TheGodlessUtopian
28th January 2013, 15:45
The following study guide is to comrade Mao Tse-tung’s “Problems of Strategy in Guerilla War Against Japan (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-2/mswv2_08.htm)”. Written in 1938 this is one of several essential texts to understanding Mao’s concept of warfare. I have created all the questions and answers myself. This guide may be freely used and distributed.
~ ~ ~
Chapters 1 & 2
Q1: Why does the question of guerrilla strategy arise in China when the country is large and weak?
A1: Historically speaking countries which have been large and weak have suffered defeat at the hands of smaller, stronger nations. Yet this is only because the myriad examples lacked something vital: progress, a determined army, and the will of the occupied people to break free. Due to this difference, and the leadership of the communist party and red army, China, despite being in a situation undesirable, has the means to assist in her final liberation; meaning, through the meaningful employment of guerillas within China’s vast frontiers, liberation can be quicker than where the fighting left to regular army units. In China’s case this is practically a given. In this way questions on guerilla strategy are of great importance.
Q2: Is not the concept of sacrifice at odds with the concept of self-preservation, especially when it is translated into military terms?
A2: Not at all. As comrade Mao explains: “Every war exacts a price, sometimes an extremely high one. Is this not in contradiction with ‘preserving oneself’? In fact, there is no contradiction at all; to put it more exactly; sacrifice and self-preservation are both opposite and complementary to each other. For such sacrifice is essential not only for destroying the enemy but also for preserving oneself--partial and temporary ‘non-preservation’ (sacrifice, or paying the price) is necessary for the sake of general and ‘permanent preservation.’” Following this route it is important to note the duel nature of warfare: using cover (self-preservation) to gain a more advantageous spot in which to eliminate the enemy (destruction) is part of the same strategic coin.
Chapter 3 & 4
Q3: What were the “six specific problems in the war against Japan”?
A3: To quote Mao: “(1) the use of initiative, flexibility and planning in conducting offensives within the defensive, battles of quick decision within protracted war, and exterior-line operations within interior-line operations; (2) co-ordination with regular warfare; (3) establishment of base areas; (4) the strategic defensive and the strategic offensive; (5) the development of guerrilla warfare into mobile warfare; and (6) correct relationship of command. These six items constitute the whole of the strategic programme for guerrilla war against Japan and are the means necessary for the preservation and expansion of our forces, for the destruction and expulsion of the enemy, for co-ordination with regular warfare and the winning of final victory.” Taken together these are the primary points which needed to be adopted by guerilla units in order to destroy the enemy.
Q4: During the War of Resistance against Japan why were battles and campaigns of quick decision important to guerilla units?
A4: As the situation stood, with Japan being the stronger power and China weaker, combating Japanese Imperialism could only be done through “commutative accumulation”; meaning, that it was necessary to win a series of battles to buy time in order to build up greater forces and for the international situation to change. It was only through combining these factors that Japan could be defeated, hence it was vital to maintain “strategic protractedness” of the conflict.
Q5: How do guerilla units gain the initiative in battle?
A5: Mao says it is essential for guerilla units to seize upon the enemies three main weaknesses, namely: focus on locales where they are short of troops, recruitment in areas which are most affected by their barbarous policies, and using the vast lands for agile movement and hit and run surprise attacks. It is through these conditions that guerilla units may gain the initiative before battle.
Q6: How must a guerilla commander deploy his forces?
A6: Flexibly. He must deploy his forces in accordance to the task at hand. He must also take into account the terrain and local populace. Mao pontificates on this point by reminding comrades that in regards to dispersal of forces “…is employed chiefly: (1) when we want to threaten the enemy with a wide frontal attack because he is on the defensive, and there is temporarily no chance to mass our forces for action; (2) when we want to harass and disrupt the enemy throughout an area where his forces are weak; (3) when we are unable to break through the enemy's encirclement and try to slip away by making ourselves less conspicuous; (4) when we are restricted by terrain or supplies; or (5) when we are carrying on mass work over a wide area.” Continuing his thought Mao says, “…we should pay attention to the following: (1) we should never make an absolutely even dispersal of forces, but should keep a fairly large part in an area convenient for manoeuvre, so that any possible exigency can be met and there is a centre of gravity for the task being carried out in dispersion; and (2) we should assign to the dispersed units clearly defined tasks, fields of operation, time limits for actions, places for reassembly and ways and means of liaison.” Keeping in mind that never should a guerilla commander deploy all of his forces at any single time, and should “cast wide a net as possible” while affecting as great a deal as the enemy as possible, careful deployment is essential to achieving strategic goals.
