Problems of War and Strategy

This work is the fourth part of Mao Zedong's concluding speech at the Sixth Plenary Session of the Sixth Central Committee of the CPC on November 6, 1938.

Included in the Selected Works of Mao Zedong, Volume 2.

Some comrades, who committed Right opportunist errors at that time, 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.

Mao Zedong, made this speech at the Sixth Plenary Session of the Sixth Central Committee of the CPC in order to make the whole Party more clearly grasp the major questions of war and Party’s strategy in the Chinese revolution so as to mobilize it to engage in this work conscientiously, and so as to achieve a higher level of unity in the whole Party ideologically and unity of will and action in leading the revolution; Mao Zedong expounded on these major questions approaching from the viewpoint of the history of China's political struggles, and at the same time the work analyzed the specific changes in development of the Party's military work and the specific changes in the strategy of the Party.

Mao Zedong pointed out that the characteristics of China are that she is not independent and democratic but semi-colonial and semi-feudal, that internally she has no democracy but is under feudal oppression and that in her external relations she 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 insurrection and war, and not to seize the big cities first and then occupy the countryside, but the reverse.

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.

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.

Mao Zedong emphasized in the struggles of the past seventeen years the Communist Party of China has forged not only a firm Marxist political line but also a firm Marxist military line.

He said: Generally speaking, the process of civil war can be roughly divided into two strategic periods. Guerrilla warfare was primary in the first period and regular warfare in the second.

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.

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.

Considering the circumstances and the general situation with respect to the war, the division of labour between the KMT 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 co-ordination and mutual assistance.

The work also discussed the significance and the role of Party’s persisting in Anti-Japanese guerrilla war from 18 aspects: The thoughts on the characteristics of Chinese society, on the laws and experiences of revolutionary war, the leadership status of the Communist Party of China in the revolution and the strategic position of guerrilla warfare which were expounded in this part of the concluding speech of Mao Zedong played an important guiding role in winning the Anti-Japanese War and the victory in the New-Democratic Revolution.