Document created: 24 August 04
Air University Review,
July-August
1970
Lieutenant General Hu Shing, Chinese Army
In recent years, the Chinese Communists have been publicizing and clamoring for “people’s war.” In addition to emphasizing that “people’s war” will be waged on the China mainland to defend the Communist regime, Lin Piao has threatened to use “people’s war” as a means to achieve victory in worldwide revolution. The term “people’s war” has won the attention and interest of politicians and militarists all over the world. Many articles have been published on “people’s war.” Some list it and nuclear war as the two types of modem warfare, while others regard it as a new form of warfare.
In this study I will attempt to answer the questions, “What is people’s warfare?” and “Are the Chinese Communists capable of conducting it?” The current anti-Mao and anti-Communist turmoil on the mainland (resulting from the power struggle between the supporters of Mao Tse-tung and Lin Piao and those of Liu Shao-chi, the Red Guard rampages, and the “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution”) has not only proved the inability of the Chinese Communists to wage “people’s war” but has also exposed to the world their fatal weaknesses, lack of popular support, and failure to exercise effective control over the China mainland.
The experiences and lessons learned in the Chinese anti-Communist operations of the past and the Vietnam war of today have indicated that, in order to ensure victory in the counteroffensive and national recovery war and defeat the Chinese Communists, we must first seek an insight into the so-called “people’s war” of the Chinese Communists. Nearly all strategy, tactics, intrigues, and ruses have evolved from the concept of “people’s war.” Actually, the basic premise of “Mao Tse-tung’s Thoughts” is “to align one’s self with the masses and to seize political power through armed struggle” for, according to Mao, “political power grows from the barrel of a gun.”
Mao’s thoughts of “people’s war,” in his book On Guerrilla Warfare, stemmed from the “mass rebellion” advocated by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, who said: “A nation fighting for freedom must not stick to the traditional laws of operations, but must carry out a mass rebellion by arming all the people. Thus, as a lion may be subdued by ants, the Regime may be destroyed by the masses. Therefore, guerrilla warfare is the only pattern of war by which a weak nation can fight against an enemy superior in number and equipment.” Mao said of his “people’s war”: “You fight yours. I fight mine.” His is the tactic of ants versus lion. Holding that the oppressed proletariat is the absolute majority, Lenin, following Marx and Engels, deceived and intoxicated the people with the fallacious concepts of communism, advocated class struggle, and intimidated the people with massacres and terrorism. This is what Mao means by “align one’s self with the masses.”
The Chinese Communists’ current principles of military buildup and their strategic courses are to establish the “people’s army,” wage “people’s war,” and “combine position warfare with war of movement so as to conduct protracted warfare and positive defense.” We should not overlook the Chinese Communists’ “people’s war,” nor should we be frightened by it. We should not overlook it because unorganized and unarmed people will be driven by the Communists like lambs under the threat of massacre and terrorism. We should not be frightened by it because the “people’s army” is organized with people under Communist threat of massacre and terrorism. Thus, there exists an inherent fatal weakness in the “people’s war” philosophy. As a consequence, we should dare to fight against the Chinese Communists and be confident of victory.
What Is “People’s War”?
The basic tricks of Mao Tse-tung’s political activity are fabrication and bewitchment. This is a well-known fact. One of Mao’s fabrication and bewitchment methods is to coin terms and change their real meanings. This is especially true of bewitchment, as people are easily taken in by it. For instance, the campaign Mao launched on the mainland to suppress the anti-Mao and anti-Communist activities was apparently aimed at cleaning out the antagonists, striking the intellectuals, and undermining the culture, yet Mao’s coined term for it was “Great Cultural Revolution.” The anti-Communist peoples of the world cannot explain this term. Even the Communists seem not to comprehend its meaning. In like manner, the terms “people’s war” and “people’s army” do not indicate their true meaning. They were coined to achieve deception and bewitchment. We know that the Chinese Communists added the term “people’s” to all their titles, e.g., “people’s republic,” “people’s government,” " people's police," “people’s commune.” If one accepts the term “people’s” when used by the Chinese Communists as he normally thinks it to be, he is bound to be deceived.