Q7: How do guerilla commanders draw up battle plans?
A7: For guerilla commanders making battle plans cannot be done in a careless or ignorant manner. The commander must take into account the operations area, in what condition his units are in, and possible actions for each reaction. Of course such planning can only be done to such an extent; no area allows for thorough and comprehensive planning, one must make do with what one is allowed. In this manner launching attacks must never be done under compulsion but rather done to snare the initiative. An able commander also draws plans in which their units strike with swift ferocity which takes advantage of the guerrillas’ strong suits while exploiting the weaknesses of the enemy.
Q8: Why is it important to note the differences between guerilla and regular warfare?
A8: As Mao states: “Measures of tactical defence are meaningless if they are divorced from their role of giving either direct or indirect support to an offensive. Quick decision refers to the tempo of an offensive, and exterior lines refer to its scope. The offensive is the only means of destroying the enemy and is also the principal means of self-preservation, while pure defence and retreat can play only a temporary and partial role in self-preservation and are quite useless for destroying the enemy.
The principle stated above is basically the same for both regular and guerrilla war; it differs to some degree only in its form of expression.” As he goes on to say, it is this differences which separates the two brands of war from each other.
Chapter 5 & 6
Q9: What are the three types of coordination between guerilla and regular forces?
A9: Coordination in strategy, campaigns, and in battle.
Q10: How do guerilla units coordinate with regular army units during battles?
A10: By providing assistance (guides) and by sabotaging the enemy behind his lines thus depleting morale and tangling up his forces; this siphons his ability to fight and allows Red Army units to launch a proactive assault on the areas in which he is being harassed by guerillas. This, in turn, also makes it harder for the enemy to consolidate his gains within the territory he has occupied.
Q11: What problems are the three types of base areas?
A11: It is important not to overlook, “the guerrilla zones and the base areas, the conditions for establishing base areas, their consolidation and expansion, and the forms in which we and the enemy encircle one another.” These constitute the primary problems.
Q12: When talking about the anti-Japan War of Resistance, what were the three types of base areas?
A12: Bases within the mountains (the most preferable areas), bases within the plains (areas which would receive the brunt of any enemy offensive), and bases within the river-lake regions (which, at the time of writing, had yet to materialize).
Q13: What is the difference between guerilla zones and base areas?
A13: Essentially, a guerilla zone is an area within enemy held territory in which guerillas are preparing forces to attack the enemy. A guerilla zone has some preparatory fortifications but is not a permanent structure, but rather a location which can be moved if the circumstance demands. This is in sharp contrast to a base area where the enemy puppet regime has been eliminated and its forces annihilated. In a guerilla zone the population is mobilized and in the process of collectively adding to the revolutionary cause. The fortification within a base area is permanent and not likely to move.
Q14: Since the enemy does not remain idle, and mistakes in revolutionary leadership is made, what can happen to base areas and guerilla zones in relation to enemy pressure or lack-therefore of?
A14: As Mao explains: “…first, anti-Japanese bases held by our guerrilla units and our organs of political power; second, areas held by Japanese imperialism and its puppet regimes; and third, intermediate zones contested by both sides, namely, guerrilla zones. Guerrilla commanders have the duty to expand the first and third categories to the maximum and to reduce the second category to the minimum. This is the strategic task of guerrilla warfare.” Such are the three categories.
Q15: What are the conditions for establishing a base area?
A15: To truly understand this in-depth it is more productive to quote Mao:
“The fundamental conditions for establishing a base area are that there should be anti-Japanese armed forces, that these armed forces should be employed to inflict defeats on the enemy and that they should arouse the people to action. Thus the establishment of a base area is first and foremost a matter of building an armed force. Leaders in guerrilla war must devote their energy to building one or more guerrilla units, and must gradually develop them in the course of struggle into guerrilla formations or even into units and formations of regular troops. The building up of an armed force is the key to establishing a base area; if there is no armed force or if the armed force is weak, nothing can be done. This constitutes the first condition. “
Going on to say:
“The second indispensable condition for establishing a base area is that the armed forces should be used in co-ordination with the people to defeat the enemy. All places under enemy control areenemy, and not guerrilla, base areas, and obviously cannot be transformed into guerrilla base areas unless the enemy is defeated. Unless we repulse the enemy's attacks and defeat him, even places held by the guerrillas will come under enemy control, and then it will be impossible to establish base areas.
