Guerrilla Warfare

A form of irregular warfare, as opposed to regular warfare, in which raids are the main means and scattered mobile military operations are the main form of warfare. It has a high degree of initiative, mobility, flexibility, offensiveness and quick decision, and could mobilize the masses widely into the war, which was an important form of warfare for the Chinese people against oppression and aggression.

Mao Zedong creatively developed the theory and principles of guerrilla warfare in his articles on “Problems of Strategy in Guerrilla War against Japan” and “On Protracted War”, in which the main contents were: (1) guerrilla warfare is the best form of struggle for the weak revolutionary forces to resist foreign aggression and class oppression; (2) the basic principle of guerrilla warfare is "the enemy advances, I retreat, the enemy is stationed, I disturb, the enemy is tired, I fight, the enemy retreats, I pursue"; (3) the attack based on offensive is the basic form of guerrilla warfare; (4) revolutionary base areas are the basis for the survival and development of guerrilla warfare, the establishment and consolidation of base areas, and the necessary condition for long-term persistence and development of guerrilla warfare; (5) under certain conditions, guerrilla warfare can be used as the main form of combat in a certain strategic phase; (6) the combination of centralized strategic command and decentralized operational command is the command principle of guerrilla warfare; (7) guerrilla warfare, with its small force and weak assault power, can hardly solve the whole war problem independently. Only by actively creating conditions for guerrilla units to develop into regular armies and for regular warfare to work closely with guerrilla warfare can it speed up the process of winning the war; (8) in the "siege" and counter-"siege" ("sweeping" and anti-"sweeping") in the long iterations, mastering the art of struggle against "siege" (anti-"sweeping") and the correct implementation of the shift between strategic defense and strategic offense are the key links in the guidance of guerrilla warfare operations.

Under the leadership of the CPC, the Chinese people accumulated rich experience in guerrilla warfare and created many guerrilla warfare methods suitable for China's actual situation, such as the battle of raids, tunnel warfare, mine warfare, sparrow warfare, ambush warfare, siege warfare, etc.