Now let’s see Mao’s explanation of “people” given in his “On People’s Democratic Dictatorship”: “What are the people? In China, at the present stage, they represent the working class, the peasant class, the urban petite bourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie.” And as seen from Article I of the Chinese Communists’ “Constitution,” which states: “The People’s Republic of China is a people’s democratic state led by the working class and based on the alliance of workers and peasants,” the so-called working class actually refers to the proletariats. Thus it is very clear and definite that the word “people” in the Chinese Communists’ titles refers to their “proletarian brothers” only, while people other than those so referred to are only slaves and tools subject to their autocracy, dictatorship, oppression, and destruction. The armed forces of the Chinese Communists are nothing but the primary means for enforcing dictatorship, by no means siding with the people or bearing in mind the interests of the people. Accordingly, the “people’s war” is not a war waged in the people’s interest. Consequently, the people will not support the Communists in waging such a war.
For years, Mao Tse-tung has purged his dissidents under various pretexts aimed at safeguarding his “proletarian brothers’ ironbound rivers and mountains.” Particularly in the last few years, the Chinese Communists have exercised military control over the vast masses with the “people’s army” and have “supported the leftists of the proletariats to purge the rightists.” However, in their propaganda, the Chinese Communists also call this “people’s war.” Therefore, the term “people” used by the Chinese Communists refers neither to the general public nor to the proletariats as a whole but only to the leftists of the proletariats. So far as the anti-Mao and anti-Communist situation on the mainland is concerned, the “people” of Communist China are becoming fewer and fewer. In such a situation, how can the “people” possibly wage a “people’s war”? Therefore, the “people’s war” and “people’s army” of the Chinese Communists are nothing but verbal tricks for carrying out revolution by violence under the pretense of the misunderstood, high-sounding term “people.” Once it is understood that every word uttered by the Chinese Communists is deceptive and bewitching and that the term “people” as they use it has no relation to the true meaning of the word, no one will fall into their trap no matter how they propagandize “people’s war.”
The Essential Contents and Schemes of “People’s War”
What are the contents of “people’s war” advocated by the Chinese Communists? In an article entitled “On Battlefields of the Liberated Area” Chu Teh, who has now been purged by Mao Tse-tung, said: “The essence of people’s war is war of the masses. It is waged with the cooperation of the people, not only politically and economically, but also militarily. This type of war is not waged by the armed forces alone, but through the flexible coordination of the war efforts of the masses, the co-ordinated operation of main forces and local forces, regular forces and guerrilla forces, and militia and ‘people’s self-defense forces'.” In this regard, Lin Piao added: “There is indeed little secret in people’s war. It is simply the process of mobilizing, organizing and arming the people.” However, in his article entitled “Long Live the Victory of the People’s War,” published on 2 September 1965, Lin Piao further stressed the global strategy of “people’s war” and its international significance. This indicated that the strategy originally developed for domestic struggle alone was also to be used for external aggression and that “people’s war” had been developed into a general line for expansion into South Asia, Africa, and Latin America and into strategic guidance for infiltrating and subverting the free world.
The political objective of the Chinese Communists’ efforts to initiate “people’s war” is generally to achieve their purposes in the name of “national revolution” or “democratic revolution.” They use the slogan “national revolution” in resisting invading alien troops, and they subvert the government under pretense of “democratic revolution.” For example, during the Sino-Japanese War (1937-45) the Chinese Communists “raised high the banner of nationalism,” but as soon as Japan was defeated they started open rebellion against the government. And again, in their attempts to stir up “world revolution,” the Chinese Communists adopted different situations in various areas and various countries. For instance, they launch the “struggle for peace” in capitalistic states; they stir up so-called “anti-Revisionist struggles” in socialistic states; they initiate the so-called “struggle for national liberation” in underdeveloped areas or colonized countries and the so-called “struggle for democracy” in neutral states. These are the strategies and techniques of the Chinese Communists’ “people’s war.”
In China, all wars during the period between the Hsia dynasty (2205-1766 B.C.) and the national revolution led by Dr. Sun Yat-sen were those of the feudal ages, although the uprisings by Chen Sheng and Liu Kuang, the popular revolution by Wu Pang, and the national revolution by Chu Yuan-chang bore certain similarities to national wars. Not until the national revolution led by Dr. Sun, however, was the era of national war really begun. After Dr. Sun’s death, President Chiang Kaishek succeeded him to lead the National Revolutionary Army in the Northern Expedition. With the support of the whole nation for the revolution, the Army successfully routed the warlords, and the nation was thus unified. At the onset of the Sino-Japanese War (1937-45) President Chiang advocated that resistance to the Japanese militarists be carried out by everyone regardless of sex, age, or position. Through a war that lasted eight years the Japanese militarists, then the most powerful in the Orient, were eventually crushed by our military forces, which had the people of the whole nation as their basis.