"The third indispensable condition for establishing a base area is the use of all our strength, including our armed forces, to arouse the masses for struggle against Japan. In the course of this struggle we must arm the people, i.e., organize self-defence corps and guerrilla units. In the course of this struggle, we must form mass organizations, we must organize the workers, peasants, youth, women, children, merchants and professional people--according to the degree of their political consciousness and fighting enthusiasm--into the various mass organizations necessary for the struggle against Japanese aggression, and we must gradually expand them. Without organization, the people cannot give effect to their anti-Japanese strength. In the course of this struggle, we must weed out the open and the hidden traitors, a task which can be accomplished only by relying on the strength of the people. In this struggle, it is particularly important to arouse the people to establish, or to consolidate, their local organs of anti-Japanese political power. Where the original Chinese organs of political power have not been destroyed by the enemy, we must reorganize and strengthen them with the support of the broad masses, and where they have been destroyed by the enemy, we should rebuild them by the efforts of the masses. They are organs of political power for carrying out the policy of the Anti-Japanese National United Front and should unite all the forces of the people to fight against our sole enemy, Japanese imperialism, and its jackals, the traitors and reactionaries.
A base area for guerrilla war can be truly established only with the gradual fulfillment of the three basic conditions, i.e., only after the anti-Japanese armed forces are built up, the enemy has suffered defeats and the people are aroused. “
Lengthy yet ultimately it boils down to preparing the masses for combat, it can be reduced to saying that there must be areas in which the masses are ready to contribute to the anti-Japan struggle and must be willing to assist the Red Army in their efforts. This isn’t to say that geographical location does not factor in, because it does. Rather it simply means that the locals must be sufficiently motivated to assist in their cause for there to be any fundamental change.
Q16: How are base areas expanded?
A16: Namely through rejecting conservatism and though consolidation; on organizing the populace within the base area, to recruit more guerillas, and through disregarding the urge to remain idle and not engage the enemy. This, of course, alternates between what is needed most at the moment (whether it is primarily consolidation to withstand enemy attacks or recruitment).
Q17: Describe the ways in which the enemy and the Red Army encircle one another.
A17: Mao explains encirclement in the context of the war being like a great game where each side attempts to capture the other player’s pieces and set up strongholds.
“Taking the War of Resistance as a whole, there is no doubt that we are strategically encircled by the enemy, because he is on the strategic offensive and is operating on exterior lines while we are on the strategic defensive and are operating on interior lines. This is the first form of enemy encirclement. We on our part encircle each of the enemy columns advancing on us along separate routes, because we apply the policy of the offensive and of exterior-line operations in campaigns and battles by using numerically preponderant forces against these enemy columns advancing on us from exterior lines. This is the first form of our encirclement of the enemy. Next, if we consider the guerrilla base areas in the enemy's rear, each area taken singly is surrounded by the enemy on all sides”
On this point he goes on to espouse that guerilla units are the unknown questions which is attempted to be fleshed out. He says that due to their irregular nature, and the function of base areas and guerilla zone in disrupting enemy forces, that the function of guerillas themselves can serve as a distinct weapon in the war.
Chapter 7, 8,& 9
Q18: What is the strategic defensive and the strategic offensive in guerilla warfare?
A18: It is the moment in the war when the enemy is on the strategic offensive and when the revolutionary forces are on the defensive; this is revealed by the active defense of base areas and guerilla zones. When the enemy goes on the strategic defensive it is when the Red Army has launched their own strategic offensive, in which case, the enemy is reduced to defending their gains won during the previous offensive. Likewise, the strategic offensive is focused not on defending territory but on expanding territory and weakening the enemy (if not destroying their columns in totality); what applied to the strategic defensive applies to the strategic offensive, only on offensive terms with the situation reversed.
Q19: What is mobile warfare?
