| People's war | |||||||||||||||||
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| Simplified Chinese | 人民战争 | ||||||||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 人民戰爭 | ||||||||||||||||
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People's war orprotracted people's war is aMaoistmilitary strategy. First developed by the Chinesecommunistrevolutionary leaderMao Zedong (1893–1976), the basic concept behind people's war is to maintain the support of the population and draw the enemy deep into thecountryside (stretching their supply lines) where the population will bleed them dry throughguerrilla warfare and eventually build up tomobile warfare. It was used by the Chinese communists against theImperial Japanese Army inWorld War II, and by theChinese Soviet Republic in theChinese Civil War.
The term is used byMaoists for their strategy of long-term armed revolutionary struggle. After theSino-Vietnamese War in 1979,Deng Xiaoping abandoned people's war for "People's War under Modern Conditions", which moved away from reliance on troops over technology. With the adoption of "socialism with Chinese characteristics", economic reforms fueled military and technological investment. Troop numbers were also reduced and professionalisation encouraged.
The strategy of people's war was used heavily by theViet Cong in theVietnam War. However, protracted war should not be confused with the"foco" theory employed byChe Guevara andFidel Castro in theCuban Revolution of 1959.
In its original formulation byChairman of the Chinese Communist PartyMao Zedong, people's war exploits the few advantages that a small revolutionary movement has—broad-based popular support can be one of them—against astate'spower with a large, professional, well-equipped and well-funded army. People's war strategically avoids decisive battles, since a tiny force of a few dozen soldiers would easily be routed in an all-out confrontation with the state. Instead, it favours a three-phase strategy of protractedwarfare, with carefully chosen battles that can realistically be won.[citation needed]
In phase one, the revolutionary force conducting people's war starts in a remote area with mountainous or forested terrain in which its enemy is weak. It attempts to establish a local stronghold known as arevolutionary base area. As it grows in power, it enters phase two, establishes other revolutionary base areas and spreads its influence through the surrounding countryside, where it may become the governing power and gain popular support through such programmes asland reform. Eventually in phase three, the movement has enough strength to encircle and capture small cities, then larger ones, until finally it seizes power in the entire country.[citation needed]
Within theChinese Red Army, the concept of people's war was the basis of strategy against the Japanese, and against a hypothetical Soviet invasion of China. The concept of people's war became less important with the collapse of theSoviet Union and the increasing possibility of conflict with theUnited States overTaiwan. In the 1980s and 1990s the concept of people's war was changed to include more high-technology weaponry.[citation needed]HistorianDavid Priestland dates the beginning of the policy of people's war to the publication of a "General Outline for Military Work" in May 1928, by Chinese Central Committee. This document established official military strategies to theChinese Red Army during theChinese Civil War.[2]
The strategy of people's war has political dimensions in addition to its military dimensions.[3] In China, the earlyPeople's Liberation Army was composed of peasants who had previously lacked political significance and control over their place in the social order.[4] Its internal organization was egalitarian between soldiers and officers, and its external relationship with rural civilians was egalitarian.[3] Military success against an adversaries with major material advantages (in Mao's experience, the Nationalist forces and the invading Japanese army), required weakening the adversary through attrition and strengthening one's own forces through accumulation, a method which could only succeed if the guerilla army had the people's support.[5] As sociologist Alessandro Russo summarizes, the political existence of peasants via the PLA was a radical exception to the rules of Chinese society and "overturned the strict traditional hierarchies in unprecedented forms of egalitarianism."[6]
In China, the generalized use of military terminology to other aspects of society is influenced by factors including the use of military terms in political struggles and media as well as the longstanding respect for the People's Liberation Army.[7]: 151
In 2014 Party leadership inXinjiang commenced a People's War against the “Three Evil Forces” of separatism, terrorism, and extremism. They deployed two hundred thousand party cadres to Xinjiang and launched theCivil Servant-Family Pair Up program. Xi was dissatisfied with the initial results of the People's War and replacedZhang Chunxian withChen Quanguo in 2016. Following his appointment Chen oversaw the recruitment of tens of thousands of additional police officers and the division of society into three categories: trustworthy, average, untrustworthy. He instructed his subordinated to "Take this crackdown as the top project," and "to preempt the enemy, to strike at the outset." Following a meeting with Xi in Beijing Chen Quanguo held a rally in Ürümqi with ten thousand troops, helicopters, and armored vehicles. As they paraded he announced a “smashing, obliterating offensive,” and declared that they would "bury the corpses of terrorists and terror gangs in the vast sea of the People's War."[8]
In February 2020, theChinese Communist Party launched an aggressive campaign described byGeneral Secretary of the Chinese Communist PartyXi Jinping as a "people's war" to contain thespread of thecoronavirus.[9]
Mao's doctrine of people's war influenced various Third World revolutionary movements including theNaxalites and theShining Path.[5]
From 1965 to 1971, China held yearly military training forPalestinian fedayeen, including instruction in Mao Zedong Thought on guerilla warfare and people's war.[10]
From 1966 to 1970,Syria was indirectly ruled by theneo-Ba'athist andtotalitarian regime of GeneralSalah Jadid, which actively promoted the ideas ofMarxism–Leninism and the Maoist concept of People's War againstZionism, which was expressed in its huge support forleftistPalestinian fedayeen groups, granting them considerable autonomy and allowing them to carry out attacks on Israel from Syrian territory.[11][12] Just a few months after thecoming to power, Jadid's regime completed the formation of thePalestinian paramilitary Ba'athist group calledal-Sa'iqa, which carried out attacks on Israel fromJordanian andLebanese territory, but was completely under the control of the neo-Ba'athist regime in Syria.[13]
Mao-era China contended that the Arab defeat in theSix-Day War demonstrated that only people's war, not other strategies or methods, could defeat imperialism in the Middle East.[14]
ThePopular Front for the Liberation of the Occupied Arabian Gulf's (PFLOAG) goal was to use people's war to establish a socialist Arab state in the Gulf region.[15]
In non-communist states such as Iran, theIslamic Revolutionary Guard Corps used the protracted people's war againstBa'athist Iraq during theIran-Iraq war.[16]
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Conflicts in the following list are failed and successful wars labelled as people's wars by Maoists, and also both failed and ongoing attempts to start and develop people's wars. In addition to the conflicts in the list, there also have been conflicts not primarily led by Maoists or seen as people's wars, but had Maoist groups involved within them who viewed the conflicts partly as such, including theDemocratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (Arab–Israeli conflict) and theCommunist Party of Burma (Myanmar civil war).
Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, on Monday stressed resolutely winning the people's war of epidemic prevention and control with firmer confidence, stronger resolve and more decisive measures.