In Europe, the French Revolution of 1793 began to change from the warfare of the feudal ages to a common effort of the thirty million French people. Every citizen made himself responsible for national affairs. This was particularly true and definite in the time of Napoleon Bonaparte. With Revolution-seasoned military strength that had the support of all French citizens as its basis, Napoleon achieved unprecedented military successes. At that time none of the old-type feudal armies of Europe could match his invincible forces.
As to the characteristics of national war, Sun Tzu said nearly 3500 years ago: “Victors always owe their success to the people.” In Book VIII of On War, Karl von Clausewitz said: “By participation of the people in war, instead of a cabinet and an army, a whole nation with its natural weight entered the scale.”
Jomini, in his Art of War, said:
In national war, each armed inhabitant knows the smallest paths and their connections; he finds everywhere a relative or a friend to aid him. The commanders also know the country and, learning immediately the slightest movement on the part of the invader, can adopt the best measures to defeat his efforts. The enemy, without information of their movements and not in a condition to reconnoiter, having no resource but his bayonets and certain of safety only in the concentration of his columns, is like a blind man. His efforts are failures. When after the most carefully concerted movements and the most rapid and fatiguing marches, he thinks he is about to accomplish his aim and deal a terrible blow, he finds no signs of the enemy but his campfires. So while, like Don Quixote, he is attacking windmills, his adversary is on his line of communications, destroying detachments left to guard it, surprising his convoys and depots, and carrying on a war so disastrous for the invader that he must inevitably yield.
This paragraph of Jomini’s indeed relates to a situation which is precisely similar to that of Nationalist China’s Communist -suppression operations and the Vietnam war of today.
Marshal Foch of France said in his Principles of War:
The aggressor nation has organized and armed all of its people to fight an all-people war against us, while France, in coping with the enemy, can only conscript a handful of men from the poverty-stricken areas and fight by obsolete combat methods of the eighteenth century. Unless the enemy should adopt methods of combat the same as ours, we would not have the slightest chance to win the war.
In the Israeli-Arab war in June 1967, Israel won a victory which stunned the whole world. General S. Charish, Israeli commander of the southern battlefield (Sinai Peninsula), concluded in his postoperational report: “At all times, in this national war—a war waged by all Israeli citizens, they dedicated their bodies and their spirit to this successful war. Success actually belongs to them.” As Clausewitz said it, “a whole nation with its natural weight entered the scale.” Here lies the real basis of the Israeli victory.
The primary difference between a national war and “people’s war” is that not only does a national war take place on account of great interests closely affecting all nationals but also it should be an ideological war fought for freedom. Clausewitz said: “. . . National war takes place only on account of great interests closely affecting all the nationals. . . .” These words must not be neglected. Since a national war must be fought by the nationals themselves, a war which fails to directly represent the interests of the nationals of the whole country and in which the nationals do not know “for what and for whom they fight” can hardly be classified a national war. In short, without ideology, there will be no national war at all. For instance, as all the French people were aroused by the slogan “Liberty! Equality! Fraternity!” to fight in the French Revolution for liberty, so all the Israelis were aroused to fight in the Israeli-Arab war for the independence of their native land and the survival of their nation.
In leading the national revolution of China, Dr. Sun aroused the populace with the Three Principles of the People that saved the country and the people. Even in his last moments, he put these words in his will: “My experience, accumulated in these forty years, has firmly convinced me that to attain this objective we must awaken the masses of our own people.” In other words, unless the whole nation is aroused to join the war in unison, it will be difficult to attain the goal of national revolution. President Chiang has said: “Our war of counter-offensive and national recovery today is a. struggle of the Three Principles of the People based on benevolence and love against communism based on revenge and hate,”
The Chinese Communists’ so-called “people’s war” is nothing more than the use of Communist ideology to cheat and intoxicate the common people and to stir up class hatred. They promise allotment of farmlands and pledge to make the poor “masters” in order to induce and coerce the masses into waging so-called “people’s war.” As regards the difference between “national war” and “people’s war,” “national war” embraces people of the whole nation regardless of sex or age, even including members of the Communist Party and its armed forces already awakened by our declaration: “All who are not our enemies are our comrades.” As President Chiang has said, “We welcome all patriots, intellectuals and the masses of workers and farmers—including all such awakened members of the Communist Party as Peng, Huang, Liu and Teng—to join our united front for suppression of Mao Tse-tung.” The “people” referred to by the Communists in “people’s war,” however, are the workers and farmers of the “proletariat” in addition to the bandits, traitors, and rebels. Theoretically or practically, workers and farmers are merely a part rather than the whole of the nation.