A19: Mobile warfare is the warfare of regular army units translated into fighting the war on a national level; it is fighting the enemy wherever they may be. While mobile warfare has a guerrilla character to it is more conventional than unconventional.
Q20: What are the conditions to transform guerilla units into mobile units?
A20: This is the same as asking what it takes to transform guerilla units into regular army units. More to the point, however, such an undertaking requires that the guerilla units have an increase in both quantity and quality. Quantity in the sense that “…the development of guerrilla warfare into mobile warfare means not the abandonment of guerrilla warfare but the gradual formation, in the midst of widespread guerrilla warfare, of a main force capable of conducting mobile warfare, a force around which there must still be numerous guerrilla units carrying on extensive guerrilla operations.” This is impossible without sufficient numbers to defend the base area. The second point, quality, means:
“To raise the quality of the guerrilla units it is imperative to raise their political and organizational level and improve their equipment, military technique, tactics and discipline, so that they gradually pattern themselves on the regular forces and shed their guerrilla ways. Politically, it is imperative to get both the commanders and the fighters to realize the necessity of raising the guerrilla units to the level of the regular forces, to encourage them to strive towards this end, and to guarantee its attainment by means of political work. Organizationally, it is imperative gradually to fulfil all the requirements of a regular formation in the following respects--military and political organs, staff and working methods, a regular supply system, a medical service, etc. In the matter of equipment, it is imperative to acquire better and more varied weapons and increase the supply of the necessary communications equipment. In the matter of military technique and tactics, it is imperative to raise the guerrilla units to the level required of a regular formation. In the matter of discipline, it is imperative to raise the level so that uniform standards are observed, every order is executed without fail and all slackness is eliminated.”
This is a long process but it must be completed if guerilla units are to surmount the heavy barrier between guerrilla and regular warfare.
Q21: In regards to guerrilla warfare how is the relationship of command to be handled?
A21: In a single word: localized. It is to be decentralized, to an extent, with the higher levels of command giving suggestions based on the immediate needs, yet staying out of the highly diverse and ever-changing demands of battle. This is because due to the large nature of the war, and how it has spread over many different locales, those in high positions of command are not equipped to properly understand the situation on the ground and make correct tactical decisions. As said before this does not mean that all decisions are to be left to local commanders, but that enough power if left in their hands so that they are able to peruse the war as they see fit, in the manner which befits their area.
~ ~ ~
Chapters 1 & 2
Q1: Why does the question of guerrilla strategy arise in China when the country is large and weak?
A1: Historically speaking countries which have been large and weak have suffered defeat at the hands of smaller, stronger nations. Yet this is only because the myriad examples lacked something vital: progress, a determined army, and the will of the occupied people to break free. Due to this difference, and the leadership of the communist party and red army, China, despite being in a situation undesirable, has the means to assist in her final liberation; meaning, through the meaningful employment of guerillas within China’s vast frontiers, liberation can be quicker than where the fighting left to regular army units. In China’s case this is practically a given. In this way questions on guerilla strategy are of great importance.
Q2: Is not the concept of sacrifice at odds with the concept of self-preservation, especially when it is translated into military terms?
A2: Not at all. As comrade Mao explains: “Every war exacts a price, sometimes an extremely high one. Is this not in contradiction with ‘preserving oneself’? In fact, there is no contradiction at all; to put it more exactly; sacrifice and self-preservation are both opposite and complementary to each other. For such sacrifice is essential not only for destroying the enemy but also for preserving oneself--partial and temporary ‘non-preservation’ (sacrifice, or paying the price) is necessary for the sake of general and ‘permanent preservation.’” Following this route it is important to note the duel nature of warfare: using cover (self-preservation) to gain a more advantageous spot in which to eliminate the enemy (destruction) is part of the same strategic coin.
Chapter 3 & 4
Q3: What were the “six specific problems in the war against Japan”?
A3: To quote Mao: “(1) the use of initiative, flexibility and planning in conducting offensives within the defensive, battles of quick decision within protracted war, and exterior-line operations within interior-line operations; (2) co-ordination with regular warfare; (3) establishment of base areas; (4) the strategic defensive and the strategic offensive; (5) the development of guerrilla warfare into mobile warfare; and (6) correct relationship of command. These six items constitute the whole of the strategic programme for guerrilla war against Japan and are the means necessary for the preservation and expansion of our forces, for the destruction and expulsion of the enemy, for co-ordination with regular warfare and the winning of final victory.” Taken together these are the primary points which needed to be adopted by guerilla units in order to destroy the enemy.
