the other hand, we also had to combat the «Left-wing» tendency of over-centralization and adventurism, which put undue stress on regularization, a tendency which arose because some of the directors overestimated the enemy, set the tasks too high, and mechanically applied foreign experience regardless of the actual conditions. For three long years (before the Zunyi Meeting), this tendency imposed enormous sacrifices on the Central Council Area, and it was corrected only after we had learned lessons for which we paid in blood. Its correction was the achievement of the Zunyi Meeting.

The second change in strategy took place in the autumn of 1937 (after the Marco Polo Bridge Incident), at the juncture of the two different wars. We faced a new enemy, Japanese imperialism, and had as our ally our former enemy, the Nationalist Party (which was still hostile to us), and the theatre of war was the vast expanse of northern China (which was temporarily our army's front, but would soon be the enemy's rear and would remain so for a long time). In this special situation, our change in strategy was an extremely serious one. In this special situation, we had to transform the regular army of the past into a guerrilla army (in respect to its dispersed operations, and not to its sense of organization or to its discipline), and transform the mobile warfare of the past into guerrilla warfare, so that we could adapt ourselves to the kind of enemy facing us and to the tasks before us. But this change was, to all appearances, a step backward and therefore necessarily very difficult. Both underestimation and morbid fear of Japan, tendencies likely to occur at such a time, did actually occur among the Nationalist Party. When the Nationalist Party changed over from civil war to national war, it suffered many needless losses mainly because of its underestimation of the enemy, but also because of its morbid fear of Japan (as exemplified by Han Fuju and Liu Zhi²²). On the other hand, we have effected the change fairly smoothly and, instead of suffering losses, have won big victories. The reason is that the great majority of our cadres accepted the correct guidance of the Central Committee in good time and skilfully sized up the actual situation, even though there were serious arguments between the Central Committee and some of the army cadres. The extreme importance of this change for persevering in, developing and winning the War of Resistance as a whole, as well as for the future of the Communist Party of China, can be seen immediately if we think of the historic significance of anti-Japanese guerrilla warfare in determining the fate of the national liberation struggle in China. In its extraordinary breadth and protractedness, China's anti-Japanese guerrilla war is without precedent, not only in Asia, but perhaps in the whole of human history.

The third change, from guerrilla to regular warfare against Japan, belongs to the future development of the war, which will presumably give rise to new circumstances and new difficulties. We need not discuss it now.

#2.5. THE STRATEGIC ROLE OF GUERRILLA WARFARE AGAINST JAPAN

In the anti-Japanese war as a whole, regular warfare is primary and guerrilla warfare supplementary, for only regular warfare can decide the final outcome of the war. Of the three strategic stages (the defensive, the stalemate, and the counter-offensive) in the entire process of the war in the country as a whole, the first and last are stages in which regular warfare is primary and guerrilla warfare supplementary. In the intermediate stage, guerrilla warfare will become primary and regular warfare supplementary, because the enemy will be holding on to the areas they have occupied and we will be preparing for the counter-offensive, but will not yet be ready to launch it. Though this stage will possibly be the longest, it is still only one of the three stages in the entire war. If we take the war as a whole, therefore, regular warfare is primary and guerrilla warfare supplementary. Unless we understand this, unless we recognize that regular warfare will decide the final outcome of the war, and unless we pay attention to building a regular army and to studying and directing regular warfare, we shall be unable to defeat Japan. This is one aspect of the matter.

All the same, guerrilla warfare has its important strategic place throughout the war. Without guerrilla warfare and without due attention to building guerrilla units and guerrilla armies and to studying and directing guerrilla warfare, we shall likewise be unable to defeat Japan. The reason is that, since the greater part of China will be converted into the enemy’s rear, in the absence of the most extensive and persistent guerrilla warfare, the enemy will entrench themself securely without any fear of attacks from behind, will inflict heavy losses on our main forces fighting at the front, and will launch increasingly fierce offensives; thus, it will be difficult for us to bring about a stalemate, and the very continuation of the War of Resistance may be jeopardized. But, even if things do not turn out that way, other unfavourable circumstances will ensue, such as the inadequate building up of strength for our counter-offensive, the absence of supporting actions during the counter-offensive, and the possibility that the enemy will be able to replace their losses. If these circumstances arise and are not overcome by the timely development of extensive and persistent guerrilla warfare, it will likewise be impossible to defeat Japan. Hence, though guerrilla warfare occupies a supplementary place in the war as a whole, it does have an extremely important place in strategy. In waging the War of Resistance Against Japan, it is undoubtedly a grave error to neglect guerrilla warfare. This is the other aspect of the matter.

