Strategic Status and Function of Guerrilla Warfare

During the period of the New-Democratic Revolution, the main form of combat of the People's Army was guerrilla warfare or mobile warfare.

Guerrilla warfare, in general, was only an auxiliary form of warfare, playing a supplementary role in regular warfare in battles and campaigns. However, under certain conditions, guerrilla warfare was also brought to a strategic position and became the main form of warfare for the People's Army.

In the early period of the Agrarian Revolutionary War, i.e., the Jinggang Mountains Period, the main form of operations of the People's Army was guerrilla warfare; in the later period, i.e., since the first anti-encirclement and suppression war in October 1930, it was mainly a mobile warfare with the nature of regular warfare.

In the early and middle stages of the Anti-Japanese War, guerrilla warfare was brought to a strategic position with overall significance.

In May 1938, in his article “Problems of Strategy in Guerrilla War against Japan”, Mao Zedong comprehensively elaborated the strategic position and significant role of the guerrilla war against Japan led by the CPC in the whole war against Japan.

In the strategic defense stage, from the overall perspective, the regular warfare in the frontal battlefield of the KMT was the main and the guerrilla warfare behind the enemy lines of the People's Army was supplementary. However, the extensive development of guerrilla warfare behind the enemy lines and the opening of anti-Japanese bases behind enemy lines forced the enemy to divert its offensive forces back to the occupied areas, thus playing a key role in stopping the Japanese attack, relieving the pressure on the frontal battlefield and turning the war into a stage of strategic stalemate.

At the stage of strategic stalemate, guerrilla warfare behind enemy lines became the main mode of the Anti-Japanese War. The Japanese army gradually devoted their main forces to fighting the People's Army behind enemy lines in order to maintain and consolidate their occupied territories.

For most of the time, the People's Army was engaged in guerrilla warfare. The task of weakening the enemy, strengthening oneself, gradually changing the situation of the enemy’s strength and our weakness, and preparing the conditions for a strategic counter-offensive was mainly accomplished by the guerrilla warfare conducted by the People’s Army.

Guerrilla warfare also prepared the conditions for the strategic counter-offensive of the People’s Army. On the eve of the strategic counter-offensive in August 1945, the People’s Army grown to 1.2 million troops, 2.2 million militias and 19 anti-Japanese base areas. It was on this basis that the great counter-offensive of the army and the people behind the enemy lines was launched.