Q4: During the War of Resistance against Japan why were battles and campaigns of quick decision important to guerilla units?
A4: As the situation stood, with Japan being the stronger power and China weaker, combating Japanese Imperialism could only be done through “commutative accumulation”; meaning, that it was necessary to win a series of battles to buy time in order to build up greater forces and for the international situation to change. It was only through combining these factors that Japan could be defeated, hence it was vital to maintain “strategic protractedness” of the conflict.
Q5: How do guerilla units gain the initiative in battle?
A5: Mao says it is essential for guerilla units to seize upon the enemies three main weaknesses, namely: focus on locales where they are short of troops, recruitment in areas which are most affected by their barbarous policies, and using the vast lands for agile movement and hit and run surprise attacks. It is through these conditions that guerilla units may gain the initiative before battle.
Q6: How must a guerilla commander deploy his forces?
A6: Flexibly. He must deploy his forces in accordance to the task at hand. He must also take into account the terrain and local populace. Mao pontificates on this point by reminding comrades that in regards to dispersal of forces “…is employed chiefly: (1) when we want to threaten the enemy with a wide frontal attack because he is on the defensive, and there is temporarily no chance to mass our forces for action; (2) when we want to harass and disrupt the enemy throughout an area where his forces are weak; (3) when we are unable to break through the enemy's encirclement and try to slip away by making ourselves less conspicuous; (4) when we are restricted by terrain or supplies; or (5) when we are carrying on mass work over a wide area.” Continuing his thought Mao says, “…we should pay attention to the following: (1) we should never make an absolutely even dispersal of forces, but should keep a fairly large part in an area convenient for manoeuvre, so that any possible exigency can be met and there is a centre of gravity for the task being carried out in dispersion; and (2) we should assign to the dispersed units clearly defined tasks, fields of operation, time limits for actions, places for reassembly and ways and means of liaison.” Keeping in mind that never should a guerilla commander deploy all of his forces at any single time, and should “cast wide a net as possible” while affecting as great a deal as the enemy as possible, careful deployment is essential to achieving strategic goals.
Q7: How do guerilla commanders draw up battle plans?
A7: For guerilla commanders making battle plans cannot be done in a careless or ignorant manner. The commander must take into account the operations area, in what condition his units are in, and possible actions for each reaction. Of course such planning can only be done to such an extent; no area allows for thorough and comprehensive planning, one must make do with what one is allowed. In this manner launching attacks must never be done under compulsion but rather done to snare the initiative. An able commander also draws plans in which their units strike with swift ferocity which takes advantage of the guerrillas’ strong suits while exploiting the weaknesses of the enemy.
Q8: Why is it important to note the differences between guerilla and regular warfare?
A8: As Mao states: “Measures of tactical defence are meaningless if they are divorced from their role of giving either direct or indirect support to an offensive. Quick decision refers to the tempo of an offensive, and exterior lines refer to its scope. The offensive is the only means of destroying the enemy and is also the principal means of self-preservation, while pure defence and retreat can play only a temporary and partial role in self-preservation and are quite useless for destroying the enemy.
The principle stated above is basically the same for both regular and guerrilla war; it differs to some degree only in its form of expression.” As he goes on to say, it is this differences which separates the two brands of war from each other.
Chapter 5 & 6
Q9: What are the three types of coordination between guerilla and regular forces?
A9: Coordination in strategy, campaigns, and in battle.
Q10: How do guerilla units coordinate with regular army units during battles?
A10: By providing assistance (guides) and by sabotaging the enemy behind his lines thus depleting morale and tangling up his forces; this siphons his ability to fight and allows Red Army units to launch a proactive assault on the areas in which he is being harassed by guerillas. This, in turn, also makes it harder for the enemy to consolidate his gains within the territory he has occupied.
Q11: What problems are the three types of base areas?
A11: It is important not to overlook, “the guerrilla zones and the base areas, the conditions for establishing base areas, their consolidation and expansion, and the forms in which we and the enemy encircle one another.” These constitute the primary problems.