A national war is, as Dr. Sun put it, “one which is initiated by the people and won by the people.” The Communists’ “people’s war” is nothing but coercion by means of massacre and terror, a war “which is not initiated by the people but will definitely be put off by the people.” In short, a “national war” is fought for the cause that moral laws will prevail. It is a fight for good and is destined to succeed, while the “people’s war” resorts to violence, is evil, and is doomed to perish. And so will tyranny perish.
The national revolution led by Dr. Sun is a national war in essence. While in Kweilin, Dr. Sun said in reply to G. Maring, a Communist sent to China by Russia: “In China, there is a cultural heritage handed down from the Emperors Yao, Shun, Yu, Tang, Wen, Wu, the Duke of Chou and Confucius. My ideology is based on this very heritage.” This heritage was well expressed by Mencius thus: “It was by benevolence that the three dynasties gained the empire, and by not being benevolent that they lost it. It is by the same means that the decaying and flourishing, the preservation and perishing of states are determined.” Hence, what is embodied in our orthodox philosophy is just benevolence. Having this heritage from Dr. Sun, President Chiang has said: “The essence of war is benevolence and love.” He has also said: “The goal of our Communist-suppression operations is to realize the Three Principles of the People so as to save the country and the people. Therefore, to suppress the Communists is to put benevolence into practice.” By contrast, the Communists’ so-called “people’s war,” in essence of war, is to put malevolence into practice.
Lenin said: “For the sake of revolution, the end always justifies the means, any means even if to slaughter half of mankind throughout the world.” In following Lenin’s words, Mao Tse-tung addressed the Communist Congress at Moscow on 18 November 1957: “Even if half of the Chinese population were sacrificed, there will still be three hundred million Chinese remaining, quite enough to rebuild a socialist culture.” To enforce Marx-Leninism—a doctrine and practice with hate as its basis, which is against spiritual culture, against life, against moral principles, and against human nature—Mao’s regime of so-called “people’s democratic autocracy” is in fact nothing but his despotic tyranny of the “I am the people” type. Under Communist instigation, wives rebel against their husbands, sons rebel against their fathers, and man becomes devoid of human qualities, becomes a beast and a tool of war. Thus the whole China mainland is made the darkest hell. Therefore, a “national war” will overcome the Communists’ so-called “people’s war” exactly as Mencius said: “Benevolence subdues its opposite just as water subdues fire.”
AS A RESULT of Mao’s perversities, most people on the China mainland today have turned against him. Furthermore, Mao is completely isolated internationally. Although the Chinese Communists proclaim their “people’s war” all over the world, they themselves cannot lead the way to wage a “people’s war.” The loss of effective control over the masses not only has made the Communists incapable of waging a people’s war today but also precludes forever all possibility of doing so, as the Chinese Communists’ tyranny has failed the people. No people in the world will fight against their own interests.
Chinese Communists could well exploit “nationalism” for double-dealing purposes. Should the mainland today be invaded by Russian or other alien forces, Chinese Communists might, by following in the wake of the Sino-Japanese War or Stalin’s example against Germany in World War II, mobilize a portion of the people in the name of nationalism for waging a national war against the aliens. However, should the forces invading the mainland be those of the Republic of China, the National Revolutionary Army led by President Chiang, which our seven hundred million fellow countrymen on the mainland long for day and night as liberators, all our countrymen will fear only that they might respond too late. Can there possibly be any people to fight the so-called “people’s war” for Mao? This is why the Chinese Communists merely talk about conducting “people’s war” to cope with our counteroffensive operations.
Today, the growing anti-Mao and anti-Communist emotions within the Communist Party and among all mainland people fully manifest the people’s inclination toward the Government of the Republic of China, which increases in strength day by day. And such a change constitutes a fatal threat to the Chinese Communists. As soon as the Republic of China launches its counteroffensive operations, this change will give rise to a sudden outbreak, thereby leading to the collapse of the tyrannical Communist regime.
Taipeh, Taiwan
Lieutenant General Hu Shing (Chinese Military Academy, 1936) is Deputy Chief of the General Staff for Operations, Ministry of National Defense, Republic of China. His assignments in the Chinese Army have included company commander; regimental commander; Chief of Staff, Tai-chen Defense Command; division commander; Commanding General, The Armor Center, and chief Aide-de-Camp to President Chiang Kai-shek. General Shing has traveled extensively in the United States and is a graduate of the U.S. Armored School, Command and General Staff College, and U.S. Naval Amphibious Warfare Course.
Disclaimer
The conclusions and opinions expressed in this
document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression,
academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official
position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air
Force or the Air University.
Home Page | Feedback? Email the Editor