On Protracted War

A series of lectures by Mao Zedong from May 26 to June 3, 1938, at the Yan'an Association for the Study of the Anti-Japanese War. Included in the Selected Works of Mao Zedong, Volume 2.

After the Anti-Japanese War attained the nation-wide character, there were two wrong views on the understanding of the Anti-Japanese War: “quick victory” and “national subjugation”. The pro-Japanese compromisers talked a great deal of talk about national subjugation. Some said, "China is inferior in arms and is bound to lose in a war." On the contrary, there were some people who showed unfounded optimism. After the Taierzhuang victory, some people maintained that the Xuzhou Battle should be fought as a "quasi-decisive campaign" and that the policy of protracted war should be changed. They said such things as, “this battle marks the last desperate struggle of the enemy,” Protracted War of Resistance Against Japan, consequently, they disapproved the policy of mobilizing the people's strength and rejected a Protracted War of Resistance Against Japan. Whether or not China could achieve victory in the Anti-Japanese War and how to win it were the most concerned issues among the people of the whole country at that time.

In May 1938, Mao Zedong delivered a series of speeches—an important military treatise— with the title of “Protracted War”, in order to clarify the line of the Communist Party of China, i.e., Anti-Japanese War by uniting the whole nation and the Party’s general strategic policy of the protracted war, and in order to refute the cliches of "the theory of national subjugation" and "the theory of quick victory", and in order to dispel people's ideological confusion, and strengthen people’s confidence for the victory in the Protracted War of Resistance Against Japan, Mao Zedong, based on the basic principles of dialectical materialism and historical materialism, and by combining Marxism-Leninism with the reality of China's Anti-Japanese War, conscientiously summed up the 10 months experience and lessons of the Anti-Japanese War.

In this work, Mao Zedong mainly discussed the following questions:

(1) “We should objectively and comprehensively investigate the special laws of the occurrence and development of the Anti-Japanese War.” He pointed out that the Anti-Japanese War was not any other war, but a life-and-death war between semi-colonial and semi-feudal China and imperialist Japan in the 1930s. He analyzed the four basic characteristics of the contradictions between China and Japan: We are still a weak country and manifestly inferior to the enemy; China is a very big country with vast territory, but the enemy is just the reverse; the enemy is unjust and declining, we are progressive and in rise; there is broad international support for China but Japan has a meagre support. Japan is an imperialist power, thus it can be seen that Japan has great military, economic and political-organizational power, but that her war is reactionary and barbarous, her manpower and material resources are inadequate, and she is in an unfavourable position internationally.

Although China is a semi-colonial and semi-feudal weak country, China, on the contrary, has less military, economic and political-organizational power, but it is in the era of progress, and there is the Communist Party and its army which are at the core of the Anti-Japanese War; consequently, her war is progressive and just, she is moreover a big country, a factor which enables her to sustain a protracted war, and she will be supported by most countries.

These basic facts determined that the Anti-Japanese War was a protracted war, and the final victory would belong to China, consequently the "theory of subjugation" and the "theory of quick victory" were both wrong.

