The Concept of People's War

People's War, also known as "mass war", was a war launched by the oppressed class and the oppressed nation for their own liberation and carried out by the broad masses of the people, and it had two basic characteristics as justice and popularity.

The Chinese Communists, represented by Mao Zedong, through their long revolutionary war and military practice, formed the idea of People's War with Chinese characteristics, which adheres to the leadership of the proletarian party.

In April 1945, Mao Zedong systematically expounded the thought of People's War in his report "On Coalition Government" made at the Seventh National Congress of the CPC.

The basic contents of the People's War thought included:

(1) Relying resolutely on the people and fully mobilizing them. The fundamental purpose of the Chinese revolutionary war was to seek the liberation of the Chinese people and the Chinese nation. In the period of democratic revolution, the central task and the highest form of revolution is to mobilize the people and seize power with arms. The people and the soldiers are the basis of victory, and the deepest source of the greatness of war lies in the people. Mobilizing and organizing the masses of the people to participate in and support the revolutionary war was the basic condition for conducting a People's War.

The Chinese revolution had to oppose imperialist aggression, overthrow the reactionary ruling class and seize national power; in the war against foreign aggression, it had to mobilize and organize the people of the country and win over the vast majority of the international population, including the enemy people, to the revolutionary side, forming the broadest united front. Therefore, according to the different tasks and characteristics of the different war periods, we must flexibly formulate strategies for the struggle against the enemy, so as to isolate and combat the enemy to the greatest extent possible. At the same time, the relationship between the long-term and temporary interests of the people must be correctly handled, linking the victorious development of the war with the proper care of the people's livelihood, so as to fully mobilize the enthusiasm of the people to support and participate in the revolutionary war.

(2) Establishing a people's army

The People's Army was the backbone of the People's War. Its fundamental purpose was to serve the people wholeheartedly. Such army should be a combat team, as well as a task force and a production force. It must be placed under the absolute leadership of the Communist Party then. Thus, establishing the collective leadership system of Party committees in the army and building the branches in the companies were necessary.

The lifeline of the People's Army was to carry out strong ideological and political work. It implemented a democratic system under a centralized leadership and had a good and strong internal and external unity in politics. Also, it had revolutionary discipline based on political consciousness, which was subordinated to the fundamental interests of the people.

The revolutionary, modernized and formalized construction of the People's Army must be constantly strengthened.

(3) Establishing a consolidated revolutionary base area.

Base Areas were strategic bases for the implementation of the People's War. Based on the unbalanced development of Chinese society and the fact that counter-revolutionary forces in the central cities were strong while revolutionary forces were weak, the Chinese Revolution did not take over the cities first but the countryside, thus, first established armed workers and peasants in the countryside and first set up base areas in the areas where counter-revolutionary forces were weak, mobilized the masses, carried out agrarian revolution, established the people's power, and made it possible to preserve and develop itself, destroy and expel the enemy, and to support the revolutionary war in the long term.

This strategy involved the policy of advancing in waves and gradually expanding the base areas into Liberated Areas, so as to ensure the accumulation of forces in the countryside, rely on the masses of the people, encircle and isolate the enemy occupying the big cities and the main lines of communication, and finally seize the cities and the national political power.

(4) Giving priority to armed struggle and cooperating closely with other forms of struggle.

The revolutionary war must mobilize and rely on the broad masses of the people to strengthen the revolutionary forces, weaken counter-revolutionary forces and change the contrast between the forces of the enemy and ourselves. Therefore, while giving priority to armed struggle, all revolutionary people must be organized into the work groups of workers, peasants, youths, women, culture and other professions, and actively engaged in various tasks in support of the army. At the same time, the people must be organized to actively engage in political, economic, cultural and health construction work, develop production and support the front line, so that the People's War could be widely and comprehensively carried out and coordinated on all fronts, such as politics, economy, military, diplomacy, culture and health.

(5) Taking the People's Army as the backbone and implementing a system of armed forces combining the main corps (field forces), local corps (local forces) with the guerrillas and militias.

This was the organizational guarantee for the victory of the People's War. The main corps and the local corps carried out supra-local and local combat tasks respectively; the guerrillas and militia were assistants and reserves of the regular army, mainly fixed in a certain area to fight directly with the regular army. They had different operational positions in the division of labor, but the same purpose, which constituted an integral part of the armed forces under the leadership of the CPC.

(6) Adopting flexible strategies and tactics.

Under the condition that the total strength of the enemy was stronger and the their weaponry was more superior than the People’s Army, the fundamental principle of "preserving oneself and destroying the enemy" was adopted, making full use of all the weaknesses of the enemy and carrying forward all our strengths; insisting on defying the enemy strategically and attaching importance to the enemy tactically; fully relying on and believing in the strength and wisdom of the people and the officers and soldiers, and inspiring their courageous and sacrificial revolutionary spirit, ensuring political strength and unity, giving full play to the subjective initiative of the people, starting from the actual situation, taking the initiative and cooperating according to the changing situation, and fighting flexibly.

Its basic policy and principles were: carrying out active defense rather than passive defense; waging protracted battles of strategic defense and quick decisive battles of battle offense; making timely military strategic changes and combining the three forms of warfare, namely, mobile, positional and guerrilla warfare; carrying out favorable decisive battles and avoiding unfavorable decisive battles; and concentrating superior troops towards annihilating the enemy forces, being full prepared, not engaging in uncertain battles, carrying forward the style of brave fighting, and not being afraid of sacrifice and continuous fighting, etc.

The People's War was the magic weapon to overcome the enemy. The powerful vitality of Mao's People's War theory was proved by the practice of China's successive revolutionary wars and the struggle to defend the borders and sea coasts of the motherland. It still has long-term guiding significance for China's national defense and army construction and future anti-aggression wars.