Given a big country, guerrilla warfare is possible; hence, there was guerrilla warfare in the past, too. But guerrilla warfare can be persevered in only when led by the Communist Party. That is why guerrilla warfare generally failed in the past and why it can be victorious only in modern times and only in big countries in which Communist Parties have emerged, as in the Council Union during its civil war and in China at present. Considering the present circumstances and the general situation with respect to the war, the division of labour between the Nationalist Party and the Communist Party in the anti-Japanese war, in which the former carries on frontal regular warfare and the latter carries on guerrilla warfare behind the enemy lines, is both necessary and proper, and is a matter of mutual need, mutual coordination, and mutual assistance.

It can thus be understood how important and necessary it was for our Party to change its military strategy from the regular warfare of the latter period of the civil war to the guerrilla warfare of the first period of the War of Resistance. The favourable effects of this change can be summed up in the following 18 points:

• Reduction of the areas occupied by the enemy forces.
• Expansion of the base areas of our own forces.
• In the stage of the defensive, coordination with operations at the regular front, so as to pin down the enemy.
• In the stage of stalemate, maintenance of a firm hold on the base areas behind the enemy lines, so as to facilitate the training and reorganization of troops at the regular front.
• In the stage of the counter-offensive, coordination with the regular front in recovering lost territory.
• The quickest and most effective expansion of our forces.
• The widest expansion of the Communist Party, so that a Party branch may be organized in every village.
• The broadest development of the mass movements, so that all the people behind the enemy lines, except for those in their strongholds, may be organized.
• The most extensive establishment of bodies of anti-Japanese democratic political power.
• The widest development of anti-Japanese cultural and educational work.
• The most extensive improvement of the people's livelihood.
• The most effective disintegration of the enemy troops.
• The most extensive and enduring impact on popular feeling and stimulation of morale throughout the country.
• The most extensive impetus to progress in the friendly armies and political parties.
• Adaptation to the situation in which the enemy is strong and we are weak, so that we suffer fewer losses and win more victories.
• Adaptation to the fact that China is large and Japan small, so as to make the enemy suffer more losses and win fewer victories.
• The quickest and most effective training of large numbers of directors.
• The most effective solution of the problem of provisions.

It is also beyond doubt that, in the long course of struggle, the guerrilla units and guerrilla warfare will not remain as they are, but will develop to a higher stage and evolve gradually into regular units and regular warfare. Through guerrilla warfare, we shall build up our strength and turn ourselves into a decisive element in the crushing of Japanese imperialism.

#2.6. PAY GREAT ATTENTION TO THE STUDY OF MILITARY MATTERS

All the issues between two hostile armies depend on war for their solution, and China's survival or extinction depends on its victory or defeat in the present war. Hence, our study of military theory, of strategy and tactics, and of army political work brooks not a moment's delay. Though our study of tactics is still inadequate, our comrades who are engaged in military work have achieved a great deal in the last ten years and, on the basis of Chinese conditions, have brought forward much that is new; the shortcoming here is that there has been no general summary. But, so far, only a few people have taken up the study of the problems of strategy and the theory of war. First-rate results have been achieved in the study of our political work, which, in wealth of experience and in the number and quality of its innovations, ranks second only to that of the Council Union; here, too, the shortcoming is insufficient synthesis and systematization. The popularization of military knowledge is an urgent task for the Party and the whole country. We must now pay great attention to all these things, but most of all to the theory of war and strategy. I deem it imperative that we awaken interest in the study of military theory and direct the attention of the whole membership to the study of military matters.