(2) The work scientifically and theoretically demonstrated the stage of strategic stalemate. Mao Zedong scientifically analyzed the development of the three stages of protracted war, i.e., its character, process and general trend of the development, thus established the theory of protracted war, with a brilliant analysis. It is impossible to predict the concrete situation in the three stages, but certain main trends in the war may be pointed out in the light of present conditions. The objective course of events will be exceedingly rich and varied, with many twists and turns, and nobody can cast a horoscope for the Sino-Japanese War, instead the main features of protracted war will be demonstrated during its three stages in the long-term. The basic situation of the contrast of strength between China and Japan, determined that in the first stage of the enemy's strategic offensive and China’s strategic defensive, although the enemy had occupied a large part of China's land and achieved certain degree of victory, but signs of exhaustion are beginning to appear in his finances and economy; war-weariness is beginning to set in among his people and troops and within the clique at the helm of the war, "war frustrations" are beginning to manifest themselves and pessimism about the prospects of the war is growing. In this stage, although China has suffered heavy losses, it will eventually stop the enemy's strategic offensive due to the strong resistance of the whole nation. The second stage may be termed one of strategic stalemate, in which the enemy will seek strategic consolidation and China will preparing for the counter offensive. Due to the great disparity in strength between China and Japan, China’s form of fighting will be primarily guerrilla warfare, supplemented by mobile warfare. China will still retain a large regular army, but she will find it difficult to launch the strategic counter-offensive immediately because, on the one hand, the enemy will adopt a strategically defensive position in the big cities and along the main lines of communication under her occupation and, on the other hand, China will not yet be adequately equipped technically. In this stage China will accumulate and strengthen its own strength, and further change the balance of forces between the enemy and China, so as to create the necessary conditions for the counter offensive.

The third stage is the stage of China’s strategic counter offensive to recover its lost territories. and strategic retreat stage for the enemy. The stage of strategic stalemate will be the transitional stage of the entire war; it will be the most trying period but also the pivotal one and determine whether China becomes an independent country or is reduced to a colony. Whether China becomes an independent country or reduced to a colony will be determined not by the retention or loss of the big cities in the first stage but by the extent to which the whole nation exerts itself in the second stage. At this stage, China will gain the strength to change from weakness to strength, through the efforts of the entire three stages, it will become possible to perform a most brilliant last act, i.e., the final victory.

(3) The work has expounded that the relationship between war and politics during the whole protracted war period is extremely close. The key to victory in the war now lies in developing the resistance that has already begun into a war of total resistance by the whole nation. Only through such a war of total resistance can final victory be won. The Anti-Japanese War is a war of the whole nation. Its victory is inseparable from the political from the political aim of the war—to drive out Japanese imperialism and build a new China of freedom and equality—inseparable from the general policy of persevering in the War of Resistance and in the united front, from the mobilization of the entire people.

In a word, war cannot for a single moment be separated from politics.The most basic condition for winning the Anti-Japanese War is the extensive political mobilization of the whole army and the entire people. "The army and the people are the foundation of victory" and "the tremendous source of power to wage war lies in the masses of the people." "The mobilization of the common people throughout the country will create a vast sea in which to drown the enemy, create the conditions that will make up for our inferiority in arms and other things, and create the prerequisites for overcoming every difficulty in the war”.

(4) The work expounded the specific operational principles of Anti-Japanese guerrilla warfare: , that is, to carry out the offensive battles within in the defensive war, to wage quick-decision offensive warfare on exterior lines, to launch guerrilla warfare in the rear of the enemy and in this way secure overwhelming local superiority and initiative in many campaigns of mobile and guerrilla warfare, all these methods should be used with initiative, flexibly and systematically.

In the strategic defense stage, large-scale mobile warfare will be the main warfare method , mobile warfare should be supplemented by guerrilla warfare and positional warfare;in the strategic stalemate stage, main form of fighting will be primarily guerrilla warfare and mobile warfare supplemented by positional warfare. In the stage of strategic counter-offensive, mobile warfare will become the primary form.

Mao Zedong's conclusion on the general trend and outcome of the protracted war is that the protracted war carried out by China will not only change the situation of one party being strong and the other party between the enemy and ourselves on the battlefield, but also the general situation will gradually change, with the increase in Japan's difficulties, and an increase of international support for China; China will move from inferiority to parity and then to superiority, Japan moving from superiority to parity and then to inferiority. "China moving from the defensive to stalemate and then to the counter-offensive, Japan moving from the offensive to the safeguarding of her gains and then to retreat—such will be the course of the Sino-Japanese War and its inevitable trend."

"On Protracted War" had correctly analyzed the characteristics and development laws of the Sino-Japanese War, which played a major guiding role in the victory of China's Anti-Japanese War and made a unique contribution to the development of military theory of Marxism.