Q12: When talking about the anti-Japan War of Resistance, what were the three types of base areas?
A12: Bases within the mountains (the most preferable areas), bases within the plains (areas which would receive the brunt of any enemy offensive), and bases within the river-lake regions (which, at the time of writing, had yet to materialize).
Q13: What is the difference between guerilla zones and base areas?
A13: Essentially, a guerilla zone is an area within enemy held territory in which guerillas are preparing forces to attack the enemy. A guerilla zone has some preparatory fortifications but is not a permanent structure, but rather a location which can be moved if the circumstance demands. This is in sharp contrast to a base area where the enemy puppet regime has been eliminated and its forces annihilated. In a guerilla zone the population is mobilized and in the process of collectively adding to the revolutionary cause. The fortification within a base area is permanent and not likely to move.
Q14: Since the enemy does not remain idle, and mistakes in revolutionary leadership is made, what can happen to base areas and guerilla zones in relation to enemy pressure or lack-therefore of?
A14: As Mao explains: “…first, anti-Japanese bases held by our guerrilla units and our organs of political power; second, areas held by Japanese imperialism and its puppet regimes; and third, intermediate zones contested by both sides, namely, guerrilla zones. Guerrilla commanders have the duty to expand the first and third categories to the maximum and to reduce the second category to the minimum. This is the strategic task of guerrilla warfare.” Such are the three categories.
Q15: What are the conditions for establishing a base area?
A15: To truly understand this in-depth it is more productive to quote Mao:
“The fundamental conditions for establishing a base area are that there should be anti-Japanese armed forces, that these armed forces should be employed to inflict defeats on the enemy and that they should arouse the people to action. Thus the establishment of a base area is first and foremost a matter of building an armed force. Leaders in guerrilla war must devote their energy to building one or more guerrilla units, and must gradually develop them in the course of struggle into guerrilla formations or even into units and formations of regular troops. The building up of an armed force is the key to establishing a base area; if there is no armed force or if the armed force is weak, nothing can be done. This constitutes the first condition. “
Going on to say:
“The second indispensable condition for establishing a base area is that the armed forces should be used in co-ordination with the people to defeat the enemy. All places under enemy control areenemy, and not guerrilla, base areas, and obviously cannot be transformed into guerrilla base areas unless the enemy is defeated. Unless we repulse the enemy's attacks and defeat him, even places held by the guerrillas will come under enemy control, and then it will be impossible to establish base areas.
"The third indispensable condition for establishing a base area is the use of all our strength, including our armed forces, to arouse the masses for struggle against Japan. In the course of this struggle we must arm the people, i.e., organize self-defence corps and guerrilla units. In the course of this struggle, we must form mass organizations, we must organize the workers, peasants, youth, women, children, merchants and professional people--according to the degree of their political consciousness and fighting enthusiasm--into the various mass organizations necessary for the struggle against Japanese aggression, and we must gradually expand them. Without organization, the people cannot give effect to their anti-Japanese strength. In the course of this struggle, we must weed out the open and the hidden traitors, a task which can be accomplished only by relying on the strength of the people. In this struggle, it is particularly important to arouse the people to establish, or to consolidate, their local organs of anti-Japanese political power. Where the original Chinese organs of political power have not been destroyed by the enemy, we must reorganize and strengthen them with the support of the broad masses, and where they have been destroyed by the enemy, we should rebuild them by the efforts of the masses. They are organs of political power for carrying out the policy of the Anti-Japanese National United Front and should unite all the forces of the people to fight against our sole enemy, Japanese imperialism, and its jackals, the traitors and reactionaries.
A base area for guerrilla war can be truly established only with the gradual fulfillment of the three basic conditions, i.e., only after the anti-Japanese armed forces are built up, the enemy has suffered defeats and the people are aroused. “
Lengthy yet ultimately it boils down to preparing the masses for combat, it can be reduced to saying that there must be areas in which the masses are ready to contribute to the anti-Japan struggle and must be willing to assist the Red Army in their efforts. This isn’t to say that geographical location does not factor in, because it does. Rather it simply means that the locals must be sufficiently motivated to assist in their cause for there to be any fundamental change.
Q16: How are base areas expanded?
A16: Namely through rejecting conservatism and though consolidation; on organizing the populace within the base area, to recruit more guerillas, and through disregarding the urge to remain idle and not engage the enemy. This, of course, alternates between what is needed most at the moment (whether it is primarily consolidation to withstand enemy attacks or recruitment).
Q17: Describe the ways in which the enemy and the Red Army encircle one another.
A17: Mao explains encirclement in the context of the war being like a great game where each side attempts to capture the other player’s pieces and set up strongholds.
“Taking the War of Resistance as a whole, there is no doubt that we are strategically encircled by the enemy, because he is on the strategic offensive and is operating on exterior lines while we are on the strategic defensive and are operating on interior lines. This is the first form of enemy encirclement. We on our part encircle each of the enemy columns advancing on us along separate routes, because we apply the policy of the offensive and of exterior-line operations in campaigns and battles by using numerically preponderant forces against these enemy columns advancing on us from exterior lines. This is the first form of our encirclement of the enemy. Next, if we consider the guerrilla base areas in the enemy's rear, each area taken singly is surrounded by the enemy on all sides”
On this point he goes on to espouse that guerilla units are the unknown questions which is attempted to be fleshed out. He says that due to their irregular nature, and the function of base areas and guerilla zone in disrupting enemy forces, that the function of guerillas themselves can serve as a distinct weapon in the war.
Chapter 7, 8,& 9
Q18: What is the strategic defensive and the strategic offensive in guerilla warfare?
A18: It is the moment in the war when the enemy is on the strategic offensive and when the revolutionary forces are on the defensive; this is revealed by the active defense of base areas and guerilla zones. When the enemy goes on the strategic defensive it is when the Red Army has launched their own strategic offensive, in which case, the enemy is reduced to defending their gains won during the previous offensive. Likewise, the strategic offensive is focused not on defending territory but on expanding territory and weakening the enemy (if not destroying their columns in totality); what applied to the strategic defensive applies to the strategic offensive, only on offensive terms with the situation reversed.
Q19: What is mobile warfare?
A19: Mobile warfare is the warfare of regular army units translated into fighting the war on a national level; it is fighting the enemy wherever they may be. While mobile warfare has a guerrilla character to it is more conventional than unconventional.
Q20: What are the conditions to transform guerilla units into mobile units?
A20: This is the same as asking what it takes to transform guerilla units into regular army units. More to the point, however, such an undertaking requires that the guerilla units have an increase in both quantity and quality. Quantity in the sense that “…the development of guerrilla warfare into mobile warfare means not the abandonment of guerrilla warfare but the gradual formation, in the midst of widespread guerrilla warfare, of a main force capable of conducting mobile warfare, a force around which there must still be numerous guerrilla units carrying on extensive guerrilla operations.” This is impossible without sufficient numbers to defend the base area. The second point, quality, means:
“To raise the quality of the guerrilla units it is imperative to raise their political and organizational level and improve their equipment, military technique, tactics and discipline, so that they gradually pattern themselves on the regular forces and shed their guerrilla ways. Politically, it is imperative to get both the commanders and the fighters to realize the necessity of raising the guerrilla units to the level of the regular forces, to encourage them to strive towards this end, and to guarantee its attainment by means of political work. Organizationally, it is imperative gradually to fulfil all the requirements of a regular formation in the following respects--military and political organs, staff and working methods, a regular supply system, a medical service, etc. In the matter of equipment, it is imperative to acquire better and more varied weapons and increase the supply of the necessary communications equipment. In the matter of military technique and tactics, it is imperative to raise the guerrilla units to the level required of a regular formation. In the matter of discipline, it is imperative to raise the level so that uniform standards are observed, every order is executed without fail and all slackness is eliminated.”
This is a long process but it must be completed if guerilla units are to surmount the heavy barrier between guerrilla and regular warfare.
Q21: In regards to guerrilla warfare how is the relationship of command to be handled?
A21: In a single word: localized. It is to be decentralized, to an extent, with the higher levels of command giving suggestions based on the immediate needs, yet staying out of the highly diverse and ever-changing demands of battle. This is because due to the large nature of the war, and how it has spread over many different locales, those in high positions of command are not equipped to properly understand the situation on the ground and make correct tactical decisions. As said before this does not mean that all decisions are to be left to local commanders, but that enough power if left in their hands so that they are able to peruse the war as they see fit, in the manner which befits their area.